Hawks lack 'effort, urgency' against Avs

All of a sudden the Blackhawks are looking like a team that might have trouble finishing what it started.

There was no way to explain Sunday afternoon's 5-1 loss to the last-place Colorado Avalanche at the United Center, which represented the new low point of the season.

And few Hawks cared to try to talk it out, with only four players bothering to show up in the dressing room afterward to meet the media: Alternate captains Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook and rookies Colin Fraser and Kris Versteeg.

The Hawks are 2-4-1 in their last seven games and playing like they don't realize they haven't even clinched a playoff spot yet.

Their hold on fourth place in the Western Conference has slipped to 5 points over the streaking Vancouver Canucks.

"We just lack the urgency," Keith said. "I don't know what our thinking is or what our attitude is going into the game, but we're definitely in a playoff fight ourselves.

"There's still a lot of hockey to be played in the regular season and a lot of points up for grabs, so we can't have a lackadaisical effort in any of these games."

The Hawks were booed off the ice after the first and second periods, and for good cause. The Avalanche is last in the West and came in on a six-game losing streak during which it was outscored 26-10.

This wasn't one of those "desperate" teams the Hawks have talked about needing to play better against.

"Form start to finish the effort wasn't there," Keith said. "This time of the year it's pretty disappointing when you have an effort like that. We just didn't come and give our best effort. We didn't try hard."

To make matters worse, leading scorer Martin Havlat left the game early in the second period with a lower-body injury, apparently the result of blocking a shot.

Coach Joel Quenneville said the Hawks would know more about the injury Monday.

Rookie goalie Antti Niemi might as well have been standing out there alone for all the help he got from his teammates defensively. The Hawks have allowed 5 goals in two straight games for the first time all season.

"I'm not counting (Saturday's) game, because I felt we played a fine game, but today all aspects of our game were off," Quenneville said, noting poor defensive zone coverage and "sloppy passing and receiving."

Quenneville agreed with Keith that it's time for the Hawks to start playing like they are in a playoff chase.

"A game like today shows there are no games that you can take for granted," Quenneville said. "The last 20 games are going to be a lot tougher than the first 62, and we've got to be ready to meet that challenge.

"We shouldn't feel like we've accomplished anything to date. In fact, we should be very excited about getting better as we go along here. It certainly gets our attention, a game like today. We haven't seen many like that this year, but certainly we need a response."

The Hawks had little life from the start, taking 2 bad penalties in the first six minutes, including yet another for too many men on the ice and a Jonathan Toews trip.

"We took a couple penalties we didn't have to take to give them some momentum right off the bat," Quenneville said.

Colorado got goals from Ben Guite and Chris Stewart late in the first period. Toews' 28th goal on a power play at 6:53 of the second period made it 2-1, but late goals by Milan Hejduk and Marek Svatos killed any and all Hawks momentum.

"Being the first team to really wake up out there this afternoon helped us build some momentum and take early control of the game," Colorado's Ryan Smyth said.