PENALTIES KEEP HAWKS SLIDING

VANCOUVER-- Daniel Sedin, Mattias Ohlund and Sami Salo scored in a four-minute span early in the second period to lead the Vancouver Canucks to a 6-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night.

Ohlund added his second goal later in the period, and Brendan Morrison and Markus Naslund scored in the third as the Canucks won their third straight game.

Rookie Pavel Vorobiev netted his fifth goal and added an assist, and free agent acquisition Martin Lapointe scored his first goal for the Blackhawks, who have lost four of the last five games.

Sedin opened the scoring two minutes into the second period, taking a drop pass from identical twin Henrik, then using him as a screen to shoot the puck through Nikolai Khabibulin from the left faceoff circle.

Vancouver's power play then took over as Chicago continued an early season trend of taking too many penalties.

Ohlund converted a 5-on-3 power play -- the second two-man disadvantage against Chicago in the game and 10th in the last three games -- at 4:23, and Salo made it 3-0 less than two minutes later after another Chicago penalty.

Morrison, who also had two assists, added another power-play goal in the third as Vancouver finished 3-for-10 against a Chicago team that came in tied for 22nd in the league on the penalty kill. It was the second straight game Vancouver scored three power-play goals.

Vorobiev, who was rocked by a hit by Ohlund in open ice earlier in the period, snapped a wrist shot past Dan Cloutier at 9:30 of the second. Ohlund restored the three-goal lead 3 1/2 minutes later.

Lapointe added a power-play goal early in the third as the Blackhawks finished 2-for-5 with the man advantage.

Khabibulin finished with 18 saves, while Cloutier stopped 22 shots.

HOME