All the optimism from the Blackhawks’ stirring road trip evaporated Monday as quickly as the United Center scoreboard turned black.
The Hawks will limp into the NHL’s three-day holiday break after a 7-1 loss to the bottom-feeding Devils, who entered the night second-to-last in the league with only 11 victories in 35 games. It was the Hawks’ most lopsided home loss in 15 years.
‘‘We should be embarrassed,’’ coach Jeremy Colliton said. ‘‘If we’re going to make progress, you’ve got to give yourself a chance.
‘‘Seems like we need to start over all the time. I’ve made the point in the games, we’ve had trouble stringing shifts together. Well, we have trouble stringing performances together. So you just can’t build any momentum.’’
The third-largest crowd of the season sensed another step forward in the Hawks’ purported turnaround after forward Zack Smith gave them an early lead.
But in the next two hours, the fans witnessed seven unanswered goals by the Devils — four in a second period in which the Hawks yielded 23 shots on goal — a merciful pull of goalie Corey Crawford and the apparent near-death of the new Jumbotron, which failed to function for a lengthy stretch.
By the time the scoreboard rebooted, it portrayed a scene as ugly as the one that had been developing on the ice beneath it.
The Hawks enjoyed seven power plays but scored zero goals and allowed a short-hander. It was their worst power-play performance since 2009. The new first line, reuniting Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, proved to a be a failure. Even defenseman Duncan Keith suffered a subpar night.
‘‘Even if you’re feeling good as a team, you come off a couple of big wins, there’s no game where you can cakewalk, and it just looks like that was our assumption tonight,’’ Toews said.
The Hawks were in position to enter the break with victories in four of their last five games, including consecutive road triumphs last week against the Jets and Avalanche that provided so much excitement.
Instead, they turned in an awful performance.
‘‘We showed a great example these last two games on the road of how we want to play for each other, and that’s got to be the standard,’’ Toews said. ‘‘[But] we just completely got away from it tonight. Everything fell apart today.’’
Boqvist injured
Hawks defenseman Adam Boqvist and Devils center Jesper Boqvist, his older brother, spoke before the game about their excitement for their first NHL meeting — with their father in attendance, no less.
Both, however, left the game with injuries in the first period.
The Hawks’ Boqvist exited with an injury to his right shoulder, and the Devils’ Boqvist appeared shaken up by a massive hit from Hawks defenseman Dennis Gilbert. Neither returned.
Quenneville debuts
Forward John Quenneville, a cousin of former Hawks coach Joel Quenneville, was recalled Sunday from the American Hockey League and played in his first game for the Hawks.
Quenneville had been on fire in Rockford, notching eight points in his last five games. But in his first appearance with the Hawks — against his old team, coincidentally — he had zero shots in 8 minutes, 20 seconds of ice time.
