Team effort helps Hawks rebound in 5-2 win over Canucks

Shoot the stinkin' puck.

That, in essence, was Jeremy Colliton's plea to the Blackhawks before they defeated Vancouver 5-2 at the United Center on Thursday.

Stop getting cute. Stop trying to execute the perfect play.

Stop. And shoot.

"Put teams under pressure," Colliton said.

Consider the message received - for most of one game at least - as the Hawks threw 37 shots at Vancouver, 15 of which came in the first 12:12. After got goals from Alex DeBrincat, Andrew Shaw, Patrick Kane, David Kampf and Brandon Saad.

Kane added 2 assists, Dylan Strome had 3 assists, and Corey Crawford made 36 saves in net.

Kane made it 3-1 on a power-play goal with 5:06 remaining, and Kampf made it 4-1 on an empty-netter with 2:07 left.

"When you're playing with the lead, you're not really chasing it," Strome said. "You're kind of comfortable. I thought Crow did a good job of making some big saves when it was 1-0.

"It was a good game all around."

And a funny postgame scene to boot.

As reporters entered the dressing room, they found Kane and Shaw sitting next to each other. They proceeded to answer questions directed for the other player.

Question: "Patrick, can you tell us about Andrew Shaw tonight?"

Shaw: "Uhh, yeah, he did all right. I mean he could have been better. ... But he got rewarded. A couple nice passes by his linemates on the power play."

After the odd two-minute interview, Kane gave reporters a D-plus for their weak improvisational skills.

The pair probably deserves an A-minus for bringing some levity to what has been an otherwise trying start to the season.

Said Colliton: "We've got to have some fun. All players play better when they're happy and they have some joy in their game."

As for the game itself, 11 of the Hawks' shots came from defensemen, which had to be a welcome sight for Colliton. That's because coming into Thursday night, Hawks' blue-liners had just 3 goals on 103 attempts.

Here's how that compared to the top four teams in the Central Division:

• St. Louis: 10 goals on 171 shots

• Nashville: 12 goals on 152 shots

• Colorado: 4 goals on 122 shots

• Winnipeg: 6 goals on 144 shots

Let's pause here to state the obvious - it's tough to shoot the puck when you don't have it. And that's been a problem for the Hawks most of the season.

The Predators completely dominated time of possession last week and that's why they outshot the Hawks by a ridiculous margin of 51-20.

A week later in San Jose, the Hawks had just 8 shots after two periods.

"We need to find a way to get more pucks through," Colliton said. "It's too easy when you go low to high, then D-to-D and then D-to-D and then they're in the lane. The quality of those pucks is not good enough to put the opposition under pressure.

"So when our 'D' get pucks through right away that's an incentive for the forwards to be at the net. They get rewarded and (it's also) pressure on the opponent's goaltender. ... It just creates a lot more offensive opportunities."

Now the Hawks (5-7-3) will attempt to build on the win over Vancouver (9-4-3) when they play at Pittsburgh on Saturday, then return home to face Toronto on Sunday.

"We would like to find a way to string two, three, four, five games together," Colliton said. "That's what we need to get some momentum going. There were a lot of good efforts tonight and guys can have a positive feeling going into tomorrow."