Roberto Luongo is making Canadian Olympic hockey coach Mike Babcock's job tougher by the day.

A superlative effort against the NHL's second-best team certainly will garner attention from Team Canada brass with the Winter Games kicking off in Vancouver in three weeks.

Luongo made 43 saves and was the beneficiary of a hot start by his Canucks teammates, who scored three times in the first period on the way to a 5-1 handling of the visiting Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night.

Luongo, in a battle with New Jersey's Martin Brodeur and Pittsburgh's Marc-Andre Fleury for the starting job in the Canadian net, has won four straight games.

"What really impressed me about Luongo today … he can play tired, and that's a skill to me, that's a talent," said Hockey Night in Canada analyst Kelly Hrudey, noting two instances in the second period when Luongo hunched over to catch his breath. "What was it, his 22nd game in a row tonight?"

The Canucks netminder entered action Saturday with a 2.30 goals-against average and .919 save percentage in 44 games. Brodeur had a 2.17 GAA and .922 save percentage in 47 contests, while Fleury boasted 2.60, .908 totals in 41 appearances.

With the win, Vancouver improved its record to 31-18-2 for 64 points, tied for first place in the Northwest Division with Colorado. But the Avalanche are second because they have fewer victories (29).

The Canucks were without the services of injured defencemen Willie Mitchell (upper body), Sami Salo (groin) and Kevin Bieksa (leg) against Chicago, which began the night having scored the third-most goals in the league this season, with 169.

Limited scoring chances

But the injury fill-ins — including American Hockey League call-ups Brad Lukowich and Nolan Baumgartner — did an admirable job, limiting the scoring chances of the Blackhawks' offensive blue-liners like Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook, while top forwards Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews combined for one point and five shots.

"Roberto knew we were short on [defencemen]," said Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault. "I'm sure he knew that he needed his 'A' game tonight and that's what we got."

Luongo's best stop came midway through the third period, when somehow he gloved Cam Barker's rocket shot from the point despite missing his goal stick.

Luongo had a bit of luck too, as Kane hit the post with a wrist shot with the score 2-0 midway through the first period.

Meanwhile, the Canucks' No. 1 line of Henrik Sedin between twin brother Daniel and Alex Burrows took charge. Henrik had two goals and an assist, Daniel added a goal and two helpers and Burrows collected three assists to extend his points streak to 11 games (13 goals, 18 points).

"It feels good," said Henrik Sedin, who upped his season total to 74 points, four ahead of second-place Alexander Ovechkin. "We're patient out there, waiting for our chances and I don't think we gave up a whole lot the other way. Things are going good."

After killing an interference penalty in the first minute of the game, the Canucks took away the time and space of their opponents and chased Antti Niemi from the net with three goals on 12 shots.

Niemi, who blanked Vancouver on 30 shots at General Motors Place on Nov. 22, was making his first back-to-back start of the season. He made 20 saves in a 3-1 win at Calgary on Thursday.

Mikael Samuelsson notched his 17th goal of the campaign at the 7:19 mark, beating a sprawling Niemi after taking a Ryan Kesler feed in the slot.

3rd time's the charm

Henrik Sedin struck three minutes later. Denied twice by Niemi from in close, he went behind the Chicago net and backhanded a loose puck over the goal line.

Steve Bernier made it 3-0, snapping an 11-game goalless drought, before Cristobal Huet replaced Niemi to start the second period.

After Toews made it a 3-1 game 3:30 into the third, Henrik Sedin sealed the Blackhawks' fate by restoring Vancouver's three-goal advantage just 32 seconds later.

"That was a pressure moment in the game," said Vigneault. "They've just scored, they could be building momentum and those guys [Sedins] got out right after and just take it all away. That's when it's time to score and that's what they're doing for us right now."

"Those [Sedins] are pretty fun to watch," Kane said. "Even playing against them, they have so many little plays that hopefully myself and couple of my linemates can incorporate in our game because everything's a give-and-go with them. If you can give-and-go as well as they can, you're going to score a lot of goals."

The loss was Chicago's first in its past four visits to Vancouver and second in the first five games of an eight-game road trip.

At 35-13-4 overall, the Blackhawks are second in the Western Conference, four points behind San Jose, which downed Buffalo 5-2 on Saturday.

The Canucks host the Sabres on Monday at 7 p.m. PT.