Hawks gift 4-1 win to Red Wings

Three ugly turnovers.

Three Detroit goals.

Game. Set. Match.

Man, were the Blackhawks in a gift-giving mood Friday night in a sloppy, disjointed 4-1 loss to the Red Wings, the eager beneficiaries of the Hawks' oft-repeated largesse.

It was the Red Wings' first regular-season victory over the Hawks since way back in April 2011

The Hawks' gift-giving started early in the first period on an ugly turnover by Kris Versteeg which resulted in a Luke Glendening rebound goal and a quick 1-0 Detroit lead.

Versteeg immediately felt the wrath of coach Joel Quenneville, who sat the veteran forward for the remainder of the period.

“There are mistakes and there are cardinal sins,” Quenneville explained. “The purists of hockey wouldn't tolerate that kind of play.”

It didn't stop there.

After Patrick Kane capitalized on a sweet pass from Jonathan Toews to tie the game midway through the first, two more turnovers — by Kane and David Rundblad — resulted in goals from Johan Franzen and Tomas Tatar just 70 seconds apart early in the second period to all but seal the deal.

“We were playing perfect hockey until we served up the second pizza there,” Quenneville said of Kane's turnover.

Brendan Smith scored a late empty-netter to finish off the scoring for Detroit.

The Hawks came into Friday's game averaging 38 shots on goal, but were outshot 31-16 after two periods and 37-26 overall.

“I thought we looked fast, so that's a positive,” Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “It's always nice to look fast against a good opponent. I thought we did a real good job in the second period to tilt the rink a little bit.”

Making the evening all the more disheartening for the Hawks was the fact that they came into the game basically owning the Red Wings in Detroit, going 9-0-2 in their last 11 regular-season games at Joe Louis Arena.

On top of that, they rolled into Motown having won three of their last four, including back-to-back wins over San Jose and Tampa Bay.

And then this.

“We definitely need to address the fact that when we do have momentum we need to keep it and build on it,” Hawks captain Jonathan Toews said. “We always seem to take a couple of steps forward then maybe even an extra step back like we did tonight.

“We have to get this out of our system sooner rather than later.

“It's not acceptable.”

Follow Mike on Twitter @dhspellman