The Blackhawks were getting very tired of receiving very little for their December efforts.
They took out their frustration Wednesday night on the Nashville Predators with three first-period goals en route to a 5-2 victory before a crowd of 14,151 at the United Center.
The victory snapped the Hawks’ two-game skid and gave them their second victory in eight games this month.
“Those six losses, for sure in four of those we were the better team … but [our opponents] were winning,” said Hawks winger Martin Havlat, who had three assists against the Predators.
“We were just doing big mistakes in the back that cost us the games, and [Wednesday] night we didn’t do that many. Everybody played a pretty good game.”
Havlat helped the Hawks get off to a quick start when he made a nice feed from behind the net to Robert Lang, who snapped a shot past Nashville goaltender Chris Mason for his 10th goal of the season just 3 minutes 2 seconds into the game.
Dustin Byfuglien made it 2-0 when he skated around the Nashville net and stuffed in a wrap-around 2:21 later for his eighth goal of the season.
The Hawks’ early flurry was enough for Nashville coach Barry Trotz, who lifted Mason in favor of Dan Ellis.
The Hawks took a 3-0 lead when Patrick Sharp scored short-handed at 10:01. With teammate Brent Seabrook in the box for cross-checking, Jonathan Toews crossed the blue line and dropped a pass to Sharp, who blasted a slap shot past Ellis for his team-leading 15th goal and league-leading sixth goal while down a man.
“We learned a lesson that losses can pile up quickly and things can snowball in a hurry, so we knew it was going to take big efforts from everybody,” Sharp said.
“It was nice to score early, nice to play with the lead for once. I thought we played a very solid three periods of hockey.”
The Havlat-Lang connection struck again at 3:15 of the second period to give the Hawks a seemingly comfortable 4-0 advantage. Havlat controlled the puck and shoveled a pass to Lang, who fired a shot from the right faceoff dot past Ellis.
But the Hawks’ Yanic Perreault committed a costly penalty that allowed the Predators to get back into the game. As Perreault was falling to the ice, his stick came up and clipped Nashville’s Jed Ortmeyer in the face. Perreault was sent to the box for four minutes for high-sticking at the 3:44 mark of the second period.
J.P. Dumont and Radek Bonk cashed in during the extended power play to cut the Hawks’ lead in half, but Sharp’s second goal of the night with 1:05 remaining in the second pushed the lead to 5-2. Sharp poked in a rebound of a Patrick Kane shot while the Hawks were on the power play.
Havlat picked up his third assist of the night and 11th point in the 10 games since his return from a serious shoulder injury.
“It was one of those games I think we needed,” Lang said. “It’s nice to have one of those games when you’re in charge and control the whole time and just stick with it. It’s one of those nights that everybody worked hard, and the payday was there.”
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ckuc@tribune.com
