"We have star players, too, that don’t seem to be protected as well as some of the other teams’ stars," Blackhawks captain Foligno said.

At 4:52 of the second period, Mikko Rantanen scored his first goal as a member of the Hurricanes. One minute later (5:59), Jaccob Slavin made it 3-1. For a team as offensively challenged as the Blackhawks, that felt like a hill too steep to climb.

At the time of Davidson's speech, the Blackhawks sit dead-last in the NHL standings with a 15-29-5 record and 35 total points, albeit with four games in hand over the 31st-ranked San Jose Sharks.