from Mark Lazerus of the Chicago Sun-Times,

At the end of Saturday’s morning skate, coach Joel Quenneville gathered his players at center ice for the usual quick pep talk. He was upbeat and encouraging, not screaming, but his voice echoed through the empty Xcel Energy Center.

“Let’s [bleeping] get excited!” he said. “Let’s [bleeping] feel good about ourselves after one [bleeping] game.”

This is what it’s come to for the Blackhawks. Never mind the Stanley Cup. Never mind the playoffs. The “One Goal” at this point is one spirited effort, one measly victory, one night when they can go to sleep without feeling miserable about everything.

But the Hawks couldn’t even do that Saturday night in a dreadful 3-0 loss to the Wild, a fifth consecutive defeat that left them 10 points out of the playoff picture with 27 games to go. Everyone from the players to Quenneville to general manager Stan Bowman keeps insisting there’s a lot of hockey left to be played and that the Hawks aren’t out of it, but everything from the standings to the performance to the downtrodden mood of the team says otherwise.

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