Blackhawks goalie Crawford NHL’s weekly first star; Edmonton’s Hall second star

At 17-10-4, the Blackhawks share an identical record with the St. Louis Blues and are tied for second in the Central Division standings with 38 points apiece, trailing only the NHL-leading Stars (22-6-2, 46 points). It should come as no surprise that the Blackhawks have won each of those four games, the latest being Sunday’s 4-0 win over the Canucks in which Crawford made 30 saves.

Kane got the secondary assist on Keith’s goal to extend his point streak to 26 consecutive games.

This is the longest point streak in the National Hockey League since 1992-1993 when Mats Sundin did it as a member of the Quebec Nordiques.

The Blackhawks rebounded from their loss in Nashville with an energetic first period, outshooting the Jets 13-7 and taking a 1-0 lead. Vrbata thought Crawford was being quite rude stopping all his shots and was all like, “Do you mind?” and Crawford was, like, “Yeah, I do mind, I’m the netminder”, and then I slapped myself for that joke.

Corey Crawford has been even better lately for the Blackhawks, who look to avoid a fourth straight loss to the Avalanche.

Crawford had to be sharp during a couple of flurries in the third and made a point-blank stop on former Blackhawk Andrew Ladd midway through the period. Kane has 16 goals and 23 assists during his run. The Penguins also rank near the bottom of the National Hockey League with a little more than two goals per game. “Obviously, we cashed in on a couple power-play goals; that was the difference in the game”.

But despite the lopsided score, I didn’t think the Canucks didn’t play all that badly in this game.

At the other end of the ice, Ryan Miller was remarkable, despite the cheap last-minute goal that made it 4-0, keeping it close for most of the game and giving the Canucks a chance.

Vancouver is 0-10-1 when trailing going into the third period, a bad omen as they entered the period down a goal. He hadn’t allowed more than two goals in his previous two starts. Dennis Rasmussen would push it across the goal line to make it 2-0. Chicago F Marian Hossa played in his 1,200th caeer game and D Niklas Hjalmarsson in his 500th….