The Sports Xchange
Bucky Dent, The Sports Xchange
Blackhawks 3, Predators 0
NASHVILLE — Chicago remains the only National Hockey League team without a regulation loss.
Marcus Kruger, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane scored goals as the Blackhawks dominated Nashville Sunday night in a 3-0 shutout at Bridgestone Arena.
Corey Crawford upped his record to 7-0-2 in goal, turning away a measly 17 shots for his first shutout this year. Chicago (10-0-2) now owns a league-best 22 points and finished a season-long six-game road trip with a 4-0-2 mark, losing only in consecutive overtime games against Minnesota and Vancouver.
Meanwhile, the Predators (5-3-4) lost for the second straight evening and looked like a team working the second end of a back-to-back series. They rarely mustered a territorial edge against an opponent which hadn’t played since routing Phoenix 6-2 Thursday night.
At one point, the Blackhawks boasted a 15-3 advantage in shots on goal. Nashville went nearly 21 minutes of game time – the last 9:56 of the first period and the first 9:04 of the second period — without testing Crawford.
Pekka Rinne kept the Predators on even ground for more than a period, but Chicago beat him twice in a 66-second span of the second stanza. Kruger snapped a 40-foot wrist shot past the Finnish goalie at 6:14 for his second goal of the year.
Toews made it 2-0 at 7:20, deflecting Duncan Keith’s slapper past Rinne for his sixth goal. With Nashville unable to consistently mount any kind of attack, the margin seemed bigger.
Kane tacked on insurance at 4:27 of the third period, wristing a shot from an extreme angle on the left wing past Rinne. Other than that goal, Rinne played a decent game, finishing with 24 saves.
Crawford preserved his shutout by stoning Mike Fisher and David Legwand on a couple of point-blank attempts later in the third period.
NOTES: This was the first of a four-game homestand for Nashville, which played eight of its first 11 games on the road. Chicago, which has played 10 of its first 12 away from the United Center, starts a five-game homestand Tuesday night against Anaheim … The Predators and Blackhawks won’t see each other again until April, but will play four times in an 18-day span, starting on the 1st … Nashville’s Patric Hornqvist is out for another week or two with a knee sprain sustained on Jan. 26 at Anaheim … Entering this game, Chicago led the league in goals on the road with 33 and is second in the NHL with seven power play goals away from home.
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