MONTREAL _ Zack Smith scored a pair of first-period goals, Patrick Kane picked up his 998th career point and Montreal native Corey Crawford continued his mastery of the Canadiens at the Bell Centre with 32 saves as the Blackhawks won 4-1 on Wednesday for their third straight victory.
The Hawks improved to 22-20-6 and moved within four points of the final Western Conference wild-card spot. They will go for a sweep of their three-game road trip Saturday against the Maple Leafs.
Crawford won his sixth straight start in Montreal and moved to 6-0-2 in eight career starts there while his save percentage remained a gaudy .971.
A strange first period began with Crawford falling on his back behind his own net without any players from either team around him. He recovered in time to prevent a scoring chance, but it began a series of embarrassing moments for both teams.
Shortly after Crawford's faux pas, Kirby Dach whiffed on a one-timer from the slot, then fell forward as his stick snapped in two.
Then, with less than six minutes gone in the first, Canadiens goalie Charlie Lindgren and Tomas Tatar bumped into each other behind the net and left the puck waiting for Drake Caggiula. Lindgren fell down on the side of the net and Caggiula centered the puck to Smith, who had an open net for a shorthanded goal.
Smith scored his second goal at the 11:28 mark of the first when he deflected a Slater Koekkoek shot from the point for his 98th career goal.
The Canadiens made it 2-1 only 54 seconds into the second period on former Hawk Phillip Danault's 12th goal. But midway through the period Matthew Highmore baited Max Domi into taking a roughing penalty and Alex DeBrincat scored on a slap shot from the slot on the ensuing power play for his 12th of the season.
Caggiula, who missed nearly two months with a concussion before returning last week, had his first goal since Oct. 27 after stealing the puck to create a breakaway for himself and burying a wrist shot past Lindgren.
Kane set up DeBrincat's power-play goal to move him within two of 1,000 points and give him an eight-game point streak. Dominik Kubalik had a couple of great scoring chances, but his goal-scoring streak came to an end at five games.
