Blackhawks’ losing streak reaches six

DENVER – Not too much time passed before Andrew Brunette worked his way back into the Blackhawks lineup on Tuesday night, and from the veteran’s perspective, not too much had changed in the race to the postseason and his club’s prevailing desperation.

The Western Conference was still a dust storm of powerhouses gobbling up points, and the Hawks were still a team in a five-game losing streak trying not to cough up more space in the standings.

“Life in the Western Conference is stressful all the time,” Brunette said before Tuesday night’s affair versus the Avalanche. “Even from November, you lose a couple in a row, you’re stressed out.

“We all feel the pressure to get points because if you fall behind in this conference its real tough to come back … The mentality is to try to get points every game. We have to get back on track again. Life in the Western Conference, it’s day-to-day.”

Life seems just a little more wretched, then, after Tuesday night. The Hawks fell to the Avalanche 5-2 to extend the losing streak to six and the winless stretch to nearly three weeks, and all that’s left is another five road games during this pitiless stretch.

David Jones scored twice, including an insurance goal at 11:42 of the third period. Gabriel Landeskog scored on a feed from Paul Stastny 38 seconds into the final period to snap a 2-2 tie.

Kyle Quincey added an empty-netter at 17:58 to close out the scoring.

One conclusion seemed inevitable before the game: One team would out-desperate the other, given the matching winless skids.

There was nothing doing early on, with Ray Emery turning away nine shots and his Avalanche counterpart, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, doing the same.

The Hawks finally struck not too long after the break. A Duncan Keith blast from the point was kicked to the right of the goal, where Brent Seabrook found himself all alone with the puck on his blade. He fired in his fifth goal of the season for a 1-0 lead 31 seconds into the period, and all seemed temporarily well.

Then, soon, all was not well. All was terribly bad, in fact, with collapses in all areas. A Jonathan Toews giveaway in the offensive zone produced an Avalanche 2-on-1 on which Emery had zero chance with Ryan O’Reilly feeding Peter Mueller for the finish and a 1-1 tie at the 3:24 mark.