Denis Savard, battling the flu, set up three of the Black Hawks` first four goals and had four assists all told to extend a personal scoring streak to 12 games.
Al Secord, who has been struggling much of the season, collected the third three-goal hat trick of his National Hockey League career after having a goal disallowed.
Troy Murray, who checked superstar Mario Lemieux into submission, notched his first NHL three-goal hat trick with the aid of a shorthanded score.
And goalie Murray Bannerman, who has heard nothing but boos most of the season, up to and including Wednesday night`s lineup introductions, made some great early stops to help the Hawks start quickly.
If 1986 gets any better than it did in Wednesday`s 7-4 victory over Pittsburgh, Hawk fans may have to order out for food. They may never leave the Stadium.
”We`re playing better and better, especially at home,” said Bannerman.
”There`s no reason why we can`t continue going this way. Getting 90 points this season has been our goal all along. We could end up with more.”
You have to reach .500 before that`s possible, and the Hawks did it for the first time this season with the victory, their fifth straight in the Stadium and seventh in the last eight games. Their 16-16-4 record lifted them into a first-place tie with St. Louis in the Norris Division, where being .500 is almost as good as being among the Fortune 500.
”We`ve been close a couple of times on the road and couldn`t get there,” said Secord. ”We`ve been working toward it. Just getting there has to give us some sort of confidence.”
The way the Hawks buried the Penguins should give them even more. Murray, punching in a nice feed from Bill Watson with the game only 56 seconds old, helped the Hawks jump on the visitors at the start. They eventually extended their lead to 4-1 with the second period in only its third minute and never let the game get closer than two goals the rest of the way.
”We had been playing pretty decent,” said Pittsburgh coach Bob Berry.
”We know coming into this building you have to be ready, and we weren`t for the first 15 minutes or so. We finally did pull together a little better in the end.”
The Penguins had demolished the Blues 8-4 in St. Louis on New Year`s Eve when Lemieux, last season`s NHL Rookie of the Year, scored four goals and two assists to move into the No. 2 spot among league scorers with 66 points in 37 games.
Furthermore, Lemieux had been the dominant player for the Penguins in their two earlier games against the Hawks–a 5-5 tie in the Stadium and a 3-1 victory in Pittsburgh. ”We wanted some size out there against Mario, because if he gets position on a smaller guy he can really hurt you,” said Hawk assistant coach Roger Neilson.
Lemieux (6 feet 4 inches, 200 pounds) was without veteran linemate Terry Ruskowski, who injured his hand in a fight in St. Louis. Most of the night, the 20-year-old center had to battle his way through the Hawks` burliest defensemen, Behn Wilson and Jerome Dupont, as well as Troy Murray`s tough checking line.
”He was our whole objective,” said Murray. ”But sometimes against a line like his, you get your chances because they`re concentrating so much on scoring. You just have to turn it up the ice in a hurry.”
Troy`s third goal, an empty-netter, came with four seconds left. The last time the Hawks had two players with hat tricks in the same game was Feb. 18, 1968, when Stan Mikita and Ken Wharram did it against Detroit.
