No need to panic over two-game blip
A little angst isn't bad for an NHL team.
Not in January. April maybe. May certainly. But not in Game 46 of an 82-game regular season.
If anything, a two-game losing streak can inspire the Blackhawks to refocus their perspective and re-establish their priorities.
The Hawks had a lost weekend and in the past that would have been reason for alarm - break them up, dump their salaries.
Not now, though. Not with this team. Not for a group as talented and earnest as this one.
Supporters need not utter, "Uh-oh." Frozen River City isn't in trouble. This clearly remains one of the league's premier teams, not one without problems but one without many.
Saturday the Hawks blew a 4-goal lead and lost in a shootout at Minnesota. Sunday they lost to Anaheim 3-1 in the United Center.
A measure of the feelings for these Hawks was that the UC didn't turn into a panic room, and the 21,708 fans didn't become an angry mob.
If the Hawks were the Bulls in this same building, yes, disgust might have set in. If they were the Bears in Soldier, yes, disgust certainly would have.
But these were the Hawks, so hardly any boos were heard. There weren't many when the Ducks took a 2-0 lead in the first period, when they made it 3-1 with an empty netter in the final minute or when time expired.
Why boo a good team that had a bad weekend? If anything, simply wonder how this blip happened.
Like, how does a team with this much offense go 77 minutes and 32 seconds over two games without a goal?
How is it outscored 6-0 over most of four periods while outshooting the Wild and Ducks 49-18?
How does it lose by 2 goals despite outshooting Anaheim 43-12 to tie both the Ducks' lowest shot total in a game and the Hawks' lowest total allowed in a game?
Fate, circumstance, blips, whatever - that's how.
"There are ups and downs during a season," Hawks' defenseman Brian Campbell said, "but we probably could've responded better tonight."
The Hawks seem to understand that they might have become a little cocky while building a 31-9-4 record. They know they have to get back to business after an 0-2 weekend.
No team in any sport plays hard every minute of every game, and the Hawks didn't during all of the past two nights. But the sense is they want to and will get back to trying to.
"Maybe there wasn't the energy across the board," head coach Joel Quenneville said of the latest loss.
The Hawks just completed 18 games in 32 days. They could have used the stretch as a reason for slowing down, but not as an excuse.
Three days off now should be long enough for the Hawks to locate their legs, or as Quenneville put it, "get rest, excited and re-energized."
They'll play Columbus in the United Center on Thursday night before embarking on an 8-game road trip that will be another in a long, hard, cold winter of tests.
A good guess still is the Blackhawks will pass most of them with the help of a little energizing angst along the way.