Blackhawks’ winning streak over, but plenty of positives remain

The Blackhawks’ strategies had dominated opponents so thoroughly in recent weeks that it took the Hawks too long to adjust when they didn’t work Thursday.

That ultimately resulted in a 4-2 loss to the Hurricanes that halted the Hawks’ four-game winning streak.

But not all was lost. The Hawks finally responded to adversity and changed their tactics in the third period. And that produced 20 shots on goal, two goals and nearly their most dramatic comeback of the season.

‘‘I liked that we showed some fight in the third and we got going and put a scare into them,’’ coach Jeremy Colliton said. ‘‘But it’s frustrating because we showed that was a winnable game if we . . . turned it on a little bit earlier.’’

Against the hard-forechecking Hurricanes, who pummeled the old-look Hawks 4-0 in late October, the transition attacks that have fueled this November turnaround dried up for the first 40 minutes.

Unable to get maintain possession or get the puck cleanly out of their defensive zone, the Hawks weren’t able to take advantage of their high wingers and exploit the ample counterattacking space that has come so easily to them lately. At the second intermission, they trailed 3-0 and were being outshot 27-12.

‘‘It seemed like every single wall battle, [the Hurricanes] came out with the puck,’’ Colliton said. ‘‘And then it’s hard to play because we couldn’t generate anything because we never had the puck and we couldn’t get out under control.’’

Once they turned the tide, however, the Hawks looked every bit as dangerous as the team that had scored 28 goals its last six games. The line of Patrick Kane, Dylan Strome and Alex DeBrincat found its legs, defensemen jumped regularly into the rush — resulting in goals from Erik Gustafsson and Connor Murphy — and the Hawks came close to tying the score several times.

Goalie Robin Lehner, who wasn’t at his best but still made 29 saves, blamed the struggles on individual players trying to do too much.

‘‘We started chasing, we let up on a three-on-one [and] two-on-one, plus three [or] four breakaways because we want to do it alone,’’ Lehner said. ‘‘That’s what we did a little bit in the beginning of the season. That’s what we have stopped doing.’’

Tuesday demonstrated two key differences from the beginning of the season, though. First, the Hawks have the confidence now to push back, even on bad nights. Second, they have a formula working well enough that one bad night shouldn’t kill all their momentum.

‘‘Go to bed, let this one go,’’ Lehner said, yawning for good measure. ‘‘Come Thursday, win a game. Pretty simple.’’

Strange streak continues

One team has held a 2-0 lead in each of the Hawks’ last 14 games. The Hurricanes kept that streak alive when Martin Necas and Andrei Svechnikov scored the first two goals Tuesday.

If the chance of each team scoring the second goal is roughly 50 percent, the odds of this streak occurring are about .00006 percent.