Wow. Was this trip really necessary? Talk about ugly.
The Chicago Blackhawks showed the Avalanche on Friday night just how far this team needs to go to join the NHL elite. Pretty far.
The defending Stanley Cup champions certainly did a number on the Avalanche, with Patrick Sharp leading the way in a 7-2 rout in the first game following the league's three-day Christmas break. Sharp celebrated his 32nd birthday with a hat trick -- he completed it 27 seconds into the second period -- and a super assist in which he knocked the puck away from Matt Duchene on a breakaway and fed Jonathan Toews for a goal and a 5-0 lead.
"That's the story of the night for us," Avalanche coach Patrick Roy told reporters. "You're going on a breakaway and then all of a sudden the puck goes the other way and it's a breakaway on the other side and they score a nice goal. It was a great effort by Sharp and a great move by Toews."
The only good news for the Avalanche on this otherwise dreadful night is that Minnesota lost 6-4 to Winnipeg. The Avalanche remains four points ahead of the Wild in the race for third place in the Central Division with three games in hand. But watch out for Dallas; the Stars knocked off Nashville to move within five points of the Avalanche and they've played the same number of games.
The Avalanche will take a three-game losing streak (0-1-2) and 4-5-3 December record into Sunday's match with the Jets to begin a seven-game homestand. Semyon Varlamov will be in goal. He replaced Jean-Sebastien Giguere (seven goals, 24 shots) to start the third period Friday and turned aside all 13 shots he faced. The Hawks outshot the Avalanche 37-18.
"I won't blame our goaltender tonight," Roy said. "We didn't support him. We didn't play well in front of him. You win as a team, you lose as a team. Chicago was without a doubt the best team on the ice and they won that hockey game. They did a lot of good things out there and we didn't have our 'A' game. If we don't have our 'A' game, we're going to come up short against a team like this. They were sharp, that's all I can say."
Yeah, Patrick Sharp. He scored twice in the first period when the Hawks took a 3-0 lead, got his hat trick in the opening minute of the second period and made that terrific play to set up Toews.
"I was thinking of replacing Jiggy after the first, but I thought it would be unfair to do that because he's played so well for us this year," Roy said. "I wanted to give him a chance and when they scored quickly -- four and five -- I didn't want to put Varly in and see him get a groin injury or some kind of injury because he hadn't had a chance to warm up. I was just hoping to finish the second period to give him a chance to stay in the game, but that wasn't the case."
Giguere's goals-against average took a beating, rising from 1.96 to 2.51. His save percentage went from .935 to .918. He also was struck on the chin portion of his goalie mask by a puck shot by Brandon Bollig late in the second period that shook him up a bit.
Plenty of Hawks had big nights. Aside from Sharp, Toews had two goals and two assists, Duncan Keith had three assists, Michal Handzus and Kris Versteeg each had a goal and an assist, and Patrick Kane stretched his point-scoring streak to 13 games with an assist. Goalie Antti Raanta stopped 16 shots and has permitted two goals or fewer in 12 of 13 games this season.
The Avalanche? Top defensemen Jan Hejda and Erik Johnson were minus-4 apiece and all three members of the Ryan O'Reilly-Duchene-Nathan MacKinnon line were minus-3. Duchene played in his 300th NHL game.
Paul Stastny, who turned 28 Friday, scored the Avalanche's first goal, Gabriel Landeskog had a goal and an assist, and PA Parenteau had two assists. Defenseman Ryan Wilson replaced Cory Sarich in the lineup and played 21:25 in his first game since Nov. 6 when he hurt his back. Defenseman Tyson Barrie logged 22:02 and somehow managed to post a plus-1 rating.