Back on Oct. 25, after a rousing win over the Panthers, Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson hoped his team would be able to conjure up the same good feelings once adversity inevitably hit.

“When we hit a lower valley, we want to make sure we [think] back to situations like tonight,” he said then. “So we can turn it around and get it back on the upswing as quick as possible.”

That message was certainly applicable Sunday, with the Hawks having tumbled into a rather deep valley. Their blowout loss Saturday against the Bruins was a humiliating demonstration of the talent gap between them and the NHL’s top team. Richardson asked his group before the game to reflect on the “ugliness” they felt and channel it into “determination.”

So it was surely frustrating to see a legitimately strong effort — a night-and-day difference from Boston — not translate into a skid-snapping result. The Penguins prevailed 5-3 in a back-and-forth game, dealing the Hawks their fourth straight loss.

“There’s positives, for sure, compared to last night,” Richardson said. “Last night was one of the first nights we didn’t seem to have the energy to put up that fight all game… I was hoping that our guys would react how they did. We put a nice push on.”

The Hawks outshot the Penguins 32-25, marking just the second time this season (and the first time since the home opener) that they’ve outshot an opponent. They enjoyed plenty of long shifts in the offensive zone and could’ve worked Penguins goalie Casey DeSmith even harder if not for 23 attempts that missed the net.

And they demonstrated a sizable dose of the resilience that seemed like a team calling card in October but that had slipped away in November. After falling behind 3-0 despite playing well, they stuck with the game plan and were eventually rewarded.

Patrick Kane snapped a 10-game goal drought off a clever feed from Jonathan Toews — the two old-timers teaming up was fitting on Marian Hossa’s night — to cut the deficit to 3-2 late in the second period. Then with 4:11 left in regulation, Philipp Kurashev innocently threw a puck toward the net that banked in off DeSmith to tie the game.

But Sidney Crosby exploited Caleb Jones — who struggled yet again in his return to the lineup — less than a minute later, scoring his first-ever goal in Chicago to give Pittsburgh the lead back for good.

“We gave ourselves a chance to get back into it,” Kane said. “We played well. It’s just tough to give up a goal right after [scoring]. A good player makes a good play on their team, and all of a sudden, you’re down again and you’re fighting for it with a few minutes left. It’s a tough situation.

“We got away [last night] from the work ethic and battling throughout the whole game no matter what happens. And we found that again tonight, so that’s a positive.”

Richardson shuffled the Hawks’ bottom-six forward corps for the first time in a while, putting Jujhar Khaira and Colin Blackwell with Jason Dickinson on the third line and MacKenzie Entwistle and Sam Lafferty with Reese Johnson on the fourth line.

That switch-up worked, too. Both new trios controlled puck possession during most of their shifts.

But the Hawks were left unrewarded for their improvement and now skate on even thinner ice moving forward. Their ability to absorb the sting of losses and maintain togetherness and confidence in the locker room will be tested more and more the longer this skid lasts.

“We have to make sure that we’re conscious that we keep playing like we did tonight…but really bear down,” Richardson said.

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What’s going on with Justin Fields’ shoulder? Patrick Finley, Mark Potash and Jason Lieser break down another Bears’ loss — and a concerning injury.

New episodes of “Halas Intrigue” will be published regularly with accompanying stories collected on the podcast’s hub page. You can also listen to “Halas Intrigue” wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Luminary, Spotify and Stitcher.

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Surrounded by his family, all six other three-time Stanley Cup champions, 21,000-plus fans who’d arrived two hours early and even the Cup itself, Marian Hossa watched a banner rise to the United Center rafters Sunday that signified the official retirement of his No. 81 number within the Blackhawks.

“It is such an honor to be here tonight and to share this with all of you,” Hossa said during a 20-minute speech filled with heartfelt sentiment, a few jokes and many words of appreciation. “It is incredibly humbling to have my No. 81 forever hung here.”

Hossa’s banner hung on the east side of the arena — beneath the Hawks’ 2013 championship banner — after the ceremony and throughout the game, but it’ll presumably move over to the north side before the Hawks’ next home game Friday against the Canadiens. Considering Tony Esposito’s No. 35 was previously the highest number the Hawks had retired, some banner reorganization will be necessary.

But that certainly wasn’t on Hossa’s mind — or anyone else’s — on Sunday.

“Like all players, I dreamt of winning the Stanley Cup from the moment I was drafted,” he said. “After losing back-to-back Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh and Detroit, I was beginning to think, for a second, it was me. But I learned that you can come back from anything, no matter how bad it is. It’s all about your mindset.”

Eddie Olczyk made a surprise return as emcee and spoke to Hossa’s “lasting impact on the past and the future of the Blackhawks.” The Hawks also put together a lengthy, moving montage featuring Hossa’s most iconic moments from his 2009-to-2019 Chicago tenure.

Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews attended the ceremony wearing street clothes (beneath their jerseys) before scrambling to dress in full gear for pregame warmups. But like fellow attendees Duncan Keith, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Brent Seabrook and Patrick Sharp, Hossa’s moment likely won’t be the only jersey retirement they attend in the near future.

Even Hossa acknowledged that reality.

“Something tells me, very soon, I’ll be flying back to Chicago to raise a few more of these jerseys,” he said to a roar.

Richardson recalls

Current Hawks coach Luke Richardson faced Hossa 25 times as a player. He witnessed firsthand Hossa’s second career NHL game (in a 5-3 Flyers win over the Senators on Oct. 3, 1997) and a hat trick a few later (in a 5-2 Senators win over the Blue Jackets on Nov. 23, 2002).

Now as compatriots in the Hawks’ organization, Richardson and Hossa have gotten to know each other better; Hossa actually interrupted Richardson’s pregame press scrum Sunday to shake his hand and wish him good luck. But Richardson’s memories of trying to defend Hossa during the overlap of their playing careers are less pleasant.

“Down low, like on a power play, [when he was] walking the goal line to the net, you’re not stopping him,” Richardson recalled Friday. “As a lefty, if he was on his off-side as a right winger down low, if he had a half-step on you, he was pretty much getting to the net. At least we were allowed to cross-check back then, [but] it didn’t bother him.”

He had plenty of respect for him, though.

“He was big and physical and could take it and give it out, but he didn’t get into the verbal game and chirping,” he added. “Every team he went to, he made other people better.”

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ATLANTA — There was a lot to like about how Bears quarterback Justin Fields played Sunday — until the very end.

But every play counts as the Bears assess whether Fields is their guy, and there are major concerns about the way everything fell apart in the final minutes of a 27-24 loss to the Falcons. Not only did Fields throw the game away on an interception, but he suffered an injury that could limit his progress going forward.

So which do you want first, the bad news or the bad news?

Since everything is big-picture with Fields, let’s start with him hurting his left, non-throwing shoulder. The only downside to how he has flourished this season has been the underlying worry that a bad hit could ruin it at any time, and that’s the same risk any team accepts when it builds around a dual-threat quarterback.

Fields got his chance at a long-coveted comeback with 1:47 left from his own 25-yard line, down three. But on a curious call by offensive coordinator Luke Getsy to begin the drive, Fields raced left on a designed run and got knocked out of bounds by cornerback Dee Alford and landed hard on his left shoulder.

Fields stayed in the game, which lasted just two more plays for him as he ran a draw on second down — another ill-conceived choice by Getsy — and threw a pick on third, but was clearly struggling and kept grabbing his shoulder. For someone who rarely acknowledges being hurt, that’s telling.

The tone from him and coach Matt Eberflus was that the injury wasn’t anything disastrous, but Fields was taken for an x-ray right after the game and there was uncertainty about how it would affect him leading up to the visit to the Jets next week.

If it’s a separated shoulder, and that’s problematic on two fronts: Even though it’s his non-throwing arm, he said it hinders his throwing motion, and it’s a huge issue when it comes to running.

He pushed that aside the best he could in the moment.

“I was hurting, but it was the last drive of the game,” said Fields, who also battled cramps throughout the second half. “I tried to be there for my teammates and fight through the pain.”

Nonetheless, he was “hurting a good bit” and said after the game the discomfort remained intense.

The figurative pain of how he lost was almost as bad, especially following late-game shortfalls against the Lions and Dolphins the last two weeks.

On third-and-five with 1:07 left, Fields had time in the pocket and threw for running back David Montgomery at the first-down marker, but sent it high. Fields twisted to his left and hopped as he threw, and the ball skipped off Montgomery’s fingers into safety Jaylinn Hawkins’ hands.

In one regard, that’s more troubling than the pick-six he threw against the Lions. That mistake could be written off as an aberration by a quarterback who typically plays prudently, but the interception he threw in Atlanta resulted from an accuracy issue that has been an ongoing concern.

Between the injury and interception, the ending undercut an otherwise promising day.

Fields didn’t break any records or deliver a viral highlight, but he doesn’t need to be remarkable every game. He’s establishing a clear expectation of what he’ll give the Bears on a regular basis, and that’s an essential aspect of being a franchise quarterback. He is becoming consistent and dependable — adjectives that haven’t fit a Bears quarterback in decades.

Before the interception, Fields had completed 14 of 20 passes for 153 yards and a touchdown for a 109.0 passer rating and rushed 18 times for 85 yards and a touchdown. His final throw dinged 25 points off his rating and put a similar dent in how his overall day looked.

Still, Fields’ best plays were throwing, which is encouraging because that’s where he most needs to improve.

His 16-yard touchdown pass to Darnell Mooney on the opening drive was precise to the millimeter — “beautiful,” Eberflus called it. Tight end Cole Kmet will get all the hype for his spectacular 24-yard one-handed catch in the second quarter — rightfully so, because he did an incredible job hanging on to it as he got drilled by Falcons cornerback A.J. Terrell — but he mentioned unprompted that Fields hit bullseye on the throw.

And his 32-yard throw up the right sideline to Montgomery early in the fourth was arguably his best of the season. Fields rolled right under pressure, pointed to redirect Montgomery from an out route to a deep ball, then threw across his body to fire the ball perfectly ahead of him, and Montgomery caught it in stride against tight coverage by linebacker Lorenzo Carter.

“That thing was on a dime,” Eberflus said. “That was excellent… He had a lot of good plays out there, and he just keeps growing and growing and getting better and better.”

It’s going to be choppy at times, and that interception at the end made everyone uneasy, but it’s undeniable that Fields is building. The question, now that he’s hurt, is whether he’ll be able to continue that trajectory.

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While most of the focus will be on quarterback Justin Fields getting injured and intercepted late in the Bears’ 27-24 loss to the Falcons on Sunday, here are three other details that stand out:

Clamoring for Claypool

New wide receiver Chase Claypool continued to have a muted role in the offense. Fields targeted him just three times, and he caught two passes for 11 yards. In three games with the Bears, Claypool has five catches for 32 yards on 11 targets.

Baby steps

This was the first time the Bears kept an opponent under 30 points since beating the Patriots. Safety Jaquan Brisker forced a fumble that led to a touchdown, they held the Falcons to 2 of 9 on third-down conversions and they allowed just two offensive touchdowns.

Gold rush

The Bears rushed for 160 yards, led by Fields at 85 and running back David Montgomery with 67 (he also had 54 as a receiver). They ran 41 times, marking their fifth game of 40 or more. They ran 40-plus times in a game just once in Matt Nagy’s tenure. It also was Fields’ fifth game this season of 80-plus yards, a number he broke one time under Nagy.

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ATLANTA — If it weren’t for the excruciating pain in their quarterback’s left shoulder, Sunday’s 27-24 loss to the Bears would have been almost indistinguishable for last week’s loss to the Lions.

“Same thing every week,” receiver Darnell Mooney said. “We have the ball in our hands at the end of the game, then don’t win the game.”

The Bears defense, of course, had the opposite complaint: letting the other team do just that late in the fourth quarter.

“To have it end up like this again, it’s tough,” safety Jaquan Brisker said. “But we always have to come back.”

Whether they can will shape the final six weeks of the season.

No one pegged the Bears for a .500 team this season, much less one with legitimate playoff aspirations. But their losing streak, as much as it might help their draft position — they’re now projected to pick third — is threatening to cloud whatever growth is possible in front of them. That’s doubly true with quarterback Justin Fields nursing a shoulder injury that will either keep him out of Sunday’s game against the Jets or severely limit the plays the Bears can call for him. How will the Bears evaluate an offense built around Fields if he’s not there?

The Bears are in danger of having their season pulled further into the muck. There’s only one way out.

“Well, you end the losing streak,” Kmet said. “You get a win.”

When they take the field against the Jets, two months and one day will have passed since the Bears last had a winning record. They’ve lost seven of eight games since then — six by eight points or less and three by a field goal or less. They’ve lost four-straight games since their offensive breakthrough against the Patriots, the last three by a combined seven points.

“Obviously, we’re not accomplishing the main goal, which is winning,” coach Matt Eberflus said Sunday. “That’s an important thing. But there’s also another process to that … We’re building a football team here.”

Eberflus said it wouldn’t be difficult to help his players progress despite the losses — “Rely on their character,” he said — but, at some point, figuring out how to win is part of that development.

It’s unclear when they’ll get their next honest chance at it. The Jets are reeling after losing on a 84-yard punt return touchdown with 5 seconds to play Sunday — but still boast a 6-4 record. The Bears host both the AFC favorite Bills and NFC favorite Eagles in December, and have all three divisional opponents left on their schedule. They don’t figure to be favored at any point the rest of the way. Amazingly, their best chance of a win might be against the Packers.

“For sure, everything has a domino effect,” Mooney said. “You just have to create that effect. We were talking about that on the sidelines, like, ‘Hey let’s finish this one. This is the one we need to convert on.’ We just came up short.”

The Bears as a team don’t have much to play for — they could be eliminated from NFC North contention next week. But their players do.

“You have a locker room of guys who are young guys — and let’s face the fact, we have a lot of guys on one-year contracts — but specifically, a lot of young guys,” center Sam Mustipher said.

They’re not guaranteed anything beyond this season.

“Just keep getting better,” said Fields, one of the few who is. “Take each day on its own and just keep working. We control what we can control. What happened, it’s in the past now. Just keep preparing for the future and keep getting better.

“I know the character of our coaches and our team; they’re going to come to work and get ready to work. Just taking it each day, coming to work, and making the most out of each and every day.”

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ATLANTA — Cairo Santos’ streak of 21 consecutive field goals — which ranked second among active players — was snapped late in the first half Sunday when the Bears kicker missed a 56-yarder. Had Santos made the kick, it would have been the longest of his career by one yard. Santos thought his range Sunday was 58 yards. Instead, he left the kick short.

“I just hit it too wobbly,” he said. “The ball lost the power and dove down short.”

It didn’t help, he said, that the Bears were down to the second-string kicking ball. The first one went out of commission after Cordarrelle Patterson brought it back for his NFL-record ninth career kickoff return touchdown. Before each game, each team picks the three best kicking balls from warmups and give them to officials for game use.

After Santos’ miss, the Falcons inherited the ball at their own 46 with 1:10 to play. They drove for a 40-yard field goal before halftime.

This and that

o Cornerback Kyler Gordon left in the fourth quarter and was ruled out with a concussion.

o Right guard Teven Jenkins was active Sunday but did not play after telling coach Matt Eberflus before the game that his hip was hurting enough that he’d only be available in relief. Otherwise, Eberflus said, Jenkins could have rotated with Michael Schofield.

o Tight end Cole Kmet made the best catch of his career in the second quarter, snatching a 24-yard pass one-handed. He leapt, extended his right hand and caught the ball while being hit.

He praised Justin Fields’ pass and said he’d never made a better catch in the game.

“I thought it was pretty good,” he said.

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During two games this season, including the one Sunday in Atlanta, I tweeted that the Bears were going to get Justin Fields killed. Typical sports-talk overstatement. You’ll forgive my hyperbole.

I can’t rule out maiming, disfigurement or long-term disability checks in Fields’ future.

Whatever offensive coordinator Luke Getsy thought he was doing in the closing moments of the Bears’ 27-24 loss to the Falcons, he thought wrong. If he thought Fields was healthy, he was wrong. If he thought Fields could fight through whatever was bothering certain body parts, he was wrong. If he thought calling run plays for a clearly injured quarterback was a good idea, he was terribly wrong.

By the time Getsy was done calling plays Sunday afternoon, Fields looked like he had the physical complaints of an 85-year-old man. He was holding his left, non-throwing shoulder and walking gingerly, thanks to hamstring issues. The shoulder was the result of a hit on one play. Any additional pain was the result of the next play, one that never should have been called. The Falcons had just taken a 27-24 lead on Younghoe Koo’s 53-yard field goal. The Bears got the ball back at their own 25 with 1:47 left and three timeouts in their pocket.

On first down, Fields was pushed out of bounds after a 1-yard run and landed on his shoulder. When he stood up, he was grimacing. Not good. He already had been dealing with hamstring cramps, which had slowed him in the second half. Why Getsy had called a run play in that situation is Question No. 1.

On second down, Fields took a big hit on a 4-yard gain. It left him grabbing the same shoulder in pain. Question No. 2: Why on earth would Getsy call another run play after Fields’ noticeable discomfort on first down? This being the NFL, Getsy wasn’t available to reporters after the game. He won’t have to face the music from the media until Thursday, and by then, many of the ominous notes will have been toned down.

So it was left to Fields to explain things. And he did, right after he was done getting X-rays.

“I was hurting but, again, it was the last drive of the game so (I) tried to be there for my teammates and fight through the pain,” Fields said.

On third down, Fields overthrew David Montgomery. Falcons safety Jaylinn Hawkins picked off the pass, all but ending the game.

There’s no doubt the Bears reintroduced Chicago to excitement when they decided to make Fields’ running the showcase of their offense in mid-October. But the three-play sequence at the end of Sunday’s game magnified the scary part of that approach. It also demonstrated one of Fields’ shortcomings.

Ever since the Bears decided to be a run-first team, the question that hasn’t gone away is whether it’s sustainable. And by “sustainable,” I mean, “Will Fields need a mobility scooter by the end of the season?” The problem in Atlanta was that Fields clearly was banged up. TV cameras showed him getting both hamstrings worked on in the second half. Going into the final drive, there was no doubt something was wrong with him. He wasn’t running nearly as well as he had earlier in the game. You know, before he started wincing.

Getsy’s play-calling Sunday showed that the Bears’ offense is dangerously, almost obsessively reliant on the quarterback’s running. You can’t do that in the NFL, even with Fields, who has been brilliant the past six games. You’re asking for trouble. It’s impossible to believe that Getsy didn’t know Fields was struggling physically. He had a sideline view of the abuse the kid was taking.

This would be a good time to point out that Fields is not a piece in a chess game. He’s the Bears’ future. If Getsy doesn’t know that, he shouldn’t be calling plays.

The other thing the final drive showed was Fields’ difficulty in getting the ball over pass rushers. He had three passes knocked down Sunday, including one pass that hit the back of an offensive lineman’s helmet. Maybe that’s why he felt the need to jump to try to get his final pass over defensive linemen and into Montgomery’s hands. Instead, the pass sailed into Hawkins’ hands.

When I pushed for more passes from Fields in a column last week, social-media fanboys immediately descended on my clearly out-of-touch carcass. The most exciting Bears player since Walter Payton and you don’t want him to run? I like his running. I’d prefer that he survive the season. I’d prefer that his ability to run be used to enhance the pass game. That’s exactly what happened in the first quarter, when Fields overthrew an open Darnell Mooney on a bomb. The Falcons’ awareness/fear of the quarterback’s speed opened up that play.

If Getsy calls a few more pass plays in the final six games, Fields has a chance to progress as a passer. If he thinks Fields’ running is an end in itself, the kid isn’t going to last.

The quarterback has a long way to go. That probably will come as a surprise to the person who paid $90,000 for Fields rookie card at an auction last week.

There’s nothing wrong with Fields Fever. There’s a lot wrong with Getsy’s recklessness.

After the game, head coach Matt Eberflus explained a coordinator’s main job.

“Put our players in the best places to succeed, and our play calls should reflect that,” he said.

On Sunday, Fields was put in a dangerous place.

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