Crawford, Blackhawks shut down Flyers

CHICAGO » Corey Crawford made 35 saves in his first shutout of the season, and the Chicago Blackhawks stopped a three-game slide with a 3-0 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday night.

Artem Anisimov and Jonathan Toews scored 20 seconds apart in the second and Crawford took over from there, helping Chicago kill off three Philadelphia power plays in the last half of the game. Rookie Alex DeBrincat added an empty-net goal with 1:49 left in Crawford’s 22nd career shutout.

Brian Elliott made 32 stops for Philadelphia, which was coming off a 4-3 overtime loss to lowly Arizona on Monday. The Flyers have dropped four of five heading into Thursday’s game at St. Louis.

Chicago had dropped five of six, prompting coach Joel Quenneville to juggle his lines and defensive pairings in search of a spark. Quenneville also had his team do sprints at the end of practice on Tuesday after he grew frustrated with the effort by the players.

The Blackhawks responded with a workmanlike effort while improving to 4-2-1 at home.

Chicago came up empty on its first four power plays before Anisimov delivered in the second. With Brandon Manning in the box for holding Ryan Hartman, the rugged center skated behind the Flyers’ penalty killers and slammed home a rebound for a 1-0 lead at 8:58.

That was more than enough for Crawford, who came up with a couple of big stops as Philadelphia pressed for a score in the third. NOTES » Flyers D Radko Gudas suffered an upper-body injury in the first and did not return to the game . ... Chicago D Connor Murphy’s father, Gord, is an assistant coach for Philadelphia . ... The Blackhawks and Flyers play again on Nov. 9 in Philadelphia, finishing their twogame season series.

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FLYERS » Visit St. Thursday night.

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