ANALYSIS: Blackhawks 'Stopped Playing' When Ahead in Defeat to Buffalo

Over the last four games, the Blackhawks had never trailed in a contest until the final 10 seconds of Monday night's 6-5 loss to the Buffalo Sabres. What's more troubling, though, is the team held a lead 10 different times over that span and gave it up on nine occasions -- the latest seeing 4-0, and then 5-4, leads disappear late against the Sabres.
The blown four-goal lead comes on the heels of letting a 3-0 lead slip away on Saturday in a 5-4 overtime loss in Vegas.

POSTGAME LINKS
GAMECENTER: CHI vs. BUF
RECAP: Blackhawks Let Sabres Back in Game, Fall 6-5
MEDICAL: T. Johnson Activated Off IR, Dach Out vs. BUF
HIGHLIGHTS: Blackhawks vs. Sabres
GALLERY: Blackhawks vs. Sabres
"We stopped playing the game the right way," interim head coach Derek King said of Monday's loss. "[The players] just took it upon themselves to just go and do what they felt like they wanted to do. They didn't do anything we asked them to do. The first period, they did, they played the game the right way. The second period? Nothing. Third period? They kind of threw some flashes (but) it's like putting lipstick on -- clean it up a little bit, make it look good. Not good enough."
"What we're not doing right is right there in front of us," captain Jonathan Toews added. "It's not really a confidence thing or whether we're fighting the puck, we've just got to keep playing. We didn't do that again. Just keeping the game simple and identifying the little ways we can make things hard for them and not give them free offense. We just let them walk in everywhere and make plays through us and no sticks on pucks and right down the list."

Though the last two games are the prime examples with multi-goal leads squandered, Chicago has made a habit of letting teams climb back. On Wednesday in Anaheim, Chicago help 1-0 and 2-1 leads before allowing Anaheim to tie the game at 1-1 and 2-2 en route to an ultimate 4-2 victory. The following night in LA, it was 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 for the Blackhawks, but the Kings tied things back up each time to force a 3-3 game into a shootout, which the visitors took, 4-3.
In those two at least, the Blackhawks held their own -- and held on -- in back-and-forth games. In the last two, the wheels simply fell off.
"We've shown signs of it where we've had leads that kind of got tight or we're up 3-0 and got 3-2, but then we've closed it out and we've showed signs of playing the right way," King said. "The last couple of games, third periods and these last two periods (tonight) were totally not what I was expecting. It's my job to clean it up and make sure the guys understand there's a certain way you have to play, a certain way we want to play here as a Blackhawk and we continue to build that up."

"I think we've been playing really good hockey," Toews said. "We've been putting ourselves in good spots late in games. We just need to find a way to play in those (multi-goal lead) situations and we'll be better."
The team embarks on a challenging trip to Florida for their next two character tests, facing the Panthers and the Lightning on back-to-back nights, two teams atop the Atlantic Division.
"Disappointed. They should be disappointed," King concluded on the night. "We'll find out come next game how disappointed they really are about losing a game like that."