by By Bruce Brothers bbrothers@pioneerpress.com , St. Paul Pioneer Press

Even featuring a lineup missing injured Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa, the Chicago Blackhawks meticulously disassembled anything resembling a Wild offense en route to a 3-1 victory at United Center.

"I don't have any answers right now," defenseman Greg Zanon said. "I don't really have any comments on what we can do, so I'm pretty much at a blank."

Join the club.

The Hawks' victory, in front of 20,046, was a textbook example of a team frustrating an already-frustrated opponent. Chicago mostly shut down Minnesota's power play to raise its record to 7-3-1, while the Wild suffered a franchise-record eighth consecutive road loss.

"I believe we're working hard," Wild coach Todd Richards said, "but we aren't always competing hard."

Richards explained that the Blackhawks send players to the net, but they're not content to hover there. They stick their nose into the action, and all three Blackhawks goals resulted from rebounds or loose pucks that squirted free around the crease.

The Hawks trailed 7-3 in shots on goal until Andrew Ladd's shot was stopped by Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom, but Dave Bolland pounced on the rebound and knocked it into the back of the net to make it 1-0 after 9:23 of the first period.

You wonder if the Wild players started thinking, "Here we go again."

Richards says no. He says he felt OK with his team's effort. But he admitted later, when teams somehow find good luck, "they work for it. And we just need more."

After Tomas Brouwer dived to punch in a loose puck in front for Chicago's second goal late in the first period, the Wild stayed even before finally slicing the deficit in half when Andrew Brunette scored from close range at 3:23 of the final period.

"We really felt like we were back in the game," Richards said.

But that was it for Minnesota's offense, which was outshot 11-6 in the second period and 14-5 in the third. When Patrick Kane tallied at 6:54 of the final period, it was evident there would be no further comeback.

Chicago's goals all came from handshake distance in front of Backstrom.

Backstrom wasn't surprised.

"They're probably one of the best teams at getting the puck at the net, crashing the net, and then coming hard," he said.

Richards kept rotating his forwards, but if you look at the ice time you can deduce that he expected Mikko Koivu, Martin Havlat or Antti Miettinen to jumpstart the offense.

"You're looking for somebody to take charge out on the power play, somebody to take charge on the five-on-five," Richards said. "You know, take the bull by the horns and say, 'All right, guys, follow me,' and I think there were a couple guys trying to do that."

It got so bad for the visitors that during a power play midway through the second period, the Wild not only got zero shots on net, they had zero close calls. On a later power play, they again came away with zilch in shots on net.

They finished with a flourish, applying pressure after pulling Backstrom for an extra attacker with 48 seconds to go and playing with real desperation.

Was that missing earlier?

"We have to play a certain way for 60 minutes," forward Kyle Brodziak said. "You're not supposed to turn up the desperation level because you get scored on or because it's the last minute of the game. There's a certain way you have to play for the entire game, and for some reason we haven't been able to put it together for a full 60 minutes."

The Wild were scheduled to limp back to the Twin Cities after the game owning a 3-8-0 record and more questions than answers during the early stages of a season under a new regime directed by Richards and new general manager Chuck Fletcher.

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