Chicago Blackhawks are ‘pissed off’ after a disastrous 7-1 loss. 5 takeaways from ‘a terrible game’ versus the Seattle Kraken.

SEATTLE — It was one of those games again.

Win or lose, the Chicago Blackhawks usually pride themselves on being scrappy, even if scrappy often is just a euphemism for losing with gumption.

After Thursday night’s 7-1 dismantling at the hands of the Seattle Kraken, what they needed was a eulogy.

“It was a terrible game,” said veteran forward Tyler Johnson, who described his emotional state as “pissed off.” “It’s just unacceptable for this to continue to happen.”

“It’s frustrating,” said Taylor Raddysh, who scored the Hawks’ only goal. “We never want to perform like that. I feel like we’re a better group than that.”

The Kraken’s Kailer Yamamoto scored two goals in the first period and they never looked back.

If the Hawks saw a crack of daylight with Raddysh’s goal 3 minutes, 3 seconds into the second period, a flurry of Kraken goals cast a pall on any comeback hopes.

Oliver Bjorkstrand scored 1:19 seconds later, and Tye Kartye and Eeli Tolvanen also piled on Hawks goalie Arvid Söderblom.

Jared McCann cemented the blowout with a power-play goal 3:07 into the third period, and by the time Pierre-Edouard Bellemare capped the night with his fourth goal of the season, the Kraken hardly celebrated.

“Right from the start, it’s not what we wanted — the start — and we kind of chased it the rest of the way and got off our game plan,” coach Luke Richardson said.

“We just talked about it after the second (period): ‘Be simple. We need a restart here.’ We came out with a little bit of passion at the beginning of the third, but we took a penalty and they unfortunately scored and it seemed to unravel a bit after that again.”

Richardson welcomed a return to the United Center, where the Hawks have played better in his estimation.

“What we need to do is regroup from this one,” he said. “It wasn’t a good performance and the players know it’s not acceptable. The battle level and compete level has got to be higher and we’ve got to be smarter. You’ve got to put those two together.”

Ryan Donato, who scored the first goal in Kraken franchise history, returned to Climate Pledge Arena for the first time as a Hawk and was treated to a video-board tribute and an ovation from the crowd.

Connor Bedard’s road point streak came to an end at 10. Alex Vlasic was taken out of the game in the third period after feeling sore, but Richardson called the move “ precautionary.”

Here are five takeaways from the loss.

1. The Hawks had different takes on what went wrong.

After the game, the players held a locker-room meeting.

“We talk about just about everything. But yeah, this is a little different,” Johnson said.

The Hawks have been here before, trying to pinpoint why — after the speeches, the pleas for consistency and competitiveness — they find themselves once again scratching their heads for answers.

“We were caught watching a lot, trying to save ourselves compared to getting after it,” Johnson said. “(We) try to make sure we didn’t do something wrong. But I feel like when you’re tentative, when you try to just kind of wait and see what happens, that’s what happens. Teams are too good when they take it at you and we just didn’t respond.”

Raddysh struck at what should be the team’s identity — what certainly was its identity last season — even in the nascency of the rebuild.

“We should be a group that comes ready and hungry every day and wanting to prove to teams that we’re ready to work,” he said. “I feel like we have a lot more to show than that and feel like we didn’t do that tonight.”

Added Richardson: “I don’t know if it’s just immaturity in the team because we have a lot of young players that are up here and playing on a lot of adrenaline, and maybe it just kind of wore off a little bit or we were a little bit gassed.

“There’s no excuses, everybody goes through crazy travel in this league, but that piled on maybe.”

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Richardson and Johnson acknowledged injuries — Seth Jones and Jarred Tinordi, temporarily; Taylor Hall for the season — have finally caught up.

“For sure we are,” Johnson said. “But at the same time, all these guys are NHL guys. They’re all in this for a reason. We have to compete. I don’t think that’s any excuse.”

Said Richardson: “Our depth chart has been hit well, but we’ve been patching holes as we’ve been going on. But once we get to a certain point, we’ve got to be perfect, and we were definitely not perfect tonight.”

2. If a team is mediocre, expect the Hawks to be at their worst.

This is not new territory.

The Hawks have beaten contenders such as the Vegas Golden Knights and gotten trounced by the likes of the Arizona Coyotes.

The Kraken entered the matchup 9-14-7, only several better than the 9-18-1 Hawks.

“I don’t know if it has to do with the team,” Johnson said. “I think it’s us coming to the game just ready to play, ready to go after them a little bit compared to just being scared to make mistakes.

“I know that we’ve had some good games against some really good opponents, but Seattle is a really good team too. They made it pretty far in the playoffs last year, they know how to compete and win.”

In last season’s playoffs, the Kraken beat the Colorado Avalanche in seven games and lost in the second round to the Dallas Stars in seven games.

They put up seven goals for the third time this season (Oct. 19 against Carolina and Nov. 22 against San Jose), the most instances in the league, according to NHL Stats.

It’s not the 8-1 loss the Coyotes handed the Hawks on Oct. 30, but the six-goal loss is plenty frustrating, Raddysh said.

“You never want to be down that much or get blown up that big,” he said. “It’s happened too many times this year as a team. Once we start bleeding a little bit, we’ve got to be able to turn it right around and we weren’t able to do that once again.”

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3. Connor Bedard is taking swings and misses, but that’ll correct itself.

Bedard entered the game with the 13th most misses in the NHL (46) but the 36th most shots (86).

A lot of those misses seem to have come on shots on which he tried to pick holes, particularly angle shots to the corners. He’ll eventually start landing more of those as he fine-tunes his shot, but in the interim, Richardson wants him to rethink his approach.

“Sometimes he’ll realize that maybe he’s put himself in a position where he’s held onto it a little too long and maybe he should turn back … and move it, (make) one or two quick passes, and try it again,” Richardson said.

It’s a fine line. You don’t want to get too choosy, particularly on the power play, on which seconds are precious.

“I think some of it is selectional,” Richardson said. “He’ll probably have a better shot selection or he’ll be able to defer to what’s a good shot and what’s a good time to pass off or turn back and try it again.

“More reps, more time in the league, knowing who he’s playing against, too, and who’s good (at) defending when he shoots.”

4. Is Arvid Söderblom in meltdown mode?

He gave up seven goals for the second time this season and has allowed at least three goals in his last six starts.

You can talk about bad bounces and poor defense, which certainly are true, but goalies are expected to stop the puck even after a breakdown. And frankly, some have been softies.

There’s a strong argument to be made that Richardson should’ve pulled Söderblom after the second period with the Hawks down 5-1, but the coach thought differently.

“I was going to let him battle it out in the third,” Richardson said. “There were a couple unlucky bounces on the first two goals in the first period. We got a goal and we made a poor change and a couple giveaways and they started zinging the puck around, so I’m not really sure if he was at fault for any in the second.

“But when the puck went in on the power play and right after that (Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored, 21 seconds later), I just thought we’ve got to get him out. It starts to become too much for somebody. Petr (Mrázek) went in and stabilized things.”

Richardson isn’t worried about the effect rough outings might have on Söderblom’s psyche.

“He usually resets well and he’s a calm, confident goalie,” Richardson said. “Unfortunately we weren’t great in front of him tonight and it probably wasn’t his best performance either.”

5. The young defensemen are getting a crash course.

With Jones and Tinordi scratched, young blue liners such as Alex Vlasic, Isaak Phillips, Filip Roos and Louis Creiver were thrown into the deep end against Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers.

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They were brimming with confidence after surviving that encounter.

“I think everyone was kind of like, you know, think we’re going to get smoked,” Phillips said. “We did a good job of that. We all believe we’re NHL defensemen as well, and (McDavid’s) another NHL player.”

Roos had a block in his season debut Tuesday in Edmonton.

“Just trying to be a little bit more mature out there,” he said before Thursday’s game. “It feels like I know more of the game a little bit better now since last year.”

Things didn’t turn out so well against the Kraken. Phillips was on the ice for two Kraken goals and Roos for three.

But then again, there was nary a Hawks defenseman who went unscathed.