CHICAGO — All the streaks are over.

The Chicago Blackhawks have lost in regulation at home and on the road, in consecutive games.

Now they get a chance to rest.

Patrick Kane had two goals and an assist as the Blackhawks rallied after a terrible start, but Yann Davis made 10 saves in the third period to help the Edmonton Oilers hold on for a 6-5 victory on Sunday night.

“Definitely disappointed with the way we began the game,” Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said. “We’ve seen that movie before from them. I like the response though after that.”

Sam Gagner scored two of the Oilers’ four goals in the first period, helping Edmonton come up with a sorely needed victory.

The Oilers had dropped five in a row and six of seven on their franchise-record, nine-game road trip. They were shut out in each of the previous two games.

“It’s just a good feeling to come out with a win,” Gagner said. “We wanted to respond after the last couple of games and we did a good job of that in the first. We got away from it a bit in the last two periods, but we were able to hang on to the win and that’s the important thing.”

Ryan Whitney and Taylor Hall each had a goal and an assist for Edmonton, which is at Colorado on Tuesday before returning home. Captain Shawn Horcoff also scored as the Oilers went 3 for 4 on the power play.

“The explosion we had in the first period, you could see they were a little back on their heels coming off their loss in Colorado,” Oilers coach Ralph Krueger said. “They were slightly flat and we really took the opportunity. I thought all of our goals tonight, all six, were excellent goals.”

Chicago set an NHL record by recording at least one point in the first 24 games of the season. The streak ended with a 6-2 loss at the Avalanche on Friday night, and the Blackhawks needed an entire period to find their footing in their seventh game in the past 11 days.

Now they’re off until they open a four-game road trip Thursday at Columbus.

“We’ve got to take advantage, take care of our bodies and get ready for Thursday,” captain Jonathan Toews said. “It’ll be nice.”

Back at home after their first regulation loss, the Blackhawks opened with their worst period of the season before putting together a spirited rally.

Kane, Marian Hossa, Sheldon Brookbank and Brent Seabrook scored during the second, and Kane added his team-best 14th of the season to get Chicago within one with 13 minutes left.

The Blackhawks kept up the pressure for the last part of the game, but couldn’t get the tying goal. Davis, who came in after Devan Dubnyk was hurt in the second period, finished with 21 saves.

“I think in the room we knew we were going to give it a play, especially after the first period,” Kane said. “It was an exciting end. When you’re down 4-0 and can come back to make it 6-5 you gotta have a little bit of a good feeling about that, just not a great start.”

Dubnyk made a nice pad save on Hossa before the posts were dislodged when the right winger and Edmonton centre Teemu Hartikainen converged on the goal. Hartikainen practically skated over the prone Dubnyk, who was down for several minutes before he was escorted from the ice.

A trainer appeared to be examining Dubnyk’s head and neck.

“We don’t see any signs of head injury,” Krueger said. “We didn’t see anything but a situation where there was a lot of risk in putting him back in there. With that kind of impact, we need some time overnight to fully assess him in the morning.”

The Blackhawks looked slow and listless on defence as Edmonton skated free all over the ice in the first. Ray Emery was pulled midway through the period, marking the second straight time that Quenneville yanked his starting goaltender from the game.

Mike Brown and Gagner scored 36 seconds apart to make it 2-0 just three minutes into the game. Whitney then got open along the left side of the goal and converted a cross-ice pass from Hall to make it 3-0 at 9:19, chasing Emery from the game.

Corey Crawford came in and shut out the Oilers for three minutes before a streaking Gagner went to his backhand for a power-play goal with 7:38 left in the period.

“We took a lot of pride before the game in how we were going to come out and play,” Hall said. “And the things that we were going to do and the intensity that we were going to play with and we showed a lot of those things.”

NOTES: It was Brown’s first goal since Feb. 29, 2012, for Toronto at Chicago … Edmonton scored 24 goals while taking three of four against Chicago last season.

EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — It was four days in a season that at times has felt four years long. But amid the festivities of All-Star weekend in Houston last month, Dwight Howard says he found time to make some very important changes.

“I’m a big thinker,” Howard said during a wide-ranging, candid interview after the Los Angeles Lakers practiced Saturday afternoon. “So I just stayed in the hotel and thought about the first half of the season and how I could do better for our team.

“

But you look at a guy like Kobe and he doesn’t care about nothing but going out there and playing hard. That’s a lesson a lot of us have to learn — especially young guys.

” – Dwight Howard

“And I just told myself, ‘I’m going to commit myself to being better for the second half of the season.’ “

That meant cutting sugar completely out of his diet so he could get into the kind of shape he needed to be in to be the Lakers’ defensive anchor and run coach Mike D’Antoni’s pick-and-roll sets.

That meant acknowledging that he was trying to be somebody he wasn’t the first half of the season.

And, yes, it meant admitting to himself that playing alongside the hard-driving Kobe Bryant was something that he needed both personally and professionally.

“It’s going to make me a better man and a better player from watching Kobe,” Howard said.

Playing in Los Angeles, for a franchise with expectations as high as the Lakers, is “a lot different,” Howard said.

“Besides just the expectations,” he said. “In games, I mess up and there’s somebody in the crowd saying something and I’m ready to snap at ‘em. That’s not what we’re supposed to do.

“But you look at a guy like Kobe and he doesn’t care about nothing but going out there and playing hard. That’s a lesson a lot of us have to learn — especially young guys.”

Howard said he and Bryant always have had a good relationship, but it’s deepened this season, particularly since the All-Star break.

“I told him [Bryant]: ‘I’m afraid to miss. When I get out there, I don’t want to miss, and I end up missing.’ And he was like: ‘You know what? Shoot 1,000 jumpshots a day. You’re going to miss a lot of those shots. But that’s OK. Because you’re teaching yourself it’s OK to miss.’

“Now I see it. He gets out there and he might miss a couple 3s, but then he’ll make nine in a row. You see that and it just kind of gives you more inspiration.”

Howard and Bryant are coming off their best two games as Lakers, with the latter becoming the first Laker since Jerry West in 1970 to post back-to-back 40-point, 10-assist games in wins against New Orleans and Toronto, respectively. Howard has dominated defensively while averaging 22 points, 14 rebounds and 4.5 blocks.

In nine games since the All-Star break, Howard is averaging 15.4 points, 14.1 rebounds and 2.4 blocks a game. Moreover, his energy and attitude seem markedly different.

“He jumped three or four times after one ball,” D’Antoni said of Howard’s defensive performance Friday night, when he blocked five shots and intimidated several Raptors. “His conditioning didn’t allow him to do that [before].

“I think he was harshly judged because he wasn’t 100 percent. There’s all kind of little factors, but the further away he gets away from the [back] operation, the better he will be.”

Whatever the case, the Lakers (32-31) will take it. Entering Saturday night, they trailed Utah by a half game for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff berth.

“When I first [came to L.A.], I wanted to come here and not talk to anybody and act completely different,” Howard said. “But that’s not who I am. I’ve never been that way. I shouldn’t ever shut myself off to the world. I don’t think that’s good for the team or for me and what I want to accomplish in life.

“I thought about it and said, ‘No, I can’t change. I’ve got to mature in certain areas,’ and I think I have. But I can’t change who I am.”

When did that change take place?

“At the All-Star break,” Howard said. “I just thought about what we’re trying to accomplish as a team and I really want to win a championship. That’s the reason why I’m in LA.”

Ramona Shelburne

ESPNLosAngeles.com

• Columnist and writer for ESPNLosAngeles.com
• Spent seven years at the Los Angeles Daily News

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Cavaliers won’t risk losing Kyrie Irving for any more games.

On Thursday, Cleveland coach Byron Scott said he will consider shutting down his All-Star point guard, who recently missed three games with a hyperextended right knee and said after Wednesday’s comeback win over Utah that the injury was still bothering him.

”If Ky is hurting, I have no problem sitting him down,” Scott said.

Playing his second straight game after resting for a week, Irving scored 20 points with 10 rebounds and seven assists as the Cavs overcame a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter and beat the Jazz 104-101. Irving scored 11 points in the final 4:21, but after the game said his knee still wasn’t 100 percent.

”The only way I would get better is if I sit out for the rest of the season, and I’m not doing that,” Irving said.

The comment surprised Scott, who said he will talk to Irving and trainer Max Benton before any decisions are made.

”If there is any way of doing more damage by continuing to play, then I’ll find that out and we’ll go from there,” Scott said. ”I want him (Irving) to go out there and play and be effective for us,” Scott said. ”I don’t want him playing at 100 percent.”

Irving played almost 38 minutes against the Jazz and didn’t seem to be slowed by the right knee, which he banged against teammate Omri Casspi’s knee in a practice two weeks ago. The Cavs rested their 20-year-old star for three games and he returned Monday night when Cleveland s hosted the New York Knicks.

Irving did not speak with reporters following a light practice. With games almost every other day, Scott is using the off days to have his players work on their shooting and lift weights.

The Cavs host the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday.

Irving, the NBA’s Rookie of the Year in 2012, has missed 14 games this season with injuries. He sat out 11 games with a broken index finger and the Cavs kept him out of the other three to allow his knee time to heal.

Celtic goalkeeper Fraser Forster has said he fears some of the club’s big-name players could be on their way out in the summer.

GettyImagesFraser Forster and Celtic impressed in the Champions League

The runaway Scottish Premier League leaders were knocked out of the Champions League by Juventus on Wednesday, losing 2-0 in Turin to go out 5-0 on aggregate after a memorable campaign including a 2-1 victory over Barcelona.

Their run has brought both praise for and interest in several players and manager Neil Lennon, who has expressed concerns over keeping some of his star players this summer.

Forster said: “There have been some fantastic performances – various performances will have caught the eye throughout the competition.

“We’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the summer. I wouldn’t be surprised if one or two faces leave, but no doubt we’ll bring in a few as well.”

The goalkeeper said Celtic’s players had had their appetites whetted by the Champions League campaign and that the home defeat of Barca had been “something special with the atmosphere, and something that might only happen once in a lifetime”.

And he added: “We’re a very ambitious squad, and we’re all hoping for more nights like that.”

John Dorsey hasn’t wasted any time since he was hired to replace Scott Pioli as the general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, making a series of bold moves to shore up the roster.

Open market With the NFL free agency period set to kick off March 12, Gregg Rosenthal breaks down the top 85 available players in the league starting with Mike Wallace. » Ranking the wide receivers » Ranking the running backs » Ranking the quarterbacks » Ranking the defensive tackles » Ranking the defensive ends » Ranking the cornerbacks » Ranking the safeties » Ranking the tight ends » Ranking the linebackers » Franchise tag deadline fallout » Catch up on the latest buzz

Dorsey said in a phone interview with The Associated Press late Wednesday that the decision to sign wide receiver Dwayne Bowe and punter Dustin Colquitt to long-term deals, and place the franchise tag on left tackle Branden Albert, are all part of a plan he set out upon his arrival.

“We have some talented players on this roster,” Dorsey said. “We’ve been able to retain them because it made sense from an organizational perspective. This was the way we felt it made sense to move forward to the next phase of the plan.”

Dorsey wouldn’t discuss the next phase of the plan, of course.

He’s holding his cards close to the chest when it comes to the NFL draft, where the Chiefs have the No. 1 pick, and unrestricted free agency, which begins in earnest next week.

Along with the moves announced earlier this week, the Chiefs have also sent their second-round pick and a conditional choice next year to the 49ers for quarterback Alex Smith, and were able to restructure the contract of defensive end Tyson Jackson to free up salary cap space.

Dorsey couldn’t comment on either of the moves because the new league year doesn’t start until Tuesday, but he did acknowledge strides have been taken to help solidify the team.

“All along, I think from an organizational perspective, we said we were going to create a plan, develop a plan, and these just happen to be the first details of the plan,” Dorsey said.

Offseason Forecast: Chiefs

Around The League examines what’s next for every NFL team in 2013. Kareem Copeland breaks down the Chiefs. More …

The biggest move may have been to sign Bowe, whom the Chiefs franchised last season, to a five-year, $56 million contract that reportedly includes $26 million guaranteed.

Colquitt, who made his first Pro Bowl last season, signed a five-year deal worth $18.75 million, making him the highest-paid punter in the league, while Albert received the franchise tag and will make $9.828 million – unless the two sides work out a long-term deal for him, too.

There are still plenty of moves to be made – it’s almost a certainty that quarterback Matt Cassel will be released – but the Chiefs now have some flexibility as they begin discussing free agents and consider what to do with the most valuable pick in the draft.

Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press