CHICAGO — The Chicago Blackhawks may not have a more difficult three-game stretch this season.

There was the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday. The Avalanche were 8-2-0 coming into the United Center last week. The Blackhawks won that game at home, 3-1.

On Friday, the Blackhawks were on the road at the Detroit Red Wings. Since Todd Mclellan took over as coach, the Red Wings had been 5-1-0 heading into the Blackhawks’ game. They did to the Blackhawks what they’ve been doing to a lot of teams. Detroit rolled and won 5-3.

On Saturday, the Blackhawks were back home against the Edmonton Oilers, who entered the game 7-3-0 in the last 10 games. The Blackhawks led 2-0, but the Oilers fought back, especially with a dominant second period, and won 4-3.

The Blackhawks faced three of the hottest teams in the NHL and went 1-2-0. Not great, but not completely awful either. And with how Blackhawks interim coach Anders Sorensen has his team focusing on five-game segments, the way they’re looking at is there are still two games to go.

“Our segment only just started three games ago, so right now we’re down one, so two more games in the segment,” Blackhawks forward Jason Dickinson said. “We win the next two — pretty decent segment. Good start to what we want to create here. So in those segments, there’s also small segments per game that if we can do certain things per each game, we can be happy with what we did, not satisfied with the result. So tonight, I don’t know what the small segment looked like for tonight. I haven’t gotten a chance to see results. But there was a lot of good, not enough good, obviously, because they get that power play role to put us down one, and we could just never respond.”

This approach makes a ton of sense for the Blackhawks. There’s no point for them to be living and dying with every result. This season is now about making progress in any way. Blackhawks defenseman Alec Martinez had a good perspective on that after Saturday’s loss.

“You’ve got to take steps as a group,” Martinez said. “Things like tonight, we had a really good start, get out to a 2-0 lead, and this group has to take steps and we’ve got to learn you’ve got to put together a full 60 minutes and that’s about details and habits. That’s lacking in our game or what’s not consistent in our game. Obviously, when you’re not doing that, you’re allowing teams opportunities to get back in, and the longer you play with bad habits, the more opportunities you give up. It puts stress on us. You end up playing more in the D-zone. It’s a snowball effect. And you get the result that we got tonight.”

The results will matter to an extent as Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson evaluates whether Sorensen is the right person to continue coaching the Blackhawks after this season. But Davidson also has to realize this team’s ceiling and what’s realistic under any coach. What Davidson will want to see is as much about the development of the younger players and how Sorensen communicates on and off the ice.

Sorensen was asked before Saturday’s game whether he was thinking about how his job performance was being measured and whether he’d be the next Blackhawks’ full-time coach.

“Right now, it’s just day by day, trying to improve the group — what we have right now — and not trying to look too far down the road,” Sorensen said. “That’s just my mindset as a person. You take it day by day and try to improve every day and go from there. I try not to look too far ahead.”

Positives from the youngsters

A line of young players seemed like a fun possibility before the game, but it didn’t go as the Blackhawks hoped. The line of Colton Dach, Frank Nazar and Lukas Reichel was on the ice for zero shot attempts for and 13 against in 7:13 of five-on-five ice time.

Despite the numbers, Sorensen saw some positives.

“There were some good moments,” Sorensen said. “There was some moments where we got to improve on. Just understanding who you’re playing against and things like that, the importance of winning lines and managing pucks against those guys. But I liked some of the things that they did.”

An advantage against Connor McDavid

Dickinson was on the ice against Connor McDavid for 12:25 of five-on-five ice time. The Oilers had a 16-10 advantage in shot attempts and 9-5 in shots on goal during that time, but the Blackhawks had a 2-0 lead in goals.

Dickinson’s line also included Nick Foligno and Teuvo Teräväinen. Teräväinen scored the game’s first goal off a pass from Dickinson, and Foligno scored the second goal on a primary assist from Teräväinen.

“They were good,” Sorensen said. “They scored some goals, too, made some plays. I thought they did a good job of what we talked about. They hung onto pucks offensively and made them defend, especially in the first period, and that’s probably the key against those guys, make them stop in their D-zone and not take off so quickly. That’s one area that line did really well. Second period I thought we were all kind of on our heels a little bit. But overall, yeah, they were good.”

Scouts noticing Ryan Donato

If there was a power ranking among Blackhawks’ players to be traded at the deadline, Ryan Donato would likely be leading it right now. NHL scouts have been taking notice of his play more than anyone as of late. How he forechecked to create a turnover, found space in the slot and then fired a shot into the net Saturday is the type of play that could draw him more suitors at the deadline. He could be an ideal bottom-six fit for someone.

On the other hand, it sounds like Taylor Hall’s stock is dropping as his production has fallen off and he looks less impactful from shift to shift.

What’s missing in Philipp Kurashev’s game

It’s hard to see Sorensen giving Philipp Kurashev another chance anytime soon. After playing on Friday, Kurashev was back to being a healthy scratch on Saturday.

“It’s the same areas we’ve talked about — just responsible game, compete,” Sorensen said of what’s been missing in Kurashev’s game.

Quick hits

• Connor Bedard’s points streak came to an end at nine games on Saturday. He ended up with four goals and eight assists during the streak.

• Connor Murphy is expected to be out for some time with his injury. He’s already been out for all of January, and Sorensen classified him more as week to week now.

• Wyatt Kaiser was the defenseman who was made a healthy scratch with Martinez back in the lineup. With Kaiser, the Blackhawks would like him to be more under control when he has the puck.

• Corey Perry, who had his contract terminated by the Blackhawks last season, was booed throughout the United Center when the public address announced his score in the second period.

• Oilers general manager and former Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman was in attendance for the game. It is believed to be his first time back at the United Center since he departed the Blackhawks after the Jenner & Block report was released in Oct. 2021 about how Bowman and others handled sexual assault accusations made against former video coach Brad Aldrich.