The captain Jonathan Toews scored two goals and set up another and Adam Burish notched a goal and two assists as the Chicago Blackhawks posted a 6-0 triumph over the Phoenix Coyotes behind a 22-save performance from Cristobal Huet. Earlier, Burish received a birthday gift from teammates when they covered his shoes in baby powder.
From then on it was Burish who was doing the giving as his first goal of the season gave the Blackhawks an early spark. The victory before a crowd of 14,651 at the Jobing.com Arena was the Hawks' second consecutive and 12th in their last 15 games. Burish, who turned 26 yesterday, ignited a four-goal explosion in the first period when he opened the scoring. The forward later added two assists as he notched his first points of the season.
In other games, Daymond Langkow netted twice as the Calgary Flames scored three times in the first period to cruise to a 5-2 triumph over the San Jose Sharks yesterday. Curtis Glencross and David Moss recorded a goal and an assist apiece and the defenceman Mark Giordano also found the back of the net. Rene Bourque notched two assists and Miikka Kiprusoff turned aside 26 shots as the Flames gave Mike Keenan his 650th coaching victory.
Jose Theodore stopped all three attempts he faced in the shoot-out to make Viktor Kozlov's first-round goal count as the Washington Capitals recorded their seventh win in a row, a 2-1 triumph over the Philadelphia Flyers. Nicklas Backstrom also scored a power-play goal and Theodore turned aside 33 shots for Washington. The defenceman Braydon Coburn scored a power-play goal and Martin Biron made 33 saves for Philadelphia.
Cam Ward made 26 saves as the Carolina Hurricanes extended their winning run to four games with a 3-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils. Ray Whitney opened the scoring just 63 seconds into the game and Sergei Samsonov and Tuomo Ruutu added more goals. Niklas Backstrom made 28 saves for his second consecutive shut-out and defenceman Marek Zidlicky scored the lone goal as the Minnesota Wild continued their dominance of the Boston Bruins with a 1-0 victory.
Ty Conklin recorded his second consecutive home shut-out and Pavel Datsyuk recorded a goal and two assists to lead the Detroit Red Wings to a 3-0 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Petr Sykora scored twice and Marc-Andre Fleury made 27 saves as the Pittsburgh Penguins ended a five-game slide with a 3-1 win over the Atlanta Thrashers. Samuel Pahlsson scored the goal midway through the third period to help the Anaheim Ducks top the Los Angeles Kings 3-1.
Tomas Vokoun turned aside 24 shots to notch his 200th career victory as the Florida Panthers posted a 4-2 triumph over the Toronto Maple Leafs. Wojtek Wolski scored two goals as the Colorado Avalanche ended their three-game losing run with a 2-1 triumph over the Nashville Predators. * Agencies
