The Canucks' NHL record 14-game road trip probably can't end soon enough for Roberto Luongo.

Only five days removed from a gold-medal win with Team Canada at the Vancouver Olympics, he allowed five goals on 14 shots before head coach Alain Vigneault sat him after one period of a 6-3 loss at Chicago on Friday night.

"I don't think we had a great period and I don't think we were ready to play," said Luongo, who slammed his stick near the Canucks bench after the first period. "Unfortunately, I felt good. That's the sad part. I felt ready. I felt sharp. And the goals kept going in.

"I didn't want to be in there for a dozen, so you might as well take me out after the first," he added.

It was the third time Luongo was pulled in favour of Andrew Raycroft in the first 11 games of the road trip during which the Canucks have a 6-5-0 record.

Luongo yielded three goals on eight shots in a 5-3 win at Toronto on Jan. 30 and was pulled 47 minutes 46 seconds into a 6-2 setback to the Minnesota Wild on Feb. 14.

This time, Luongo's night was marred by bad luck and poor decisions. After making three tough saves during an early 5-on-3 Chicago power play, he watched Blackhawks forward Andrew Ladd open the scoring with a harmless-looking shot from the side boards that hit the knob of the goalie's stick and crossed the goal line.

Misplayed puck

With Vancouver trailing 2-0, Luongo misplayed a puck in the crease and watched Troy Brouwer bury it midway through the first period.

Andrew Ladd, Duncan Keith, Troy Brouwer, Kris Versteeg and Jordan Hendry, with his first goal in 39 games, scored in the opening 20 minutes for the Blackhawks, who evened the season series 2-2 in the final meeting between the Western Conference rivals.

"Without a doubt, in that first period they were the much better team with Grade A chances and they were able to bury the chances," Vigneault said. "Tonight was a playoff atmosphere and we just didn't respond the way we have to be successful in this type of game."

Marian Hossa added his 19th goal of the season in the second period against Raycroft, who stopped nine of 10 shots in his sixth appearance of the road trip.

Jonathan Toews had two assists to help Chicago (43-16-5) win for the sixth time in seven games and pull into a first-place tie with San Jose in the Western Conference.

Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Mikael Samuelsson scored for the 39-23-2 Canucks, who missed a glorious chance to extend their two-point lead over the idle Colorado Avalanche (36-22-6) in the Northwest Division.

With the Blackhawks leading 1-0 and Luongo lying on the ice, Keith made it five consecutive games with at least one point when his blast from inside the Vancouver blue-line found the net through a maze of players for a power-play goal.

'Set the tone early'

"We have a good rivalry with these guys, so we wanted to come out hard and set the tone early," Keith said. "It was good win. We know these guys have a good team and we might see them down the road. We were trying to do our thing. Getting the puck down low and creating havoc."

Kesler put the Canucks on the board with a nifty toe drag move, wristing a shot to the short side against Blackhawks goaltender Cristobal Huet.

Kris Versteeg restored Chicago's three-goal advantage just 59 seconds later. The third-year left-winger skated down the wing before he cut inside against the defence pair of Andrew Alberts and Christian Ehrhoff, who had backed in too far, and beat Luongo on the glove side.

Hendry then notched his second NHL goal, splitting the defence pair of Alberts and Alex Edler and lifting the puck over Luongo.

It was quite the Vancouver debut for Alberts following a deadline-day trade from Carolina. He fought fellow blue-liner Brent Seabrook in the first period, had seven hits and finished minus-1 in 16 minutes eight seconds of ice time.

Canucks right-winger Steve Bernier missed his second game and has returned to Vancouver to be evaluated for an abdominal injury.

The Canucks visit Nashville in a noon PT start on Sunday, followed by trips to Colorado (March 9) and Phoenix (March 10) before returning home.