In Chicago, the Tampa Bay Lightning hung a 7-4 loss on the Blackhawks on Tuesday night.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 saves to earn the win.
“There’s a high expectation in this organization to make the playoffs every single year, and you want it to become the norm,” Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said. “These guys have done that, so I couldn’t be more proud of them. To put yourself in a situation to compete for a Stanley Cup you have to make the playoffs and the guys have done that.
“Who knows where it’s going to go from here, but it always feels good when you step over that hurdle.”
Erik Cernak and Yanni Gourde scored for the Bolts to give them a 2-0 lead.
Brandon Hagel got Chicago on the board to make it 2-1, but Alex Barre-Boulet pushed the lead back to two with a goal.
“If we’re going to be competitive and win hockey games at the end, we’re going to need to be better,” Chicago head coach Jeremy Colliton said. “I thought we had some bad things happen to us, some adversity, which certainly is part of it. But I’d like us to respond better, just being willing to compete defensively. But we weren’t ready to compete hard enough away from the puck to give ourselves a chance to win.”
The Hawks replied with a goal from Wyatt Kalynuk to make 3-2.
From there it was mostly a show of offense from the Lighting.
Brayden Point, Blake Coleman and Alex Killorn scored to make it 6-2 for Tampa.
“As of late the past couple of games, pucks have been going in the net, but I don’t know if I’m doing anything really different,” Point said. “Just trying to play the same way and make sure little details in the game are good.”
Chicago’s Duncan Keith and Dominik Kubalik trimmed the lead to 6-4.
“We can’t give up that many goals,” Hagel said. “[It] starts with not being good enough without the puck. At times we were really good but at times we weren’t, and they made us pay.”
Killorn scored his second of the game into the gaping maw of the empty net.
Kevin Lankinen got the start for Chicago and surrendered three goals and made eight saves in the opening period. He got the hook in the first intermission.
Malcolm Subban made 15 saves over 40 minutes.
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