Only two games appear in our daily sweep of the NHL schedule today. In Chicago, the Blackhawks toyed with a Minnesota Wild team that appears to be spiraling out of control at this point. The Hawks built a 4-0 lead and then cruised to the 4-1 win.
Corey Crawford made 36 saves for the win in the Chicago net.
“I think we definitely need it,” said Crawford, who came up with big saves late in the first period and early in the second to preserve a two-goal Chicago lead. “We’ve been playing a lot of hockey. It’s a mental break too, as well as the physical. It’s going to be good for our team, I think.”
Marian Hossa, Bryan Bickell, Brad Richards, and Johnny Oduya scored for the Blackhawks who were coming off a lackluster, 5-2 loss to the Oilers on Friday.
“That was huge, because the past couple games I don’t think we played our best,” said Hossa, who turns 36 on Monday. “Coming into the four-day break, it’s nice to know our [good] habits are back. We had the really good start, which was important, and that was the key to the game.”
The loss was the Wild’s fifth straight (0-4-1).
“I’m confident in the group,” Wild coach Mike Yeo said. “I’m confident in what we’re capable of, but we have to be better. I’m not going to sit around and just hope that things are going to get better. We have to find a way to be better. We have to bring more to the rink every day.”
At least someone has confidence in the Wild.
In Edmonton, the Florida Panthers got goals from four different skaters in a 4-2 win over the Oilers Sunday.
“That’s how you’re going to win with our hockey team,” Panthers coach Gerard Gallant said. “You look at our lineup, we don’t have an 80-, 90-point guy, so we have a bunch of guys chipping in and working hard. We play four lines, all the defensemen play and they all chipped in tonight.”
Jimmy Hayes, Brian Campbell, Tomas Kopecky and Sean Bergenheim scored for Florida.
Roberto Luongo had 31 saves for the win.
“We’ve got four balanced lines, they’ve been chipping in offensively, which is nice and we’ve been finding ways to win hockey games,” Luongo said. “Guys can play up and down the lineup, different styles, different ways. They are hard-nose, they go to the net, and right now, they are getting rewarded. They are doing the things it takes to win hockey games.”
Jordan Eberle and Benoit Pouliot scored for Edmonton.
“We were a little bit sloppy tonight,” Oilers center Boyd Gordon said. “We were hanging around, but we couldn’t find a way to get on to the winning side. Our first period was a bit all over the place. We haven’t found a way to put a full 60 minutes together, and until we do that, we aren’t going to win too many games.”
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