Blackhawks doomed by turnovers

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Standing outside the dressing room 90 minutes before faceoff, Blackhawks coach Denis Savard made no attempt to hide how important he felt Sunday's game against the Ducks was for his surging team.

"I know there will be bigger as we go along, but this is the biggest game they've faced in a long time," Savard said.

A few hours later Savard was left trying to find the positives in a 6-3 loss to the defending Stanley Cup champs at Honda Center.

"We played pretty hard, but the goals, at least 3 of them, came after we had puck possession," Savard said. "Our defense really struggled early in the game.

"Our effort? We battled and we had enough chances to win. It's just that the goals we gave came off our sticks."

Goalie Patrick Lalime, starting his second straight game for the injured Nikolai Khabibulin, wasn't very sharp early and was pulled at 8:38 of the first period after a bad second goal by Ryan Getzlaf made it 2-0.

"That's not the way you want to start," said Lalime, who did come back to start the second period after it was 3-1.

Rookie Corey Crawford allowed a soft goal to Teemu Selanne late in the first period to make it 3-0.

Selanne had 3 goals and 2 assists for his 20th career hat trick.

"I think we've got to want to challenge ourselves a little bit more," said Hawks rookie Jonathan Toews. "We've got to get more excited about playing against big and strong and skilled teams like Anaheim. I guess we didn't step up to the challenge."

Despite their poor start, the Hawks had chances to come back and possibly sneak out of town with a point.

Trailing 4-2 entering the third period, the Hawks had a 5-on-3 power play for 36 seconds but never attacked and came up empty.

"On a 5-on-3 we've got to get our big guys to score goals for us," Savard said.

The Hawks outshot the Ducks 32-28, but Martin Havlat had only 1 in just 15 minutes of ice time.

Toews had 3 assists while Patrick Sharp scored twice, giving him 31 goals.

The Hawks cut the deficit to 4-3 on Brent Seabrook's goal with 4:40 to play and seemed to have all the momentum, but Selanne answered eight seconds later when he got behind Sharp to tap home a pass from Chris Kunitz.

"That's why they're such a good team," Toews said. "Maybe there was a few mistakes made right off that draw that let them score, but we were feeling a bit of momentum and obviously that changed right there."

It was a frustrating night for Lalime, who allowed 5 goals on 25 shots. He also took 3 minors penalties for run-ins with wide body Todd Bertuzzi, who crowded the crease time and time again.

"He's a big man who likes to create traffic," Lalime said. "We had a good battle all game pretty much.

"They're a big team and they play that kind of hockey. They're big and physical and they want to be in your face all the time. I thought we responded well for most part of the game."