Losing taking toll on Hawks: ‘It wears on a lot of guys’ originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The Blackhawks started the 2022-23 season as one of the surprise teams in the NHL after winning four of six games despite their roster being stripped down over the summer to kickstart a full-scale rebuild. At one point, they had people wondering whether they might be better than originally thought.
Since then, the Blackhawks are 4-22-4 and have, by far, the worst points percentage over that span at .200. They also have a -59 goal differential in those 30 games.
On Saturday, Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson called their 4-1 loss to the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets “probably one of our worst performances of the year.” On Sunday, the Blackhawks blew a 2-0 lead and allowed five unanswered goals in a 5-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks at the United Center.
“It’s challenging,” Sam Lafferty said on trying to stay positive. “A night like tonight, we had momentum and then it’s gone out of nowhere. Tomorrow we just regroup. The good thing about hockey is you get to keep playing. We’ve got a game in two days, so it’s another opportunity for us.”
The Sharks, by the way, are near the bottom of the standings, too. This should have been a game where the Blackhawks stacked up fine against the opponent.
Instead, it turned out to be another game that snowballed into a familiar outcome.
“Obviously we were in good position there, 2-0,” said Patrick Kane, who scored for the third time in five games. “I don’t know if we thought it was going to be an easy game after that for us, but a couple breakdowns, a couple bad breaks, too and all of a sudden you’re down 3-2 going into the third.”
The Blackhawks have two wins in their last 22 games. They’ve scored only 18 goals in their last 13 games, and five of those goals came against Columbus on Dec. 23.
The losing is taking a mental toll on the Blackhawks, and how could it not? Somehow, they’re finding ways to stay positive throughout it all.
“It’s tough,” Kane said. “Obviously we’ve been losing a lot of games and it wears on a lot of guys. Guys get frustrated. It’s understandable. At the same time, when we’re in positions like we are tonight, we’ve got to find a way to not give up so much so easy. It’s obviously been a problem all year for us.
“I think we had the right attitude. Guys want to win. Guys are staying positive. Especially tonight, I think we had a new outlook on things after the last year and it being a new year and trying to start off the way we wanted to. It looked like it was going right there for a while and then it wasn’t.”
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