Blackhawks thrash Caps, snap slump

CHICAGO: Jonathan Toews had a goal and two assists and the Chicago Blackhawks ripped the Washington Capitals 7-1 on Saturday night to end an eight-game losing streak.

Patrick Kane, Brandon Saad and Ryan Hartman each added a goal and an assist in a 44-shot attack that took advantage of Washington breakdowns and powered Chicago to its first win since Jan 30 at Nashville. Nick Schmaltz, Artem Anisimov and rookie Alex DeBrincat also scored to help the Blackhawks snap a seven-game slide at home before season-high crowd of 22,066.

Tom Wilson scored for the Capitals, whose first-place lead in the Metropolitan Division over Pittsburgh slipped to one point.

Chicago’s Anton Forsberg stopped 19 shots. Washington’s Braden Holtby allowed six goals on 33 shots through two periods. Philipp Grubauer took over in goal to start the third and gave up a goal on 11 shots.

Washington’s Barry Trotz coached his 1,500th NHL game. He joined four others in reaching that mark, including Chicago’s Joel Queneville.

In St Paul, Nick Ritchie scored in the 11th round of a shootout and John Gibson stopped the final seven shooters in Anaheim’s 3-2 victory over Minnesota.

After the teams combined for 13 straight misses, Ritchie beat Devan Dubnyk.

Ryan Getzlaff and Ondrej Kase also scored in the shoot-out after Kase and Corey Perry scored in regulation. Gibson made 36 saves through overtime to help the Ducks, 4-1-1 in their past six, move into a tie with the Wild for the second wild-card slot in the Western Conference.

Mikko Koivu and Jason Zucker scored in regulation for Minnesota, Nino Niederreiter and Zach Parise connected in the shootout, and Dubnyk made 28 saves. The Wild are 9-3-3 in their past 15.

In Las Vegas, Reilly Smith had two goals and an assist in Vegas’ 6-3 victory over Montreal.

Brad Hunt, Tomas Nosek, Ryan Carpenter, Nate Schmidt also scored for Vegas, and Jonathan Marchessault had three assists. Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 30 shots, including a highlight-reel glove save on Charles Hudon on a breakaway in the third period, to improve to 19-6-2.

Hudon, Nikita Scherbak and Jonathan Drouin scored for Montreal. Antti Niemi started and gave up three goals on six shots before being replaced by Carey Price midway through the first period.

In Pittsburgh, Olli Maatta scored the tie-breaking goal in the third period to lift Pittsburgh past Toronto 5-3.

Evgeni Malkin had a goal and two assists to top 900 points for his career.

Bryan Rust, Zach Aston-Reese and Carl Hagelin also scored. Patrick Marleau, Connor Brown and Tyler Bozak scored for the Maple Leafs.