THREE THINGS: Subb-Zero, Mr. 399 and High to Low

The Blackhawks are headed back to Chicago, winners of four of their five games on the longest road trip of the season to date, most recently a 2-0 shutout win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night in Ohio.
Patrick Kane scored the decisive tally in the third period to break a scoreless affair, Carl Soderberg added an empty netter in the final minute and Malcolm Subban stopped all 26 shots he faced for the shutout win.

"Big win. Didn't like our start. We were passive, took too long to move the puck," head coach Jeremy Colliton said after the win. "Excellent response in the second period... It was a battle. Tight game, but I thought overall, over three periods, we did a lot of little things that allowed us to stay in the game until we could score."
"I thought Subban was really good, solid, really stable," he added of his shutout netminder. "He made some saves when we needed it. Great finish to the trip."

Here are three takeaways from the victory:

SUBB-ZERO

Subban picked up his first shutout as a Blackhawk a year and a day after he was acquired from Vegas in a trade. It was his second NHL shutout overall, his first coming almost two years ago on March 21, 2019 with 20 saves against Winnipeg as a member of the Golden Knights.
The netminder has won three straight games now with an overtime defeat coming before those, but more impressively has done so with 14, 8 and 10 days, respectively, between each of his last four starts.
"You've got to really use your practices as games and take them seriously, battle on every shot," he said on the latest episode of the Blackhawks Insider podcast. "I feel like that's really helped me a lot."
"He's been great. He's a great teammate, very hard worker and he's done a great job preparing himself to be ready when he gets the chance and he's making the most of his opportunity," Colliton said. "He's easy to be happy for and I'm sure his teammates are pretty happy for him, too. He was very good."
Subban's no stranger to tight games, either, with three straight one-goal decisions coming into the night, each tied after 60 minutes -- a 3-2 overtime loss on Jan. 26 in Nashville and overtime wins, 2-1 in Dallas on Feb. 7 and 3-2 in Detroit on Feb. 15. Until Carl Soderberg's empty-netter with under a minute to play, Thursday was a nail-bitting one-goal affair as well.
"It felt great," he said after the win. "I thought we played a really good game and some big blocks there.. I thought we played a good game. It almost felt like a playoff game out there."
"'Subby' has just been really good every time he's gotten a chance to play," Kane said. "It's been pretty impressive, both of them (Subban and Kevin Lankinen). I'm sure they're trying to fight for their chances to get in the net and show what they can do, but they work so hard at practice and maybe that's paying off. It's fun to shoot on them in practice because they want to stop every shot and they're always trying to get better. Kudos to both of them for stepping in and doing a great job for us this year."

MR. 399

A 0-0 game well into the third period, it was none other than Patrick Kane to step up and play the role of difference maker for the Blackhawks with his first game-winning goal of the season, and 10th goal overall.

His tally was the 399th of his NHL career, putting him one shy of becoming the fourth Blackhawk to reach 400 goals with the organization. He'd be the 10th active NHLer, ninth U.S.-born player and 100th player to hit 400 career tallies.
"It was a big goal for the team," he said. "I think more important than anything was just that it gave us the lead and gave us a chance to get two points. It was obviously a pretty tight game. I think both teams were kind of grinding it out and trying to play tight, so it was nice to just get a break and be able to capitalize on it."

HIGH TO LOW

After Tuesday's game marked just the third time this season the Blackhawks and an opponent combined for a double-digit goal total, Thursday's rematch was quite the opposite affair. Tied for the lowest-scoring game with the other shutout on the season just over a week ago in Detroit, Thursday night was also the fewest shots the Blackhawks have allowed by an opponent (26) and tied the fewest combined shots in a game this season (53, Feb. 15 at Detroit -- the other shutout on the year).
"It's just believing in our game plan and the way we play," Kane said of being able to win both high- and low-scoring games this season. "I think when you get that confidence in the team game, it just kind of takes over no matter what's going on in any given game. It's nice to know that we can win both ways. I just like that we hung in there the whole night tonight."
"For sure, you want to show you can win in different ways," Colliton said. "Obviously you love to score goals, but sometimes you can't control that. This game can be random, but how we defend and our commitment to the details and the work ethic away from the puck, that we can control. As a coach you feel better about tonight's performance... should be a confidence-builder for the guys, for sure."