"Noted team jokester Patrick Sharp feigned ignorance when asked about the absences of Jonathan Toews and Brent Seabrook from the Blackhawks' lineup Saturday night.

"Who're you talking about?" Sharp deadpanned.

Gone, but not quite as forgotten as Sharp would have you believe, Toews and Seabrook missed the game with injuries but the Hawks didn't miss an opportunity to pick up two points with a 2-0 win over the Predators before a crowd of 20,272 at the United Center. The victory snapped the Hawks' two-game skid.

Goaltender Cristobal Huet, who has struggled and sat out the Hawks' previous game, rebounded in a big way with a strong 27-save effort to earn his first shutout of the season.

He got all the offensive support he needed when Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd scored 56 seconds apart midway through the second period.

"We came out pretty hard and played a very solid game for 60 minutes," said Huet, who recorded his 22nd career shutout. "We got two nice goals and then we shut it down pretty good.

"The team helped me a lot in the game. They had a lot of blocked shots and they cleared some rebounds. I saw the puck pretty well and I thought I was more aggressive and more desperate. That's something I have to keep doing the rest of the season.""