While the result reads as another lopsided loss for the Blackhawks, Tuesday's game was different for large stretches of the contest. Rather than chasing an early deficit as they've done in the first three skates, dominating the play early, staying in it for large stretches and building momentum before ultimately an poor stretch late proved fatal.
"We have to look at the positives here," defenseman Seth Jones said. "Tonight we built on it. We played 50-something minutes of good hockey tonight. Some of the plays in the third, we make a play and it's in the back of our net. It's something that can happen against a team like the Islanders that can are patient and make you earn everything you're going to get."
"You know, we'll find that consistency as a team, we'll settle in," Toews said. "I think every team goes through a spurt in the year where you're gonna have four, five, six games that don't go your way and nothing really feels like it's rolling downhill for you. It's frustrating, no doubt. But whenever you go through that you have a choice and the only choice for us is to keep working through it and to look for solutions to get better because of it, take advantage of it."
The next test comes Thursday as the Vancouver Canucks come to the United Center and the Blackhawks will look to take another step forward.
"We still have to, as a team, hold onto the good parts and build on it and understand that when you're not very good for the first three games, don't expect to just turn it on and play well and get the result and the bounces. It's just never how it works. That's what happened tonight."
"We need to get in the win column here on Thursday," Jones said.