Defense does the job as Hawks bounce back from lost weekend in LA

Before he became Blackhawks head coach, Jeff Blashill knew just one thing about defenseman Louis Crevier.

“I sat on the other bench last year (as a Tampa Bay assistant) and was like, 'Wow, is that guy big,'” Blashill said. “But I didn't know him other than that as a player.”

Crevier is listed at 6-foot-8, so tack on some skate blades and he's an imposing figure on the ice. He found himself in a very unusual spot Wednesday — a short-handed breakaway. Crevier skated in and made a smooth move past renowned New York Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin.

Crevier's goal broke a scoreless tie early in the second period and the Blackhawks rolled to a much-needed 3-0 victory at the United Center.

Crevier's breakaway was sort of a cherry-pick situation. He nearly made a steal at center ice, then drifted toward the Rangers net. Seconds later, teammate Matt Grzelcyk got the puck and delivered the pass that led to Crevier’s third goal of the season.

“I don't get too many looks like this, but that was a fun one,” the Quebec City native said.

Connor Bedard and Tyler Bertuzzi finished the scoring. Bedard slammed home a perfect pass from Andre Burakovsky, while Bertuzzi scored off a rebound after Bedard weaved through traffic to set up the scoring chance.

This was an important win because the past few weeks brought cause for concern. The Hawks went 2-6-2 over the previous 10 games and lost by a combined 13-1 over the weekend against Los Angeles and Anaheim — the team's worst performance in back-to-back games since 1951.

They needed a win Wednesday to stop the slide and help keep their status as a surprise playoff contender intact. Goalie Spencer Knight made 21 saves to record his second shutout of the season.

He was in goal Saturday for the start of the two-day debacle, a 6-0 loss to the Kings.

“Everyone's always like, bounce back,” Knight said. “It's not really a bounce back for me. It's just another day. I don't know, it's just, you're going to have games where that happens. I actually really liked my game in LA.”

Fair enough, but Knight must have appreciated keeping the Rangers off the scoreboard.

“I think it's more a testament to the team than a goalie,” Knight said. “I think that's honestly something people should start looking at is that's a team win. The team gets a shutout. It's not me. It's everyone, really. So for me, to take credit for that is, I don't know, it wouldn't be right.”

Talking about how the Blackhawks turned things around since getting thumped twice in Southern California, Blashill credited his players for responding to issues they worked on in practice. He also called out the defensive pairing of Crevier and Alex Vlasic.

“Vlas and Crev, when they've probably played their best, they've had a specific role to match up against the other team's top line,” Blashill said. “So they were matched up against (Artemi) Panarin's line all night with (Mika) Zibanejad. They're so long and it's just really, really hard to play against.”

The Hawks will be facing another back-to-back this weekend, starting Friday in St. Louis, followed by a visit from Patrick Kane and Detroit on Saturday.

Any instructions on how to avoid another disaster like what happened in greater Los Angeles?

“Don't repeat what we did last weekend,” Blashill joked. “Whatever we did on that day, don't do that.”