Blackhawks Postgame Chatter: ‘Losing Sucks–Especially When You Play Bad’

CHICAGO – Philipp Kurashev was pretty straightforward when asked about how the Blackhawks continued losing, now at six straight games.

“Yeah, it’s really frustrating,” Kurashev said.  “Losing sucks, especially when you play bad and you kind of deserve to lose. It’s frustrating.”

Blackhawks forward Ryan Donato sees how much the younger players hate the continued losing, which now hit six games after a 5-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets Saturday night. So what can the veterans say to the younger group of Hawks as they endure another long stretch of losses?

“I think you tell them it’s not all right to lose, right?” Donato explained. “That’s the biggest thing. And they’re not comfortable with losing either. I think you’ve just got to learn how to play the game. Learn to play an 80-game season … and keep playing positive because at the end of the day there’s so many things you can learn throughout an entire season.”

Donato had a goal and an assist in the effort and the shift to the top line stood out for a team that looked sloppy for large parts of the game. It’s especially tougher as Chicago has been outscored by a wide margin of 10-2 in its last two games. So how should the Blackhawks counter this?

“When it’s bouncing on you and bouncing against you, you have to simplify and slash and support and advance the puck and just play in the other team’s zone,” head coach Luke Richardson said.  “We just couldn’t figure that out quick enough.”

Continued Losses Pushing Blackhawks Mentally

Kurashev, who had the first goal and also assisted on Donato’s, assessed that the Blackhawks were just unable to play a game that has worked for them in the past.

“I think we were just overall not really executing today, on our passes and stuff they were never flat, and bouncing pucks,” Kurashev said.  “We’ve got to figure it out how to play in those circumstances. We didn’t do a good job tonight.”

Kurashev’s words were in line with Richardson’s, who argued that the Blackhawks have played some good hockey against teams only to fall. Saturday’s effort was flat, but hardly an excuse to have the showing that occurred.

“You can’t fold the tent with one disappointing loss against a really good team like Colorado,” Richardson said.  “And then just disregard the structure of how we’re supposed to play and compete until we can get out of it and get a little bit of puck luck and score some goals. We can’t just decide to go our own path, and that’s kinda the way it went tonight.”

Indeed it’s how it went. But Donato sees a hungry group of young players who will continue to do the things necessary to ensure that they don’t continue to “fold the tent” as Richardson would say.

“I think these young guys are hungry–they don’t like losing,” Donato said.  “That’s a good thing. But I think that’s the biggest thing I take away from it. That’s a bright spot in the future is how sick of losing these guys are. I’m happy to be part of that and hopefully we can grow it.”

They’ll have a pretty good chance to show it against Colorado on Monday.

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