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No doubt it's Niemi's net now for struggling Hawks

What we don't know is how the Blackhawks are going to respond following Thursday's 8-3 loss at Columbus, which was the low point in the season.

What we do know is Antti Niemi will be in goal Sunday for the rematch with the Blue Jackets at the United Center.

While Hawks coach Joel Quenneville has yet to come out and say Niemi is his starting goalie for the playoffs, there no longer is a need for him to make such an announcement.

With Cristobal Huet's confidence shattered after he allowed 7 goals on 27 shots in the embarrassing loss at Nationwide Arena, the No. 1 job clearly now belongs to Niemi despite Quenneville saying after the Columbus debacle: "We'll see. It will sort itself out."

The fact is, it already has sorted itself out.

Niemi has been the better goaltender for the last several months as his 20-5-3 record, 2.22 goals-against average and .912 save percentage indicates.

The only question remaining for Quenneville to answer is if Huet gets another start or two over the final nine games in an attempt to salvage some portion of his confidence in case he is needed in the playoffs.

"I think all I need is one good game to get back on track," Huet said. "I've had some good games, but not the end result, so one good game and a win to get back on track."

The Hawks' recent problems go beyond goaltending, however. They have lost six of their last nine games and woke up Friday morning out of first place in the Western Conference thanks to San Jose's late win over Dallas.

Careless defensive coverage and turnovers have plagued the Hawks since the Olympic break.

Twice in the last 10 days the Hawks have posted impressive shutout wins - 3-0 at Los Angeles on March 18 and 2-0 against Phoenix on Tuesday - only to come out the next game and play terribly defensively.

"There have been things creeping into our game that we're not used to and we have nobody to blame but ourselves," Patrick Sharp said. "It's not the end of the world, but at the same time we've got to address this and then be better for it."

Sharp couldn't remember a worse loss than Thursday's going back to the bleak years.

"This is about as bad as it's been as a Blackhawk, that I can think of," Sharp said. "I think we went into the game expecting an easy game, but Columbus has some players that can put the puck in the net and they did.

"No one's going to help us except the guys in this locker room."

While Huet took a lot of the heat for Thursday's loss, Sharp called it a team failure.

"We're never going to point the finger at anybody, whether it's a forward, defenseman or a goalie," Sharp said. "We're not even thinking about that aspect of it. We're more concerned with the team game we've been playing lately. Little things that Joel preaches all season long we're getting away from and it's showing up on the scoreboard."

Quenneville, who gave his team the day off on Friday, preferred to look ahead after what happened on Thursday.

"We'll discount it and throw it in the garbage can knowing they're our next opponent and create an appetite off of that mess," Quenneville said.