Stalock makes 35 saves, Blackhawks shut out Senators

CHICAGO -- Alex Stalock made 35 saves for the Chicago Blackhawks in a 5-0 win against the Ottawa Senators at United Center on Monday.

Fifteen of Stalock's saves came in the second period. It was his second shutout this season.
"That's a bonus on anything, but just winning any night in this league is so dang hard," Stalock said about getting the shutout. "The League's so good, every team's so good. … Any time there's stuff like that, it's a bonus, but the two points is the most important thing that anybody cares about at the end of the night."
Seth Jones scored twice, and Anders Bjork had three assists for the for the Blackhawks (22-36-5), who had lost four in a row.
Mads Sogaard made 16 saves for the Senators (32-27-4), whose five-game winning streak ended. Sogaard started in place of Cam Talbot, who was a late scratch because of a lower-body injury.
Ottawa remained three points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.
"I told him throughout the game, 'None of this is your fault. We just completely [hurt] you,'" Senators captain Brady Tkachuk said of Sogaard. "Right from the start, the way we played, we completely left him out to dry. That's just never what we want to do as a team. All the boys we have, [they've] stood on their heads, made big saves and stole us games throughout this whole year. It's honestly unacceptable that we just leave him out to dry like that."

Philipp Kurashev gave Chicago a 1-0 lead at 16:22 of the first period, picking up a pass from Jarred Tinordi in the neutral zone and moving down the left wing before scoring from the left face-off circle.
Jones made it 2-0 at 2:00 of the second on a give-and-go with Bjork, then extended the lead to 3-0 at 5:29 when he took a cross-ice pass from Bjork and scored on a wrist shot from the left circle.
Bjork was acquired in a trade from the Buffalo Sabres last Thursday.
"Yeah, it felt great," he said. "Those were two great shots that he had there, so [I'm] glad I passed to him. Those were unbelievable goals. That was a great win for us.
"I thought we played the right way the whole game and everyone played well. My communication with my line (with Kurashev and Lukas Reichel), we were talking about playing the right way, and I think we did a really good job of that and tried to do that all three periods, and we were pretty successful."
Jason Dickinson made it 4-0 from the slot at 10:31 on a pass by Bjork from behind the net.
Ottawa outshot Chicago 27-14 through the first two periods.
"Right from the get-go, just attention to detail, odd-man rushes that we gave up … it was everything that we hadn't done in the previous five games, we did tonight," Senators coach D.J. Smith said. "It's tough to explain how well we've played to come out and do this. But you've got to turn the page quickly.
"We were feeling so good playing at home, and then to come out here -- just no rhythm, no feel, team wasn't prepared. That's on me. My job is to get them prepared and to push them every day, and we weren't ready to play today."

Reichel scored on a breakaway at 3:18 of the third period for the 5-0 final.
"We played real solid [defense], so it translated into real good offense," Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. "Even on Reichel's goal, he knew when he could go because we had full control and just kind of shut them down, coming to the blue line, and he sprouted out there and got a nice play. Just kind of cap off the game. It was nice to get him on the board too."
NOTES: Smith said Talbot will be evaluated before the Senators visit the Seattle Kraken on Thursday … Chicago is 16-2-1 in its past 19 games against Ottawa. … Senators forward Alex DeBrincat was minus-3 with seven shots on goal in 17:30 of ice time in his first game back in Chicago since being traded to Ottawa on July 7, 2022. The Blackhawks honored him with a video tribute during the first period. … Blackhawks defenseman Andreas Englund left the game in the second period because of a lower-body injury. Richardson said he was unsure if Englund will be able to play at the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday. … Seth Jones and Chicago defenseman Caleb Jones were each plus-4.