You can blame it on the Olympic break or the quality of the opponent if you like, but for almost half of Friday night's game with the Chicago Blackhawks, all the Vancouver Canucks could do was flail and fight.

But trailing 3-0 to a team they usually handle with ease, the Canucks finally started to pull it together, clawing back to 4-4 and taking the game to overtime and the shootout.

Where Markus Naslund beat Hawks' goaltender Craig Anderson to give Vancouver a 5-4 win at Chicago.

Markus Naslund scored in the shootout to lead Vancouver to a win on Friday night. (CP Photos)

The victory moved the Canucks ahead of idle Colorado for fifth place in the Western Conference, and ties the club with Calgary for first in the Northwest division. The Flames, however, have three games in hand.

Rene Bourque with two, Matthew Barnaby and Kyle Calder scored for Chicago, now four in front of St. Louis for last in the West.

Todd Bertuzzi, Anson Carter, Henrik Sedin and Brendan Morrison replied for Vancouver.

Apparently the Canucks were temporarily unaware of their own recent history against the Blackhawks, when the teams took the ice for the opening period.

Vancouver had won nine-straight (one in overtime) against Chicago, but the first frame didn't show that. Bourque opened the scoring for the Hawks at 1:33, and then made it 2-0 at 8:12 on the power play.

And Chicago just kept coming, sending it to 3-0 just 26 seconds later, this time the sixth of the year off the stick of Barnaby.

Vancouver was only outshot 16-12 in the first, but couldn't solve Craig Anderson in the Hawk goal.

The first half of the second period saw a return to "old-time hockey" when the gloves came off and the boys started dancing.

At 1:23, Vancouver's Alexandre Burrows and Chicago's Duncan Keith staged the main event, with Jarkko Ruutu of the Canucks and Andy Hilbert of the Hawks the undercard.

That cleared up, at 6:09, Barnaby dropped them and went with Vancouver's Wade Brookbank.

That seemed to rev the Canucks up.

Bertuzzi started the comeback at 9:29 of the second with assists from Markus Naslund and Nolan Baumgartner. Just over a minute later it was 3-2, thanks to Anson Carter, from Daniel and Henrik Sedin.

Chicago went back in front by two with 14 seconds to go in the middle period on a lucky Calder goal past Alex Auld that could have taken the wind out of those west coast sails, but the Canucks came out hard in the third, outshooting the Hawks 11-4.

Henrik Sedin at 8:57 and Morrison at 13:04 of the final frame tied it and sent it to the extra frame.