Hall scores hat trick, sparks Blackhawks past Stars

CHICAGO -- Taylor Hall scored his first hat trick in more than a decade, and Connor Bedard ended a 12-game goal drought for the Chicago Blackhawks in a 6-2 victory against the Dallas Stars at United Center on Wednesday.

It was Hall’s first hat trick since Dec. 5, 2013, and his fifth in the NHL.

“Yeah, 11 years, yeah,” Hall said. “It's been a long time. You know, you don't come into games expecting to score hat tricks, but I've been working pretty hard. I've been pretty happy with how I've been playing and my effort. And being put on that line (with Bedard and Philipp Kurashev), I wanted to play well and show well, obviously.”

Tyler Bertuzzi had two assists, Louis Crevier scored his first NHL goal for the Blackhawks (8-12-2), who had lost four of five (1-3-1). Petr Mrazek made 25 saves.

Matt Duchene and Colin Blackwell scored for the Stars (13-8-0), who have lost two in a row. Casey DeSmith made 20 saves.

“Ugly night, starting with the first shot of the game and downhill after that,” said Dallas coach Pete DeBoer, whose team led 3-1 at the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday before allowing five third-period goals in a 6-4 loss. “Don’t have much to say. There’s no sense evaluating it. I thought we played two really good periods and had a good game in Tampa (a 4-2 victory on Saturday). The third period in Carolina and then tonight (were) not up to standard.”

Hall gave Chicago a 1-0 lead 17 seconds into the first period. He skated into the offensive zone, cut to the left face-off circle and scored on a wrist shot.

“What’d I see? I just ripped it,” Hall said. “I'm trying to just play the game without as much thinking and thought. So, I had the puck, going a lot with some pretty good speed through the neutral zone and was able to get the puck out wide in a spot where it was in a nice spot on my blade. And I just figured I'd shoot it. It’s the first shift of the game, let's get a shot, let's try and see how the goalie’s feeling. And it went in.”

Hall made it 2-0 at 5:43, jamming the puck past DeSmith off a pass by Ryan Donato from the goal line.

Bedard extended it to 3-0 with a power-play goal at 41 seconds of the second period when he took a pass from Bertuzzi and scored on a wrist shot over DeSmith’s glove. It was his first goal since a 4-2 loss at Dallas on Oct. 26.

“On the goal, yeah, kind of relief,” Bedard said. “I mean, it’s been like a month. I don’t know if I’ve had a stretch like that in my life, so felt good to see one go in.”

Teuvo Teravainen pushed it to 4-0 at 3:06, scoring from the slot after taking a pass back from Bertuzzi.

Blackwell cut it to 4-1 at 3:41. Miro Heiskanen’s shot from the right point was stopped in front of the net, but Blackwell backhanded the puck top shelf.

Hall completed the hat trick at 8:42 to make it 5-1 after Craig Smith helped retrieve the puck out of the right corner and feed it to Hall in front.

Crevier extended it to 6-1 at 13:18. Ilya Mikheyev fed Crevier, who skated into the slot and scored.

“Pretty good,” Crevier said. “I've been waiting a long time, so it's awesome.”

Duchene scored on the power play for Dallas at 13:43 of the third period for the 6-2 final.

“I don’t think it was maybe as bad as the score,” Duchene said. “It got away from us. We had some good chances. Their goalie came up big at some times. We just had some errors that ended up in our net. It’s that old adage: You’re never really as good as you think you are when you win, and you’re never as bad as you think you are when you lose, most of the time.

“This team, I don’t think, has had a ton of adversity the last two years. There’s a little bit coming at us right now. As long as we peak at the right time and work towards it, I think that’s the only thing we can do. We’ve just got to keep figuring things out and working and pushing.”

NOTES: Hall became the fifth player in NHL history to go 10 years between hat tricks (regular season or playoffs), joining Dit Clapper (March 9, 1933 to Feb. 17, 1945), Woody Dumart (Dec. 25, 1939 to March 4, 1951), Guy Carbonneau (Jan. 6, 1983 to Dec. 27, 1993) and Duchene (Nov. 4, 2011 to Nov. 20, 2021). His first goal at 17 seconds was the fastest opening goal for the Blackhawks since Dominik Kubalik scored at 15 seconds on Feb. 9, 2020. Hall also scored the fastest two goals by a Blackhawks player since Alex DeBrincat (5:07) on Feb.18, 2019. … Stars forward Roope Hintz did not play after “tweaking something” on Monday, according to DeBoer.