Too Sharp for Montreal

By The Associated Press

Comments (...)

E-mail this story

Print this story

Comments

CHICAGO – Patrick Sharp ended a long goal drought – and finished off the Montreal Canadiens, too.

Sharp, who had just one assist in his previous six games, scored with 4:10 left to give the Chicago Blackhawks a 3-2 victory over Montreal on Friday.

Set up by Patrick Kane’s centering pass, Sharp ripped a shot from between the circles past Carey Price to hand the Canadiens their fifth straight road loss.

“Sharpie scored our biggest goal of the year,” Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said. “It’s 2-2 late in the game. We needed two points and we had a whole week to think about today’s game.”

Chicago led 2-0 midway through the second period on goals by Kris Versteeg and Cam Barker, who each added an assist. Barker’s power-play goal was only the Blackhawks’ second in their last six games.

But Montreal’s Mike Cammalleri and Travis Moen scored 4:02 apart late in second period to tie it.

The Blackhawks, who don’t play again until Thursday night in Phoenix, didn’t want to consider blowing the victory along with the lead.

“We just wanted to keep moving forward,” Sharp said. “Without trying to sound cocky or arrogant, we knew we were going to win.”

Kane, who had two assists, was the most dominant puck handler on the ice all night. He decided let Sharp finish on the winner.

“Actually I was trying to beat my winger,” Kane said, “but Sharpie always finds a way to get open.”

Cristobal Huet stopped 20 shots in his fourth straight start. Price made 33 saves in his first start since Oct. 17.

“We started doing some things right and it paid off for a short period of time, but not the whole game” Cammalleri said. “With as many good saves as he [Price] had, we should have won.”

“But I thought we were too easy to play against and I don’t think we made it difficult enough on them to make them do what they wanted.”

Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews missed his fourth straight game because of concussion-like symptoms.

Toews hasn’t resumed skating after absorbing a crushing open-ice hit from Vancouver’s Willie Mitchell in the third period of a 3-2 loss to the Canucks on Oct. 21. The Chicago star is listed as day-to-day.