Hawks suffer "embarrassing" loss to Minnesota

After the first period in Monday night's game between the Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild, Hawks head coach Gerald Gallant had a simple message for his club after being down 1-0.

"It was a rough start, but no reason to get down about it. We know who we are and how we can respond," Gallant had said.

The Blackhawks then gave up four goals in the span of 1:58 to start the second period. With 16:36 left in the second, Chicago was down 5-0.

"Embarrassing. Truly was. I've been here for five seasons and I can't remember giving up that many goals in such a short period of time. Just terrible."

Gallant had nothing positive to say after the 6-2 loss to the Wild. When asked if he thought of pulling goaltender Curtis McElhinney during the onslaught, he nearly snapped at the reporter asking the question.

"Don't ask me about if I thought about this or that tonight guys, please," stated Gallant. "We deserved what we got tonight. We came into this building and apparently forgot how to play the game. Nothing good to take away here."

For the fourth time in five games, Chicago's fourth line contributed the lions share of the offense. Colton Sissons and Branden Tanev had the Hawks' only goals.

"Those guys have played really well for us and we wasted it tonight," said center Jordan Staal. "The guys here to produce have to be more consistent. Myself included. But we can't let teams like Minnesota do what they did tonight."

Chicago had an opportunity to pull within a point of idle Dallas for a top three spot in the Central Division. The Hawks still have a game in hand on the Stars, but now find themselves eight points behind Minnesota for the division lead.

"There's still a lot of games left to play, but we're going nowhere playing like this," said defenseman Matt Niskanen, who along with partner Dmitry Orlov was a combined minus-six on the night. "There's no excuse for it and we all expect more from ourselves."