The Black Hawks beat the Hartford Whalers 6-3 Saturday night thanks to their fourth line, their No. 1 goaltender and Ed Olczyk, whose numbers have been getting better lately.
Bob Sauve stopped 36 shots, while the fourth line of Rich Preston, Mike Stapleton and Dave Donnelly produced seven points, three from the 34-year-old Preston, who had a goal and two assists.
”I had a good month tonight, a good half-season,” Preston joked afterward. ”Our line has been playing better. They`ve kept us together for a while. Playing with the same guys, we`re getting to know each other.”
Getting to know the Black Hawks has been impossible. They`ve shown they can play with the best and meander with the worst. They have taken two out of three from both Adams Division leader Hartford and Smythe Division leader Edmonton.
Saturday`s first period was a perfect example of what the Hawks can do. They were outshooting Hartford 9-3 five minutes into the game and wound up getting outshot 15-9 for the period.
”I looked at their team on paper, and I can`t figure out why they aren`t winning more games,” said Hartford center Ray Ferraro, whose first-period goal had tied the score 1-1.
Saturday`s victory was the Hawks` second straight and third in their last four games since the All-Star break.
”They have a good team when they put their mind to it,” said Hartford coach Jack Evans, who played for the Hawks` Stanley Cup championship team in 1961.
”Things are starting to look a little better, but two games don`t make a season,” Olczyk said.
Olczyk, who scored a key, third-period goal in Thursday`s 5-2 victory over the New York Rangers, tallied what proved to be the winner in front of a sellout crowd of 15,126 at the Civic Center Coliseum.
Olczyk broke a 3-3 tie 7:40 into the third period when he lifted a rebound of Bob Murray`s shot just under the crossbar. The close-in score was Olczyk`s 12th goal of the season, a season he said he`d like to forget.
”It was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time,”
Olczyk said. ”I was in kind of tight, and Bob Murray got a good shot on net. I just had to get it up.”
”Eddie played well tonight,” said Hawk coach Bob Pulford. ”He was in there. He mucked. He got a great goal there, to get it up like that.”
Sauve raised his record this season to 18-17-3 and his lifetime record against Hartford to 15-5-1.
”It`s a good road win. We haven`t had too many this year,” said Sauve, who was in goal for the Hawks` 3-2 victory here Jan. 3. ”We`ve got to win more often on the road.”
”We had big goaltending again here tonight,” Pulford said. ”And certainly the line of Stapleton, Donnelly and Preston played very well. Preston with a goal and two assists, he played very well, and he played well defensively.”
Hartford failed to go 10 games above .500 for the first time in their history. The Hawks, who fell to eight games under .500 after Tuesday`s loss to Hartford at the Stadium, are only six under at 23-29-8.
”We`re starting to play better three games in a row,” Pulford said.
”The game against Hartford in Chicago that we lost, I thought we played better in that game than we did tonight.”
The Hawks lost that game when Dave Tippett scored what proved to be the winning goal with his skate late in the second period. Saturday, Stapleton scored his second goal of the season off his skate. That tied the score 3-3.
”A win is a win. We`ll take them any way we can get them,” said Wayne Presley, who scored the first goal of the game.
The Hawks play their next two games at the Stadium–Sunday night against the Detroit Red Wings and Wednesday against the Montreal Canadiens, the defending Stanley Cup champions.
The Hawks are tied for third place in the Norris Division with St. Louis with 54 points. Detroit is first with 60.
”Sunday is a big game, a four-point game,” Presley said.
— Pulford denied a report out of Quebec that the Hawks were going to make a trade with the Nordiques involving Presley and defenseman Marc Bergevin.
”There is no truth to that at all,” Pulford said. ”They`re our young players.”
