Steve Passmore, the backup goalie with the hot hand, made his second straight start Wednesday night and put another two points in the bank for the playoff-bound Blackhawks.
In a 4-1 victory over Nashville, he didn’t have to do the acrobatic acts he performed Sunday afternoon when the Hawks defeated St. Louis in overtime.
The Predators’ scoring chances were few and far between. Passmore had a relatively easy night as the Hawks’ victory vaulted them two points ahead of idle Los Angeles and back into fourth place in the Western Conference playoff race.
Passmore stopped 16 shots in improving to 7-1-1 in his last nine decisions. The only spectacular save he made came in the second period when he fell backward and thrust out his arm to reject Vladimir Orszagh’s power-play rebound.
The only flaw in Passmore’s performance was a power-play goal by Denis Arkhipov with 7 minutes 23 seconds to play.
“I thought the shot [by Greg Johnson] was going wide; the guy skated to the net and deflected it,” Passmore said and then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that our points are going up. Every point is huge. Tonight we had a solid effort by every guy in every zone. We did such a good job of keeping the puck away from the net.”
Jocelyn Thibault’s understudy refused to read anything into his second straight start.
“My role hasn’t changed,” Passmore said. “I’m the backup and right now I’m getting a couple of starts. `T’ is our horse and that’s the way it is. When I get a chance to go in, that’s great. The rest of the time I sit there with the pompoms.”
This second consecutive victory following a six-game winless streak gave the Hawks a 2-1-3 record in their last six outings and 87 points for the season.
“Textbook game,” coach Brian Sutter said. “The only disappointing thing was they scored a goal.”
Mark Bell, Phil Housley, former Predators captain Tom Fitzgerald and Tony Amonte scored for the Hawks. Fitzgerald’s was a short-handed tally.
The point that Housley picked up on his power-play goal in the second period was No. 1,200 of his 20-year NHL career.
He is the fourth defenseman and the 35th player to reach the 1,200 milestone.
“It’s nice to do it when you’re winning,” Housley said. “I felt we were in control the whole game.”
