If the Blackhawks don't get on the same page and play like they should, they will miss the playoffs.
EDMONTON -- They limped up Highway 2 with an 0-2 jag on, making a trip through Western Canada where the geography says the Chicago Blackhawks are going north.
In the National Hockey League standings however, the 'Hawks are going south.
They are 53 games into the season as defending Stanley Cup champions, yet the Blackhawks are still waiting on their form to show up after a summer of partying and parading with Big Stanley across the hockey world.
The booze is all gone, the Cup is back home in Toronto, yet the laissez-faire attitude remains. On a sub-zero day in Northern Alberta, after losing a crucial-four-pointer in Calgary Monday night, the cold hard truth was that -- right now -- this isn't even a playoff team.
And the veteran Blackhawks are getting fed up.
"[Expletive] the power play," defenceman Duncan Keith told ESPN Chicago after the 4-2 loss in Calgary, in which the power play went 0-for-4. "Nobody goes to the net to score goals. That's why we don't win."
When a defenceman says that about his forwards, in a dressing room that has experienced winning as recently as this one, you know we are reaching critical mass.
"There have just been too many ups and downs. You can look at a lot of different reasons … we just haven't been good enough," Patrick Kane said in a sedate Chicago room Tuesday, after a tough Joel Quenneville practice at Rexall Place. "You can say bodies to the net, you can pucks to the net. We had three shots in the first period. That's obviously not getting it done."
This is a salary cap story about a team that won the Stanley Cup, then blew its chemistry apart in losing six players the salary cap would not let Chicago afford.
In departed players John Madden, Andrew Ladd, Ben Eager, Dustin Byfuglien and Adam Burish, the Hawks lost more size, character and experience by three than Wednesday's opponents -- the Edmonton Oilers -- has on its entire roster. And that's not counting Kris Versteeg, who ended up in Toronto.
The chemistry was perfect in Chicago last year, producing a nearly perfect locker room and a championship team.
This season the Hawks have been waiting, waiting to start playing that consistent, winning game that they played last season. Now, they're 53 games in and Quenneville is still holding bag skates on the day between road games.
"We shouldn't have to have wake-up calls," said captain Jonathan Toews. "It should come from within our locker room.
"It doesn't come down to a lot of technical things," he continued. "That's the disappointing thing: Knowing how good this team can be, and being in this situation with (29) games left to play."
Toews is known inside the Blackhawks room by the nickname Captain Serious. He was the moral compass of this team last season, but aptly flanked by lieutenants like Ladd and Madden. When the energy fell, players like Burish and Eager were on hand to throw a hit, have a fight, or in Burish's case, drive a player like Daniel Sedin completely out of his mind, and right into the penalty box.
The quiet word out of this dressing room this season is that Toews isn't pleased with Kane's commitment. That the "we'll get to that tomorrow" Kane faction is winning the day over the "let's get on this right now" Toews group.
We're 53 games into the season and this team still has not looked anything like a Stanley Cup contender for more than two or three games in a row. And if they were still looking for that lost element Tuesday in Edmonton, which they were, it is fair to wonder if that elusive chemistry will be found at all this year by Toews and the boys.
"You know, we played pretty good in Vancouver (a 4-3 Chicago loss), but it seemed to get away," Keith said Tuesday. "Then in Calgary, a slow start … and you lose. It's unacceptable.
"The battle and compete levels need to go way up."
Those things should be fresh in the memories of every player in this dressing room, the kind of commitment that put a Stanley Cup ring on their finger eight short months ago. But here the Blackhawks sit, three points behind and two teams removed from the eighth-place Calgary Flames, by far a hungrier and more desperate, urgent hockey team right now.
"The compete level. That's obviously why we lost the (Calgary) game. It wasn't there," Kane said. "Not working hard enough: That's probably (where) we've had our ups an downs this year."
They're past the halfway point of the season and Patrick Kane is still using the proviso "probably."
If they don't a drop word like that, they're "probably" not going to make the playoffs in the West this year.
And wouldn't that be a waste?
Mark Spector is the lead columnist for Sportsnet.ca
Follow me on Twitter.com @SportsnetSpec
