King OK with 'broken record' message - now it's up to Blackhawks to respond

When Derek King arrived at his team's locker room door after the Blackhawks' 6-4 loss in Arizona on Thursday, he found it shut.

No shock there, but then ... "They wouldn't let me in," chuckled the interim coach.

Inside, the players were talking and doing their best to stick together after a sixth straight loss - this one to the worst team in the league.

The messages were the same ones we've heard ad nauseam from the Hawks over the past few years.

Play a full 60 minutes. Don't take shifts off. Don't take stupid penalties. Don't let a goal or two against deflate you down.

Doesn't the broken record get old, King was asked?

Nope. Never.

"The broken record has been played for 100 years," King said. "It doesn't matter if it's these guys or the next generation of players. Even when I played, it was the same thing. We said the right things and we believe in the right things. Sometimes it's hard to do the right things. ...

"If you're still reporting 20 years from now, a new generation of kids come in, you're gonna here the same stories: 'We need to stick together as a team. We need to get pucks deep. We need to have better net front.'

"I know they're saying the right things; it's just they have to believe in it. Hopefully they'll figure it out sometime."

Numbing numbers:

Let's take a look at some of the ugly numbers that came out of the Hawks' 6-4 loss in Arizona on Thursday:

• The Coyotes had never led by 2 goals all season ... until they went up 2-0 on goals by Dysin Mayo and Johan Larsson in the first period.

• After the Hawks tied it at 2-2, Arizona scored 3 unanswered goals to - yep - take a THREE-GOAL lead early in the third.

• Arizona, ranked 30th on the power play, went 2-for-5 on the man advantage. The Hawks have now allowed a PP goal in 14 of the last 20 games.

• Larsson, who had 46 goals in 464 NHL games, notched a hat trick. They were his first 3 goals of the season.

• Kirby Dach went 2-for-12 on faceoffs, dropping his season win percentage to 32.7.

Big picture:

Alex DeBrincat is third in the league with 21 goals. He's the only player in the top 12 on a team with a points percentage below .559.

Think about that.

• Edmonton (.559) has Leon Draisaitl (26 goals) and Connor McDavid (19).

• Washington (.706) has Alex Ovechkin (24).

• Anaheim (.597) has Troy Terry (21).

• The Rangers (.686) have Chris Kreider (21).

• The Penguins (.682) are on a 10-game winning streak, with Jake Guentzel scoring 14 goals in the last 14 games.

Now, imagine if the Hawks had ANYONE besides DeBrincat who could score consistently.

They'd be right in the hunt.

Vanishing acts:

Patrick Kane, Dominik Kubalik and Kirby Dach are three of the players who should be scoring more.

But it's not happening.

Kane hasn't scored in 11 straight games and has 2 goals in the last 23. Kubalik has 3 goals in the last 28 games. Dach, while slightly better of late, nonetheless still has just 6 goals on the season.

This gets remedied if:

• Kane shoots more, something he's actually been doing of late.

• Kubalik gets in front of the net more. He seems to have forgotten that many of his goals the first two seasons came off rebounds or deflections.

• Dach forces the goalies to make more saves. He's missing far too often. Stop going for the corners.