Sunday night in Pittsburgh, Cam Ward made 31 saves to help the Chicago Blackhawks to a 5-3 over the Penguins.
The win snapped an eight-game win streak the Pens were running.
“They’ve won eight in a row coming into the game. So they’ve obviously been feeling pretty good about themselves,” Patrick Kane (three assists) said. “I think it’s a team we can kind of compare ourselves to, as far as what’s happened in the past and our history, and stuff like that. So I think a lot of us get excited to play these guys. It’s nice to beat one of the best teams in the League.”
Duncan Keith had a goal in Hawks’ win over Pens – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
The Hawks were 1-for-3 on the power play but they scored two goals within seconds of two of those empty attempts ended.
Dylan Strome scored just seven seconds after a penalty ended and Duncan Keith scored two seconds after a penalty ended.
“We made some errors on the penalty kill that cost us tonight,” Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan said. “Errors that we haven’t made here over this last long stretch that I know we’re better at. We didn’t do as good a job tonight.”
Alex DeBrincat, Chris Kunitz and Jonathan Toews also scored for Chicago.
“I think that was a real positive,” Keith said. “Finding ourselves a way to get back into it, crawling back into it and taking the lead in the end. Keeping it. We worked hard and got what we deserved.”
Patric Hornqvist, Jake Guentzel and Derick Brassard scored for the Pens.
“You have to give them credit,” Hornqvist said. “They played hard. We couldn’t find a way to put the puck in the net tonight. We played a hard game and we did some good things. Then we didn’t do some good things.”
Chicago improved to 16-21-7.
“I think one thing we’ve established is we’re not going to quit,” Chicago head coach Jeremy Colliton said. “We’re going to play to the end. It was certainly not the start we wanted. We kind of gifted them a couple, but credit to those guys in there. They just kept playing and found a way to score on the power play. That was big. I was just really happy with how hard we competed. It was nice to see the guys get rewarded.”
[WATCH: All Blackhawks vs. Penguins highlights]
Casey DeSmith made 26 saves in the loss.
“They had some success on the power play, for sure. … We gave them a few chances, and they took advantage of it,” DeSmith said after the loss.
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