Five takeaways from Blackhawks' win over Rangers: Anisimov's trick seals the deal

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Here are the Five Takeaways from the Blackhawks’ 6-3 victory over the New York Rangers.
 
1. Artem Anisimov’s first career hat trick. The Blackhawks center has been up and down this season, having a nice scoring spurt recently but still looking to find some consistency. On Wednesday he looked more like himself, scoring all three of his goals within five feet of former Rangers teammate Henrik Lundqvist. Said Anisimov about getting that trick against the Rangers, “It’s true, it means more. When you go against your former team you want to play twice as hard and you want to score goal, obviously. But I scored three today, so I’m happy.”

2. Stopping the Rangers’ power play. Not many have fared well against it, and the Blackhawks toyed with danger when they gave the Rangers’ power play, ranked third overall in the league entering Wednesday night, three early opportunities. The Blackhawks killed them all, including John Hayden’s double-minor high-sticking. Said coach Joel Quenneville on killing those four minutes off, “that might have been our best stretch of penalty killing.”

3. DeBrincat keeps scoring. OK, this one didn’t look like it had a chance, a seemingly harmless shot that trickled through Lundqvist and helped the Blackhawks tie the game late in the second period. Again, nobody cares how they look. DeBrincat now has six goals in November, the most of any Blackhawks player, per NBC Sports Chicago numbers guru Chris Kamka.

4. Take the breaks. The Blackhawks haven’t had a whole lot go right lately so when the DeBrincat goal gave them life at the end of the second, they ran with it at the start of the third. From Anisimov’s trick to Hayden’s second goal of the season, all four goals came when capitalizing off of loose pucks or rebounds.

5. Holding leads still an issue. Once again the Blackhawks took a 4-1 lead, this time early in the third period. They didn’t completely blow this one but it was close. If not for Gustav Forsling’s alert play on David Desharnais on Corey Crawford’s stick side late in the third period, the Rangers likely tie the game and it’s an entirely different situation. But Forsling was there, and Anisimov gave the Blackhawks a two-goal lead again moments later.

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