In Chicago, Kevin Lankinen made 33 saves and the Blackhawks held off the Florida Panthers, 3-2, on Tuesday night.
“That was just something else from the toolbox,” Lankinen said. “I was in a good state of mind, and I just wanted to do whatever it takes to win.”
The win snapped a four-game skid for Chicago.
“We needed the win,” Chicago head coach Jeremy Colliton said. “We needed something good to happen to us. We probably deserved a bit better on the [road] trip (1-5-0), but that doesn’t get you anywhere.
“We’ve got to earn some momentum, and I think we’ve done that and it’s up to us to do something with it.”
The Panthers played without Alexander Barkov, out on injury.
“You lose a key guy, but it’s a good test on the whole group there,” Florida head coach Joel Quenneville said. “But the impact he has on the team, it was noticeable there. We started to get our way as the game progressed, more so later in the third, but it was a tough, tough start.”
Dominik Kubalik and Pius Suter gave the Hawks a 2-0 lead.
“Big win for the team [after] obviously losing four in a row, so [it’s] nice to get rid of that streak,” Chicago’s Patrick Kane said. “I thought we’ve been playing all right the last few game
Carl Soderberg, pushed the Chicago advantage to 3-0, early in the middle frame.
“We did a good job of coming out strong and kind of took over the game to get it to 3-0,” Kane said. “Obviously [we would] like to kill the game a little bit more, but [it’s] nice to hang on against a team that’s pretty good at coming back in games and put a lot of pressure on you.”
Anton Stralman got the Panthers on the board before the end of the second period to make it 3-1.
Alex Wennberg pulled Florida within one goal in the third period.
“I think we just had a bit of a slow start and kind of dug ourselves a bit of a hole,” Florida’s Noel Acciari said. “But I liked our end of the second and most of the third. We didn’t give up. We played until the buzzer, but I think we’ve got to figure out how to 
come out with a stronger start and try not to fall behind early and be battling back every game.”
Chris Driedger made 29 saves in the loss.
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