Hawks drop second in a row in Canada

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EDMONTON, Alberta — When you’re a team with the talent and depth of the Blackhawks, looking at the standings and finding yourself in fourth place never is a comfortable feeling.

But when your division is the Central, and fourth is four points off the best record in the NHL, that’s different.

“I haven’t been around for that long, but I’ve never seen anything like it. Even (Sean) O’Donnell and the older guys have never seen anything like that,” Viktor Stalberg said before the Hawks lost 8-4 to the Oilers on Thursday at Rexall Place. “Being fourth in our division and sixth in our conference? That can’t be a normal season.”

Still, the Hawks aren’t bemoaning the caliber of competition in the Central. The way Stalberg sees it, the Hawks are getting a preview of the elevated level of play in the postseason.

“It makes it challenging, but it’s also going to prepare us well for coming down the stretch here,” Stalberg said. “We’re going to have some tough games and a lot of them are going to be playoff-type games.”

With an 11-point cushion over the ninth-seed Dallas Stars entering Thursday, the Hawks are making the playoffs. To suggest otherwise is like trying to concoct a sentence with the words “Patrick Kane” and “healthy scratch.” It doesn’t make sense.

When the Hawks play the Red Wings on the final day of the regular season, they won’t be fighting for their playoff lives. But given how tight the West is, there’s every indication those two points could represent the difference between at least one seed — possibly several.

“We’ve seen that the last couple years, that points are so important,” Patrick Sharp said. “You could be sitting pretty one day and two games later you might be fighting for a spot. It just shows the importance of every two points.”

What’s at stake in the second-half of the season is how difficult an opponent they’ll face in the first round of the playoffs in the ultra-competitive West.

Taking advantage of games teams at the bottom the standings — such as Thursday’s in Edmonton — are vital with such a tight race at the top of the division.

“It can be a dangerous game when you’re playing against teams where you think you can sneak in and it’s going to be easy,” said Corey Crawford, who got the start in goal. “But it’s never the case. You’ve always got to be prepared.”

The Hawks found that out on their last visit to Rexall Place — a game coach Joel Quenneville did not mince words about before taking on the Oilers, saying his team “got our teeth kicked.”

The Hawks didn’t do themselves any favors with a 5-5-3 January, while several of their divisional ­rivals piled up the points.

But Crawford is eager to see what kind of a picture will emerge in the West when the Hawks get rewarded with wins for the type of performance that saw them earn one point in an overtime loss in Vancouver on Tuesday.

“St. Louis has been on fire since they got the new coach and Nashville has been on a really good streak,” Crawford said. “But we’re looking forward to seeing what the standings look like when we get on a streak.”