In Chicago, the Blackhawks took a 2-0 lead over the visiting Montreal Canadiens on Friday night.
Ryan Donato scored with three minutes left in the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to Chicago after 20 minutes.
Jason Dickinson stretched the lead to 2-0 at 3:43 of the middle frame.
“Yeah, ‘Blackie’s’ brought a lot of intensity, emotion,” Dickinson said. “I think he was almost 300 days between games, so there’s a lot of built-up excitement, energy. He already brings energy to games, and on top of that much time out, he’s raring to go. He’s itching for it. It’s contagious. It’s easy to build off his energy.”
From there, the Blackhawks just disappeared. .
The Canadiens scored five unanswered goals in a 5-2 win.
Cayden Primeau made 19 saves in the win.
The Canadiens moved to 15-13-5.
“We got back to playing our game, so to speak,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “I always say, it’s not like one magic play that’s going to get us back and it’s going to win us the game. We’ve just got to do the positive actions on the ice based on how we want to play over and over and over again kind of stay patient, try not to beat yourself.
“I thought we got some big plays, some big goals at key times that gave us some life. And I thought we played an excellent third period.”
The Canadiens began their rally when when Mitchell Stephens tipped in a shot from the blue line to trim the deficit to 2-+1 at 4:20 of the second period.
The Habs’ Josh Anderson knotted it up, 2-2, at 15:02 .
“I don’t think we played a smart game,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “It was kind of 50/50 in the first period, and I don’t think we were great, but we had a nice goal and then I thought we started out the second period pretty good, skating. Then, we just weren’t playing smart; we were doubling up on forechecks and we were doubling up on backchecks, and that left people wide open. Just kind of unaware. It looked like we were the tired team, not them.”
Montreal took a 3-2 lead in the middle frame on a strike by Juraj Slafkovsky at 17:33 off a rebound down low.
“Someone has to go there,” Slafkovsky said of being in position for rebounds. “I like it. [Thursday], right off the leg; today, at least it went off the stick. It’s getting closer. Maybe I’ll start scoring from a little further out too.”
Chicago dropped to ks 10-21-1.
Nick Suzuki continued the rally in the third period when he scored at 13:11 for a 4-2 advantage.
“We weren’t happy with our start, for sure,” Suzuki said. “The first half of the game wasn’t great, but we know the style that we play and we can come back in games just with our relentlessness. We turned a lot of pucks over and got a lot of chances.
“It’s a big opportunity for us. I feel good going into the break. We wanted to show our best effort. I think that will really jump with us into the games after Christmas.”
David Savard hit an empty net with 1:56 left left on the regulation clock for the 5-2 final count. 
Petr Mrazek made 23 saves in the loss..
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