In the season of “let’s find a better team to play on” the Chicago Blackhawks benefited Friday night when Patrick Kane and Brandon Hagel hit for hat tricks in an 8-5 win over the New Jersey Devils. 
“I think we had a similar situation earlier this year where he had two and I had two as well, and we were going to see who was going to get the third one first against [the] Ottawa [Senators on Nov. 1],” Kane said. “I ended up getting that one first, so kind of a similar situation tonight, but nice to see him get a hat trick. That’s pretty special.”
Kevin Lankinen made 31 saves in the Hawks win.
Jesper Bratt struck for a pair of goals for New Jersey.
“We made mistakes you just can’t make,” New Jersey head coach Lindy Ruff said. “If you want to use the third period, we tie the game and give up the odd-numbered rushes. Back-to-back games where you know you’ve got some fatigue in your game, you’ve got to make them earn it, and we didn’t make them earn it.”
Jonas Siegenthaler and Jack Hughes added single markers for New Jersey in the loss.
“I felt we let off the gas a little bit,” Bratt said. “I think we felt the game probably was going to be too simple. If you compare that game to what we played [Thursday], I felt Thursday was a way more complete game. We were faster to pucks. We were quicker in the D-zone. We didn’t pinch in the wrong situations. We didn’t give up almost any 2-on-1s. I feel those were things we were lacking today.”
Kane and Hagel finished their hat tricks with empty net strikes.
“Yeah, that’s nice,” Hagel said. “No better way to do it than on my 100th game. It felt good. Got that one out of the way so now I’m going for four.”
The Blackhawks improved to 19-26-8.
Yegor Sharangovich also scored for New Jersey.
“It feels good; it’s been a while,” Siegenthaler said. “I’m happy, but it’s not the same if you lose.”
Kirby Dach scored for Chicago in the third period, his strike gave them a 5-4 lead as New Jersey was pressing.
“It was huge,” Blackhawks coach Derek King said. “That was real big. I think just for the fans. I mean, we’re competing, we’re trying and it just wasn’t working, and then it was an exciting game. Got the fans out of their seats. Great to see [Lankinen] hang in there and survive it and get us a win. We had contributions from a lot of bodies.”
New Jersey dropped to 18-29-5.
Ryan Carpenter opened the scoring to give the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead.
Jon Gillies made 29 saves in the New Jersey loss.
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