Hurtin' for certain

The Detroit Red Wings were the last team the Blackhawks needed to see Sunday night.

In a matchup between the best team in the NHL and possibly the most banged up, the result was pretty much predictable as the Red Wings downed the Hawks 3-1 before a sellout of 21,869 at the United Center.

The Hawks' injury list shrunk from eight regulars to seven with the return of Martin Havlat, but it didn't matter. Havlat was a non-factor with no shots on goal in the Hawks' season-high fifth straight defeat.

"I thought we worked," said Hawks coach Denis Savard. "But that was a powerful team out there."

The win made the Red Wings 17-2-2 in their last 21 games and 32-8-3 for the season.

The Hawks reached the halfway point in their season 19-19-3, good for 41 points. While they might be down, the Hawks do not consider themselves out of the playoff picture.

"We still believe, otherwise we would quit right now, but we're not," said Tuomo Ruutu. "It's easy to quit, but we're going to keep on going. We still have a good chance. There's another 41 games to go."

The Hawks are 13th in the Western Conference but still only 6 points out of the last playoff spot.

"We've got some catching up to do," Savard said. "We start the second half (Tuesday) in Montreal, and hopefully we get 2 points and go from there.

"We have to get 50 to 52 points to give ourselves a chance, so every 10 games we need to win six. If we do that it gets us to 93 points. I know we can't get that in a week, but hopefully we get started in Montreal."

With the offense searching for ways to score goals with just 6 in the last four games, the Hawks need difference-making goaltending -- and they didn't get it Sunday.

Nikolai Khabibulin allowed 2 goals on the first 4 shots he faced in Detroit's 3-goal first period.

Poor defensive coverage and not Khabibulin was to blame on Henrik Zetterberg's goal that opened the scoring 50 seconds into the first period. Zetterberg was alone in front and beat Khabibulin easily.

"We missed coverage on the first goal and that's something we practice every day," Savard said.

Dan Cleary made it 2-0 at 14:06 with a shot through Khabibulin from in tight. Mikael Samuelsson's power-play goal at 19:51 was one Savard didn't like, a slap shot from the far left side through Khabibulin.

"That third goal I didn't like at all, from the dot near the boards," Savard said. "I'm not blaming him for the loss, but those goals can't go in."

With Savard looking for something to spark a turnaround, maybe turning to backup Patrick Lalime on Tuesday against the Canadiens is the answer.

Samuelsson's goal came on a power play that resulted from Khabibulin's slash to the midsection of Detroit's Tomas Kopecky during a play at the net.

The Hawks stayed with the Red Wings in the second and third periods, pulling close on Rene Bourque's goal in the last minute of the second.

But the poor start was too much to overcome. The Hawks also played well in the second and third periods of Friday's 2-1 loss at Anaheim after spotting the Ducks a pair of first-period goals.

"I don't know why our starts haven't been good," said defenseman Brent Seabrook. "We've got to show up in the first period. We seem to be beating teams in the second and third periods."