"Try as they might, the Blackhawks searched for some positives following their seventh consecutive defeat.

"Right now, minutes after another loss, it's tough to look at the bright side of things," captain Jonathan Toews said in the morgue-like atmosphere of the Hawks' dressing room after their 5-3 loss to the Sharks on Friday night at HP Pavilion.

"We played hard out there. We saw some fights, we saw some scratching and clawing, some battling in front of the net and a couple of ugly goals. We played the way we had to. We gave them too many opportunities on the power play and that's how they separated themselves from us in this game. It always seems to be one thing or another but (Friday night) we're getting closer to playing that more complete game."

They aren't nearly close enough as their skid is reaching epic proportions with their ninth loss in a row away from home that dropped their record on the current road trip to 0-4-1.

In a hard-fought contest that had all the intensity and physical play of a postseason game, Justin Braun had a goal and an assist and Benn Ferriero, Joe Thornton and Dan Boyle also scored as the Sharks kept the Hawks sliding in front of a crowd of 17,562. Brent Burns added three assists to help San Jose goaltender Antti Niemi earn the victory over his former teammates.

The Hawks got two goals from Marcus Kruger and another from Bryan Bickell but it wasn't enough as they saw their record drop to 29-19-7.

Goalie Corey Crawford suffered his fifth loss in a row as the Sharks took advantage of a strong power play to score three times with a man advantage. The Hawks maintained their sixth-place standing in the Western Conference, but the pack is catching up as the seventh-place Kings are just three points back."