Hawks Pound Sabres 6-2 Behind Rookies

The Chicago Blackhawks poured on 4 unanswered goals on Wednesday night to defeat the Buffalo Sabres 6-2 at United Center and hand Buffalo their 10^th straight road loss.  The rookie coming out party was at it again as Andrew Shaw and Jimmy Hayes both had a goal and an assist and Hayes had another assist wiped away when a Marcus Kruger goal was disallowed.  Shaw now has 5 goals in 8 NHL games.  Hayes has 4 goals and 3 assists in 10 games.  Corey Crawford stopped 25 of 27 shots to earn the victory.  Chicago outshot Buffalo 35-27 in the game.  The Hawks were 2-4 on the power play and 3-4 on the penalty kill. 

Buffalo’s Jason Pominville got the Sabres off to an early 1-0 lead when the puck was turned over at the Sabre’s Blue line and Pominville was sprung the other way and beat Crawford with a wrister at 9:30 of the first period.  Andrew Shaw would answer cleaning up the garbage on a juicy rebound to tie the game at 1-1.  It was yet another case of the rookie being in the right place at the right time and being rewarded.  At 15:54 of the first Captain Serious Jonathan Toews cashed in on the power play cleaning up a rebound off a Brent Seabrook point blast with Mike Weber off for shooting the puck into the crowd.  The Hawks led 2-1 after one period of play outshooting the Sabres 14-10 in the opening 20 minutes.

In the second period Buffalo would draw even on another Jason Pominville goal this time on the power play with Jimmy Hayes off for roughing.  With the score tied 2-2 the Hawks would take control from there.  Just over 2 minutes after the Pominville goal, Marian Hossa would get a breakaway and made the Sabres pay with his 18^th goal of the game off a stretch pass from Duncan Keith.  The Hawks would make it 4-2 in the second when Andrew Brunette found a streaking Jimmy Hayes who tipped it home.  It was another prime example of good things happening when you go to the scoring area on the ice.  Chicago outshot Buffalo 10-8 in the middle frame.

At 4:11 of the third, Dave Bolland gave the Hawks a commanding 5-2 advantage off a feed from Hayes.  Jonathan Toews and the Hawks power play unit would cash in for the second time of the night to give the Hawks a 6-2 lead at 6:48.  It was the 26^th goal of the season for the Captain.  Chicago outshot Buffalo 11-9 in the third.

Chicago improved to 28-13-6 overall with the victory and moved back atop the Central Division, Western Conference, and NHL standings with 62 points.  The Hawks will host the Florida Panthers on Friday night.  Chicago beat the Panthers 3-2 in the shootout in November in Miami.  The Hawks are 18-5-4 on home ice.  The Panthers will bring a 10-9-4 road record to United Center and are just 3-4-3 in their last 10 games.