CHICAGO _ It was hard not to look at Wednesday's matchup between the Penguins and Blackhawks, the last two Stanley Cup winners, and wonder what it would look like in June.
It helped those daydreams that the game lived up to its billing as a potential Stanley Cup preview.
The Hawks came away with a 4-1 victory thanks to another hat trick from Patrick Kane, who scored three goals in a game for the second time in three outings.
Kane continued his tear as one of the hottest players in the NHL _ he now has 12 goals in his last 11 games. Goaltender Scott Darling had a sterling night in net with 36 saves.
The only drawback for the Hawks was that they lost center Artem Anisimov to an apparent right leg injury in the second period. There was no immediate word on Anisimov's status.
Kane snapped a wrist shot that beat Penguins goaltender Marc-Andre Fluery in the five-hole from the left circle 8 minutes, 49 seconds into the second period for his first goal of the night.
After Anisimov's injury, coach Joel Quenneville blended his lines with Nick Schmaltz playing center on Kane's line with Artemi Panarin. The move worked. Schmaltz helped set up Kane's goal with a skilled defensive play to strip the puck from a Penguin and get a pass over to Kane for the goal.
In the third period, Kane iced the game at 16:52 with another goal off another effective pass from Schmaltz. Kane then added an empty netter with 40.7 seconds remaining to complete the hat trick.
The Hawks got their second goal with 23.9 seconds remaining in the second period when Richard Panik executed a pretty toe drag to get around Evgeni Malkin and send a shot top left corner on Fleury for a 2-1 lead.
