Blackhawks fail to show up in Edmonton, drop a 5-2 tilt to Oilers

We're going to keep this short and sweet, and the effort that goes into this recap will still be better than whatever the Chicago Blackhawks showed us on Friday night.

On Thursday, the Blackhawks scratched out a 4-2 win against the Minnesota Wild. Corey Crawford stole a game in which the Wild attempted 81 shots, to just 36 for the Hawks. You'd figure that a rebound performance, even with the two points, would be in store when they headed up to Alberta for a tilt with the lowly Edmonton Oilers. In fact, lowly is probably putting it mildly.

Regardless, the Hawks really failed to show up at any point throughout this one. They trailed the Oilers in Corsi and in shots, where the teams combined for just 43. As a result, this just seemed to be a contest in which the Blackhawks had very little interest in attending. Perhaps against a team like the Oilers, you can afford to do that and still come out with points. Hell, they did it with the Columbus Blue Jackets for years when the two were in the same division. But when you put on a lackluster show and lose to a team like this, it's an embarrassing one, regardless of the final score.

For all the bellyaching the masses do about Corey Crawford, Antti Raanta was absolutely horrendous. He allowed four goals on just 21 shots. None of the first three goals that he allowed, except maybbeeee Derek Roy's power play goal, were terrific chances for the Oilers. It's extremely unfortunate for Raanta to have an outing like this, as he's actually fared quite well this season. Probably doesn't help when he goes weeks between starts, but such is the life of a backup under Joel Quenneville.

Of course, what's a game these days without #TeuvoWatch? Teuvo Teravainen was back in the lineup and actually played well. He showed a few glimpses of that elite playmaking ability, and it certainly helped that he was playing with competent offensive players in Patrick Sharp and (to a lesser degree) Andrew Shaw. He's still a touch timid, but that quality should diminish with increased playing time. Let's hope the loss doesn't mean Dan Carcillo works his way back into the lineup, but given who we're dealing with behind the bench, anything is possible.

After a performance like tonight, we're going to go ahead and forego the Three Stars of the Game for this one. There simply weren't three performances worthy of making their way in here. Instead, we'll take this opportunity to laud Brandon Saad for his play tonight. He scored the only two goals for the Blackhawks, and was a 58 percent in Corsi%. Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa assisted on both of his goals. So it's an abbreviated three stars.

Also, we need to talk about this Michal Rozsival/David Rundblad thing. Later. We'll talk about it later.

Hawks will head home to meet up with Minnesota again on Sunday night. Perhaps being back at the United Center will provide them with a little extra juice.

Randy Holt is a staff writer for Second City Hockey. You can follow him on Twitter @RandallPnkFloyd.