Edmonton Massacre: Blackhawks embarrased by 9-2 defeat

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EDMONTON, AlbertaThe Blackhawks werent in Las Vegas on Saturday night but their minds may have been. Because for the second consecutive night, they watched a struggling team skate and score right around them.

Taylor Hall tallied a hat trick, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had five assists as the Edmonton Oilers pummeled the Blackhawks 9-2 at Rexall Place. It was the second awful loss in as many nights for the Blackhawks, who once again suffered from team-wide defensive lapses and sloppy play.

Were unhappy. Were embarrassed. Were pissed off. Im not going to lie, Jonathan Toews said. Every single guy couldve been better out there. Not one guy, not two guys, everyone.

Patrick Sharp said, right from the first shift we didnt do anything right and it carried on through the whole 60 minutes.

After beating the Vancouver Canucks 5-1 on Wednesday, the Blackhawks have now been outscored 14-4 in their last two games, including Friday nights 5-2 loss in Calgary. And while it looks like the Blackhawks will keep their plans to spend these next two days in Sin City, they have a lot to think about on their mini vacation.

That was thoroughly embarrassing, humiliating across the board, said coach Joel Quenneville. I think there are a lot of culprits tonight that share in that feeling they were off in both games. Both games werent up to par. Lets all accept some responsibility knowing it wasnt good enough.

And on Saturday it didnt take long for the Blackhawks to fall apart. Edmonton scored off a Blackhawks miscue just 48 seconds into the game. About seven minutes later the Blackhawks were down 3-1. After the first 20 minutes they were down 5-1. Starter Ray Emery was pulled after allowing those first three goals in the opening 7:32, but was back in net to start the second periodCorey Crawford allowed two in his first-period work.

But the Blackhawks biggest problems are outside the net, not in it. Theyre making a lot of mistakes, and too many of them are ending up in the back of their net.

I felt coming in I wanted to respond. I was energetic coming into the game. The next thing you know its in the back of our net, said Duncan Keith, who was a minus-4 for the second consecutive night. Obviously I have to find a way to be off the ice for some goals. Its not going my way. I just need to be better.

The Oilers were much like the Flames on Friday night: struggling and just looking for the chance to break out of a four-game losing streak. They were also missing four of their top six defensemen. It didnt matter. The Oilers were easily the more determined and opportunistic group and the Blackhawks had little to no fight in retaliation.

We had a very poor start, we kept taking penalties and kept digging ourselves into a hole, Toews said. That team was desperate to make us pay for some of the games we might have had in the past couple of years. They stuck it to us pretty good.

The Blackhawks will get away from hockey for the next two days. But they wont get away from the sting from these last two games. This is not Blackhawks hockey, and its especially not the hockey they had played in their four-game winning streak.

They need to reverse their fortunes. And that needs to happen even after they leave Vegas.

Our record is pretty good but I dont think if you went around individually and ask guys how theyre playing theyd say At the top of their game, defenseman Sean ODonnell said. Weve had spurts. We havent had a super difficult schedule. Heres hoping these two losses wake us up a little bit because we have a tough game Wednesday (in San Jose). We need to right the ship right away.

Injury update

Michael Frolik (shoulder) and Brent Seabrook (leg) did not play on Saturday night. Quenneville said both skated Saturday morning, and both will be re-evaluated when the Blackhawks resume practices on Tuesday in San Jose.

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