As Blackhawks' losing streak continues, Connor Murphy knows it's time to reframe mindset

Veteran Blackhawks defenseman Connor Murphy has experienced so many years of losing in Chicago that he has acclimated to the usual tides of a basement-dwelling season.

During the stretch run after the trade-deadline sell-off, the team’s longest-tenured player has ridden this ride enough times to know the best approach involves reframing expectations.

As the Hawks’ losing streak reached seven with a 4-1 defeat Saturday against the Blues — dropping them to 20-41-9, including 7-24-5 on the road — there’s really no other way to maintain sanity.

“It’s the nature of this time of the year, after trading guys away and having a young team,” Murphy said Friday. “You change your mindset to look at how we’re playing. Obviously, we want to win every game, but you do want to make sure your details and how you play as a team is in order, and then the wins come.

“It seems like we’re back more in that stage of trying to get our game complete and worry about big details that we’re giving up. It’s magnified this time of the year when you’re playing against teams that are gearing up for playoffs. A turnover turns into a goal more than it did two months ago. There’s things like that we’re just going to have to learn.”

The team dynamic feels different to Murphy because the roster has turned over so much since the fall.

“We were growing as a team with a lot of different guys before, and now we’re trying to reset that with new players,” Murphy said. “It’s a weird, hard reality. It sets in more, where you are in the standings, and knowing there is no hope of getting much better for the remainder of the season. ... But you still have to have fun, keep bonding with young guys and make sure that they’re feeling comfortable to be themselves and play their game.”

The dynamic might change even more during the season’s final weeks if veteran defenseman Alec Martinez and veteran forward Jason Dickinson, who were injured Saturday, end up missing significant time.

Martinez crashed awkwardly into the boards in the first period after getting tripped and pushed by Blues forward Jake Neighbours, although it seemed more like an unfortunate play than a dirty one. Dickinson immediately fought Neighbors, and neither Hawk returned to the game afterward.

The Blues — who are battling for their playoff lives while the Hawks play out the string — finally broke through late in the second period, taking a 2-0 lead with goals two minutes apart.

Ilya Mikheyev scored the Hawks’ second short-handed goal of the season, but the Blues extended the lead in the third period.

Young defenseman Ethan Del Mastro — a bright spot over the past few months — endured a rare rough game, making overly aggressive plays at the defensive blue line that led to him getting beat on two goals.

“That third [Blues] goal early in the third set us back,” interim coach Anders Sorensen told reporters in St. Louis. “But overall, I thought we competed hard and stuck with it, for the most part.”

The Hawks’ decision to start goalie Arvid Soderblom — before Spencer Knight starts Sunday at home against the Flyers — was also curious, considering the Blues have historically dominated Soderblom.

Sure enough, Soderblom saved only 21 of 25 shots, dropping his season save percentage below .900 (to .899) for the first time.

Blues blues

Since the start of the 2019-20 season, the Hawks are a woeful 3-15-1 against the rival Blues, including their humiliating loss in the Winter Classic this season.

The teams have played a number of crazy games during that span — always in St. Louis, not Chicago — that the Blues have managed to win every time. Enterprise Center has been largely a house of horrors for the Hawks lately.

In November 2019, the Hawks blew a 3-0, third-period lead to lose 4-3 in regulation. In February 2020, they let a 3-1 lead slip away to trail 4-3 in the third period, then reclaimed a 5-4 lead and then lost 6-5 in regulation, with Blues forward Zach Sanford — who now plays for Rockford — scoring the winning goal.

In December 2023, Connor Bedard scored his famous lacrosse-style goal in St. Louis and Nick Foligno scored short-handed early in the third period to give the Hawks a 5-2 lead, but the Blues stormed back to win 7-5 in regulation. Last month saw a 6-5 loss in St. Louis — following an absurd 10-round shootout — in which the Hawks led 2-0 and 5-4 but again couldn’t close it out.

How it compares

Amazingly, the Hawks’ record against the Blues isn’t their worst mark against an opponent over the last six seasons. They’re 2-13-0 against the Canucks (against whom they’ve lost 10 straight) and 2-13-3 against the Wild (with zero wins in Minnesota).

They’re not too much better against the Jets (4-11-3), Predators (6-15-6), Hurricanes (3-13-2) and Lightning (4-12-2) during that span, either.

There are only four teams against whom the Hawks have won more than half of their games during that span: the Ducks (11-3-1), Senators (6-1-1), Blue Jackets (10-8-0) and Sharks (8-7-0).