In Chicago, the Blackhawks’ Kevin Lankinen made 41 saves in a 3-0 shutout of the Florida Panthers on Thursday night.
It was his second shutout of the season.
“It was a fun one,” Lankinen said. “A lot of saves, obviously, maybe wasn’t our best game of the season, but we [hung] in there. [The] power play was good (1-for-3), penalty kill was even better (6-for-6), and [we] found a way to win against a good team. I think that was huge.”
Patrick Kane and Pius Suter scored in the second period for a 2-0 Chicago lead.
“We got some great saves from [Lankinen] at key times there in that second period, but at the same time I really liked our third [period],” Blackhawkshead coach Jeremy Colliton said. “We beared down there and found a way to defend. I would’ve liked us to spend a little more time in the offensive zone, hold the puck down there, get some chances, draw a penalty. A lot of times that’s how you close out a game, but we did have to defend quite a bit and we did a really good job.”
Brandon Hagel added an empty-net goal in the third to seal the win.
“We’re trying to be too cute,” Florida’s Jonathan Huberdeau said. “Just [need to] skate a little bit more. We look like we’re not skating, so just do that. I feel that’s what we’ve been doing all year and the last three games we’ve kind of stopped. That’s not the way we have to play if we want to win.”
Chicago improved to 16-13-5.
“Maybe not the way we’re supposed to defend, but that happens,” Lankinen said. “That was one of those moments the game can turn over, so I felt like we needed a big save there, and I was able to make that. I think that brought us some momentum and we were able to survive from that.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 18 saves in the loss.
“We got our opportunities, we [didn’t] score. That’s where it is,” Panthers head coach Joel Quenneville said. “We had some great chances, we had a breakaway, hit the post. We get a 3-on-0 [and] don’t even really get a scoring chance on it. That hurts.”
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