At the risk of incurring the wrath of Blackhawks coach Brian Sutter, it needs to be stated: This one was easy.
The Hawks won their second straight game 5-0 Thursday night over an Atlanta Thrashers team that provided only token resistance.
The rout began at the 4-minute-50-second mark of the first period when Tyler Arnason scored his fifth goal of the season by poking a loose puck through a set of legs and past former Wolves goalie Pasi Nurminen to make it 1-0.
The line of Arnason, Kyle Calder, and Mark Bell got its second of the night at 11:25, again on a rush in which the Thrashers were gracious hosts to their own goal. Calder got a feed from Arnason and Mark Bell, had the puck poked away by Nurminen as he drove the net, got it back and scored from the goal line with no one near him to make it 2-0.
Bell scored one of his own and Steve Sullivan and Chris Simon each scored later in the game.
Goalie Jocelyn Thibault faced just four shots in the first period, and Atlanta didn’t record its 10th shot until 2:33 remained in the second period. He made 17 saves to earn his second straight shutout and league-high third of the season. He ran his shutout streak to 142:58.
Early on, it was a physical contest. At the 2:37 of the first–and one second after he stepped on the ice–Ryan VandenBussche duked it out with Atlanta’s Francis Lessard. It lasted over 2 minutes with both throwing punch after punch. VandenBussche connected on more and was given a rousing standing ovation.
