Blackhawks top Preds in OT in first game without Colliton

A reserved Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews sat down in front of the media together after the Blackhawks' 2-1 overtime victory over Nashville on Sunday and tried to make sense of the team's second coaching change in three years.

Both longtime veterans felt bad for Jeremy Colliton and assistants Tomas Mitell and Sheldon Brookbank, who were all let go Saturday after the Hawks' 1-9-2 start.

"It's always tough to hear," said Kane, who assisted on Alex DeBrincat's game winner 37 seconds into OT. "As players you always feel like you could have done more to make that situation not happen. ...

It's definitely always ... sad when something like that happens."

The revamped Hawks thought they had a legitamite shot at the playoffs but stumbled out of the gates with losses at Colorado, New Jersey (in OT) and Pittsburgh.

Then came 3 straight home losses.

Then came the bombshell Jenner & Block sexual assault report, which ended the Blackhawks careers of Stan Bowman and Al MacIsaac.

Then another home loss and two more setbacks on the road.

In the end, it was too much and interim GM Kyle Davidson decided a change was needed.

"Let's face it," said Jonathan Toews, "there's been a lot going on this year and it's been hard for a lot of the players who have kind of inherited this situation in our organization. Go back to training camp and you've got a lot of new guys coming in and we're starting over again from square one.

"We didn't get off on a good start on our first road trip and it just seemed like we tightened up."

The Hawks played far looser and freer Sunday and didn't allow the pesky Predators to get in their heads, even as the game remained scoreless after one period.

Brandon Hagel, who was injured in the third period and did not return, opened the scoring with his fourth goal of the season at 7:15 of the second.

Kevin Lankinen was solid in net, making 20 saves - the most impressive of which came on a point-blank one-timer by Matt Duchene with 11:30 remaining.

DeBrincat grabbed the game-winning puck and gave it to King afterward.

The new coach said it was "a nice gesture" but quickly turned the attention back to his players.

"This is not about me - this is about those guys," King said. "I told them, 'You guys should be proud of each other because you stuck together and you fought through it and you got a win out of it."

Now we'll see if they can build on it when Pittsburgh comes to town Tuesday.

"We all recognized we have talent in the room, we have what it takes and we all know we're extremely underachieving," Toews said. "So there's still that belief that's behind it all. Tonight was a big win. It feels good. ...

"Not to put too much pressure on the next game, but it's a process we can build off of and go have fun and play the way we did tonight in the next one and be confident we're going to get the results."