Chicago, IL (SportsNetwork.com) - Patrick Kane scored the winner in the
shootout as the Chicago Blackhawks took a 3-2 victory over the Boston Bruins
on Sunday.
On the final attempt of the shootout, Kane skated down the middle and slowed
up before picking his shot and burying a wrister past Tuukka Rask for the win.
Marian Hossa and Brandon Bollig scored for the Blackhawks, who have won three
of their last four. Corey Crawford stopped 34 shots in the win.
"I thought the pace of this game was quick and it didn't stop," said Chicago
head coach Joel Quenneville. "They're a great team and they can really wear
you down. I thought the guys did a good job of standing them up."
Brad Marchand scored both goals for the Bruins, who have lost four of six.
Rask made 35 stops in defeat.
"We played really well today," said Marchand. "There's a few opportunities
we'd like to have back, for sure, but I thought we had a very good chance to
win in a tough place to play against a great team."
The last time these teams met was in the Stanley Cup Finals last spring, which
saw Chicago win in six games for its second championship in four seasons.
Chicago got on the board just 4:13 into the contest as Patrick Sharp caught up
to the puck along the right circle and dished it to the front where Hossa
tapped it in for his 20th of the season.
Boston tied the game with just 18.9 seconds to play in the opening frame, as
Marchand scored with a snap shot from the right wing after a backhand feed
from Patrice Bergeron, who had brought the puck in down the middle.
The Bruins took a 2-1 lead just 50 seconds into the middle stanza, as Marchand
had the puck along the left wing and waited to get Crawford to the ice before
slipping the puck between the goaltenders pads for his 14th goal of the
season.
Chicago, though, scored near the midway mark of the second, as Bollig threw
the puck on net from a sharp angle along the right boards that knicked off
Rask and went in.
Crawford was busy in the third period, stopping 14 shots and helping Chicago
kill off a pair of power plays, while Boston had to kill off a penalty for the
first 1:55 of overtime after Matt Bartowski was called for cross checking late
in regulation.
Game Notes
Chicago was 0-for-2 on the power play while Boston went 0-for-3 ... Boston
hosts Los Angeles on Monday ... Chicago plays in Detroit on Wednesday ...
Hossa has reached 20 goals in 13 of the past 14 seasons, with the one
exception being last season's strike-shortened campaign.