LOS ANGELES — The Blackhawks are tired of looking at the positives. This is a results-oriented business and they're simply not getting them right now.
The Blackhawks overcame a 2-0 and 3-2 deficit to force overtime on Saturday against the Los Angeles Kings but failed to pick up the second point in a 4-3 loss. But they were lucky to even get one.
A Kings team that has the fifth-worst points percentage in the NHL dominated the Blackhawks in every statistical category, including shot attempts (79-47), shots on goal (49-27), even-strength scoring chances (34-24) and even-strength high-danger chances (17-8), according to Natural Stat Trick.
It didn't help that the Kings had four power plays to the Blackhawks' one, which skewed the overall numbers a bit, but the point remains the same: The Blackhawks aren't putting themselves in the best positions to win hockey games right now.
"Bottom line is we still didn't play well enough to win that game," Jonathan Toews said. "So not going to talk about falling short in overtime."
With Saturday's loss, the Blackhawks fell to 3-6-3 on the season and 1-4-2 in their last seven games. They've scored the fewest goals (28) of any team. The recurring theme seems to be spending too much time in their own zone, and when they finally do get into the offensive zone, they're not generating many scoring chances or capitalizing on their opportunities when they do.
"There's situations where we have momentum and we just find ways to let it go," Toews said. "Whether it's just letting teams forecheck on our D-men, not being available for our D-man, not finding ways to get pucks out of the zone where we can get possession or get some rushes or at least find ways to get numbers down where we're dumping the puck in their zone. If we get it out of our zone, they just turn it right back, fire it right back in. We're spending all our time in our own zone, so it gets tiring."
NHL
At one point in Saturday's game, Patrick Kane (3:06), Dominik Kubalik (3:06), Adam Boqvist (2:59) and Duncan Keith (2:59) got stuck on the ice for three straight minutes without a stoppage. The Blackhawks survived that shift without giving up a goal, but that's exactly the kind of thing they're trying to eliminate from their game.
"It's frustrating, no question," head coach Jeremy Colliton said. "I think ultimately it's diagnosing what the issue is, like why we're there. When we won the puck back, we weren't able to get out cleanly. Even chip to speed and pressure on the puck and force them to make a play under pressure, a lot of times that's enough and we weren't able to do that."
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The Blackhawks have hung their goaltenders out to dry, especially as of late. In the last three games, they have given up an average of 46.3 shots and own a shot differential of -66.
The Blackhawks are having trouble stopping the bleeding, and it's preventing them from building any kind of momentum.
"Our goalies are getting peppered," Toews said. "Eventually pucks are going to go in. They're doing a great job of trying to keep us in these games. But whenever we seem to get something, we let it go and take penalties and it's just frustrating. Nothing seems to be consistent right now."
How do you get that consistency?
"That's a good question," Toews said. "Just working on that, trying to figure it out."
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