Sloppy Hawks fall to Oilers 7-4

It figures to only get tougher for the Blackhawks.

But can it get any uglier than Friday's 7-4 loss to the Edmonton Oilers at the United Center?

That's a question to be answered in the coming weeks.

So much for the early schedule that appeared so favorable. The embarrassing loss to the Oilers made the Hawks 4-4 on home ice with a stretch of 10 of 14 on the road now awaiting them.

“We took advantage of our home schedule last year and that's something that we have to get back on track for sure,” Hawks coach Joel Quenneville said.

The Hawks have played sloppy team defense basically since opening night, but the bottom fell out Friday night.

The Oilers, who snapped a six-game losing streak and won at the UC for the first time since 2004, scored 7 goals on 22 shots.

“Chicago may have underestimated us and we played as hard as we could,” Oilers coach Tom Renney said.

Thirteen Hawks were minus players with Tomas Kopecky minus-5 and Troy Brouwer and Nick Boynton minus-3 each.

“It's just little plays ands things we've been talking about,” defenseman Duncan Keith said. “Until we understand the way we need to play and the way we need to think out there as a group, until we figure that out it's not going to cut it playing like that.”

If Quenneville is unhappy with his team's 6-5-1 record after 12 games he is keeping his thoughts to himself. There were no rants or threats from the coach after what was the worst loss of the season.

“Their rush game tonight certainly caught us either flat-footed or in between,” Quenneville said. “They got a couple-3 goals early in the game off of whether it was our gap or not filling the proper lanes or not respecting their speed or skill.”

Dave Bolland was the Hawks' only plus player but didn't play in the third period. It was a year ago that Bolland's back acted up to the point where he needed surgery.

The Hawks outshot the Oilers 41-22, but you wouldn't know that by the final score.

“We had some chances early, and pretty good quality as well, but I always measure a team by how well we play without the puck and it wasn't good enough,” Quenneville said. “The dependability, reliability and predictability defensively wasn't there.”

It was a disaster from the start. Hawks starting goalie Marty Turco couldn't glove Taylor Hall's long wrist shot 1:53 into the game, giving the young Oilers a lot of life. Not even Jonathan Toews' power-play goal at 9:49 that tied it could give the Hawks any momentum.

The Oilers got 3 goals in a span of 69 seconds from Ales Hemsky, Jordan Eberle and Sam Gagner late in the first period as the Hawks collapsed defensively all around Turco.

“A couple of those goals were cheap, but we'll take them,” Eberle said.

Turco was pulled to start the second period after allowing 4 goals on 12 shots with the Hawks behind 4-2, but backup Corey Crawford wasn't sharp.

Trailing 5-2, the Hawks failed on a 5-on-3 power play early in the second period that could have helped get them back in the game.

Jake Dowell scored shortly after the power play to make it 5-3, but the Oilers got a killer goal when Crawford let Ryan Jones beat him between the pads with 2:34 left in the period.

Tim Sassone's game tracker

Oilers 7, Blackhawks 4

Three stars

1. Jordan Eberle, Oilers: A goal and assist for the impressive rookie center.

2. Shawn Horcoff, Oilers: Two assists in 20-plus minutes and won 10 of 17 faceoffs.

3. Brent Seabrook, Hawks: At least he tried to be physical with 8 hits and was “only” minus-1.

Bright spot

Patrick Sharp scored his NHL-leading 10th goal on a mostly forgettable night for the Hawks.

By the numbers

The Hawks blocked only 6 shots, just 2 by defensemen.