Radko Gudas‘ shot from the point deflected off Christian Ehrhoff’s stick and bounced past Scott Darling to hand the Chicago Blackhawks a 3-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers and its fourth straight loss overall Wednesday night at the United Center.
The Blackhawks (41-23-6) held two one-goal leads, but the Flyers (33-23-12) answered right back to sweep a back-to-back and move into an Eastern Conference wild card spot.
Marian Hossa and Jonathan Toews scored for Chicago. Darling stopped 26 of 29 shots in his first start since March 5. The Hawks are now 36-6-4 when scoring first.
Ryan White and Brayden Schenn tallied for Philadelphia, and Michal Neuvirth made 23 saves as the Flyers swept the season series against Chicago with him in net for both outings.
The Hawks showed a new sense of urgency at the start of the game coming off a 5-0 loss at home to Los Angeles. Coach Joel Quenneville shook up the lines, placing Tomas Fleischmann, Toews and Patrick Kane on the top line. But it was a dismal penalty-kill unit that put the Hawks up 1-0 when Hossa sprung loose on a breakaway for his 497th career goal off a feed from Artem Anisimov.
Chicago looked to build its lead when Flyers’ forward Chris VandeVelde was booked for a two-minute minor penalty for elbowing Toews in the face. The Flyers killed off the 5-on-3 and tied it with a power play goal. Andrew MacDonald blasted a shot from the blue line that redirected off White’s skate and into the net.
The top line put the Hawks back on top when Toews knocked in his own rebound on a wraparound attempt for his 25th goal of the season and a 2-1 lead. Toews has now scored at least 25 goals in all but two seasons in his career. Kane had the lone assists on the goal for his league-leading 90th point this season.
But the Flyers answered the bell once more. Philadelphia captain Claude Giroux skated through the zone and did a spin-o-rama pass to Scheen who tied it 2-2.
Hossa had another breakaway attempt in the third, but was denied by Neuvirth. Moments later Gudas gave the Flyers its only lead.
The Hawks head north of the border to face off against Central Division foe Winnipeg on Friday at MTS Centre.