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Lang, Sharp help Blackhawks to fourth straight win

Dec 27, 2007 - 5:40 AM By Rory Spears PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

CHICAGO (Ticker) - Robert Lang scored a pair of goals and Patrick Sharp added his league-leading seventh shorthanded tally to help the Chicago Blackhawks to a 5-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Wednesday.

Rookie Jonathan Toews added a goal and an assist for Chicago, which has won four straight.

Nikolai Khabibulin stopped 30 shots for the Blackhawks, who won despite being outshot, 35-27. Khabibulin played so well that the season-high crowd of 20,511 chanted "Khabi, Khabi" toward the end of the game.

"It was nice to make some big saves and get two points," Khabibulin said. "When the fans are chanting like that, it's unbelievable."

After Marek Zidlicky cut Chicago's lead to 3-2 with 6:50 to play, Lang wristed a shot from the left faceoff circle past Chris Mason for the decisive goal just 92 seconds later.

Lang's two goals gave him five on the season against Nashville in just four games.

"I have had good success against them in the past," Lang said. "I guess some teams just fit your eye and it's been like that against them for some reason."

Rookie Patrick Kane iced the win with a empty-netter with 15 seconds to play. Chicago built a 2-0 lead behind first-period goals from Sharp and Toews.

Sharp, who has more shorthanded goals than every other team in the league, redirected a quick one-timer past goaltender Dan Ellis at 11:27 to give Chicago a 1-0 lead.

"Jonathan and I are on the same page in those situations," Sharp said. "Once he crossed center ice, I knew he would take it the whole way, so I drove to the net and he found me with a pass I could tap in."

Sharp helped extend the lead to 2-0 when he found Toews alone in the left faceoff circle. Toews faked to his right before beating Ellis to the short side with 4:32 left in the first.

"We came out hard and we win games when we do that," Toews said. "The game got tougher as it went on but we just kept battling."

Toews' tally caused Nashville coach Barry Trotz to pull Ellis in favor of Mason.

"I am probably more apt to change goalies because we have been put in situations where they haven't been as good as they should be," Trotz said. "The last two times in here, Chicago has scored three goals on four shots and two goals on three shots. So I was just trying to change the momentum again."

Ellis stopped just one of the three shots he faced, while Mason turned away 16.

"It's kind of weird that we changed goalies in Chicago so quickly again," Mason said. "I don't think any of those goals were Ellis' fault by any means, they were both breakdowns by our team. Sharp and Toews are both goal scorers and they did what they do."

Nashville's Jordin Tootoo and Chicago's James Wisniewski slugged it out as time expired in the game.

Wisniewski won the fight, but tore his MCL and will miss 4-6 weeks, according to Blackhawks coach Denis Savard.