CHICAGO — Dominik Kubalik scored two goals, Jonathan Toews had a goal and an assist and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-2 on Saturday night.
Kubalik has goals in four straight games and 16 for the season, tying him with Buffalo’s Victor Olofsson for the NHL rookie lead. The first two-goal game of his career gave the Chicago forward eight points in his last five games.
Olli Maatta also scored for the Blackhawks, who rebounded after two losses to finish a four-game homestand 2-2-0.
Max Jones and Rickard Rakell scored for last-place Anaheim, which has lost six of seven (1-5-1).
Robin Lehner made 35 saves in his first game since hurting his right knee at Vancouver on Jan. 2. Anaheim’s John Gibson blocked 29 shots.
Chicago’s Patrick Kane assisted on Kubalik’s first goal and extended his point streak to six games, with four goals and six assists in the stretch. The Chicago star is five points short of 1,000 for his career.
The game was tied 1-all after the first period.
Jones opened the scoring 3:37 in after Chicago defenceman Connor Murphy lost the puck behind his net. Ondrej Kase backhanded a quick pass in front to Jones, who beat Lehner with one-timer on the stick side.
About 30 seconds after clanking the puck off the right post, Toews skated down the left side and tied it at 8:13 with his 11th goal. The Chicago captain’s shot from the circle slipped between Gibson’s pads.
Kubalik connected twice in the second to put Chicago ahead 3-1.
The 24-year-old made it 2-1 at 4:20 when he backhanded in a rebound. Gibson stopped Kane’s point-blank backhand shot, but Kubalik shovelled in the loose puck.
The rookie backhanded in another rebound with 7:39 left in the second. This time, Gibson stopped Murphy’s drive from the top of the slot, but the puck popped out to Kubalik at the left side of the net.
Rakell cut it to 3-2 at 2:29 of the third, when he stuffed a rebound of Isac Lundestrom’s quick shot under Lehner’s left pad. Maatta restored Chicago’s two-goal lead 90 seconds later on a high shot from the left point that sailed past Gibson on the stick side.
NOTES
Ducks RW and leading scorer Jakob Silfverberg missed his second game with an upper-body injury. Silfverberg, named the Ducks lone All-Star, was excused by the NHL from the game in St. Louis on Jan. 25 to be with his wife for the anticipated birth of the couple’s second child. … Chicago C Dylan Strome (right ankle) sat out his second game. … Anaheim recalled C Chase De Leo from San Diego of the AHL and assigned RW Troy Terry to the farm team. De Leo didn’t dress for Saturday’s game. He’s from La Mirada, California, a few miles from the Honda Center.
UP NEXT
Ducks: At St. Louis on Monday.
Blackhawks: At Ottawa on Tuesday, the first game of a three-game trip.
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Matt Carlson, The Associated Press
