Chicago Blackhawks rally to stay close to Colorado

Duncan Keith clearly doesn't want this season to end.

Nor does Jonathan Toews.

Nor does Corey Crawford, Patrick Kane or Brent Seabrook.

All five Blackhawks veterans proved as much by coming through with some fine performances during an intense, hold-your-breath affair against Colorado on Sunday night at the United Center.

"It was fun to stand behind all those guys tonight," coach Jeremy Colliton said. "They really played hard."

Keith ended up in the hero's role when he stripped Nathan MacKinnon of the puck in the defensive zone then raced about 160 feet the other way and pounded a shot that went through Philipp Grubauer's legs 83 seconds into overtime. The 2-1 victory moved the Hawks to 33-32-10 and 5 points behind Colorado (34-29-13) in the race for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

Keith scored just 2 goals in 2018-19, but he has 6 this season - all of them coming in the last 32 games.

"I was just trying not to get embarrassed there because (MacKinnon is) a pretty good player," Keith said of the Avs forward who has 37 goals and 55 assists. "He kind of fell and I had the jump on him.

"(On the goal,) I was thinking (of) maybe trying to pull it to my backhand and I saw I wasn't going to have enough room. Just tried to slam it at the net as hard as I could."

Artem Anisimov tied the game at 1-1 when he tipped in a Seabrook blast 1:44 into the third period.

The Hawks know every standings point is critical and they pushed hard down the stretch to try to get this victory in regulation. Grubauer was up to the task, however, as he made 39 saves overall and 14 in the final 20 minutes.

"That would have been really big to try and get a late one there and get 2 on them," Crawford said. "But we'll take the extra one and keep going.

"We're playing well. The third period was great. Didn't give them anything. … That was great hockey. We've got to bring that into next game."

Toews played like a man possessed. He jawed with officials on questionable calls or when he was thrown out of the faceoff circle. He pushed and shoved opponents all night. He also finished with 6 shots on goal, 2 takeaways and 3 blocked shots.

Kane (7 SOG, 12 total attempts) was re-energized as well and looked for new linemate Alex DeBrincat over and over again.

Seabrook, meanwhile, may have played his best game of the season. His rocket from the point helped get the Hawks on the board, and he also racked up 5 hits and blocked 5 shots.

And let's not forget Crawford, who made 19 saves and played on back-to-back nights for the first time since Nov. 4-5, 2017.

Now we'll see if everybody can bring this effort in Arizona on Tuesday in another must-win affair.

If they do, that flicker of playoff hope may grow just a little bit brighter.

"Enjoy (this), but move on and know we've still got our work cut out for us," Keith said. "Taking it one game at a time is a good way to approach it."