Blackhawks’ skid continues in blowout loss to Avalanche

DENVER — The Avalanche had just 48 points last season, a staggering 21 fewer than any other team in the NHL. Their star player, Matt Duchene, has been the subject of trade rumors for months and desperately wants out. Their backup goalie was in net Saturday night. And a day earlier, they got run out of Las Vegas in a humiliating 7-0 loss to the Golden Knights.

Well, 27 minutes into Saturday night’s game at Pepsi Center, those same Avs were up by five goals on the Blackhawks. It’s still early, and anything that happens in the first month of a seven-month season should be taken with a healthy dose of perspective. But here are the facts in the wake of a 6-3 loss:

The Hawks have lost five of their last six games and three straight in regulation.

The Hawks have scored two or fewer goals in six of their last eight games, and if not for a meaningless late goal, it would have been seven.

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The Hawks have come up empty on 15 straight power plays and 20 of their last 21.

The Hawks are a .500 team (in terms of points earned) this late in the season for the first time since they were 11-11-2 during the 2010-11 season.

The Hawks, right now, are not very good.

“We don’t play our game, we don’t play how we’re supposed to play,” said Artem Anisimov, who scored for the second straight game. “We lose every battle. We just need to check first — and not allow five goals in the first half of the game.”

So much for the positive momentum generated by a hard-luck loss at home to the Predators on Friday. Anton Forsberg gave up five goals on 20 shots before being yanked in the second period, and Nathan MacKinnon had two goals and two assists as the Avs ran wild over the Hawks for the first half of the game.

The Hawks — as they’ve been doing for a couple of weeks now — tried to take the positives out of the effort. Coach Joel Quenneville not-so-subtly laid much of the blame at Forsberg’s feet, saying the Hawks only gave up “single-digit” scoring chances. Jonathan Toews pointed to a second-half push that saw the Hawks fire 34 shots at Jonathan Bernier over the last two periods. Anisimov shrugged off some of it as bad puck luck.

But the fact is, the Hawks are mired in one of their worst stretches in recent memory, unable to string together 60 solid minutes on a given night. They’re alternately tremendous and terrible.

Yes, it’s early. But yes, it’s concerning.

“We get ourselves in tight spots,” Toews said. “We’ve been playing good hockey at times, sporadically, but obviously it’s not good enough. We get ourselves down in games, and it’s just too little, too late to try and come back. We’ve got to be way more consistent.”

The Hawks trailed 3-0 after one period and 5-0 early in the second. That’s when Forsberg got the hook, and the Hawks got the message. Nick Schmaltz and Anisimov scored to give the Hawks life, and maybe things turn out differently if Bernier doesn’t glove a Ryan Hartman breakaway early in the third.

But instead, Rocco Grimaldi iced the game at 8:45 of the third, and Hartman’s late goal was mere window dressing.

NOTE: Defenseman Gustav Forsling left the game with an upper-body injury after the first period and didn’t return. His status for Wednesday’s game against the Flyers is uncertain.

Follow me on Twitter @MarkLazerus.

Email: mlazerus@suntimes.com