In Chicago, The Florida Panther’s Aleksander Barkov hit for a goal and three points on Sunday in a 5-2 win over the Blackhawks. 
“All credit to the boys, taking care of their bodies throughout the break,” Florida’s MacKenzie Weegar (goal) said. “Just coming prepared and focused for a big road trip — Carolina, Minnesota and Chicago, all tough teams to play against. I’m really happy to see that we’re becoming a strong road team.”
Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves in the Panthers win.
Patrick Kane and Caleb Jones scored for the Blackhawks.
“Yes, it’s hard,” Chicago’s Connor Murphy said. “Losing [stinks], no matter where it is, but especially at home. We’re still having good crowds, and people are coming out and supporting us. We really appreciate them sticking with us on this homestand and coming out and trying to get us over the hump. We’ll keep working toward that, and we’ll have to keep taking positives and working on some of the negatives and mistakes we’ve been making.”
Florida improved to 35-10-5.
“It was a good end to the road trip,” Florida head coach Andrew Brunette said. “It wasn’t a pretty game, but we did enough to get a win. I think we’ve managed the game pretty well on the road of late. I thought at different times we got a little ‘fire-wagony.’ We have so much skill and can play at such a high level. Sometimes we get a little carried away. I think we did an excellent job this whole trip of playing road hockey, and whatever they give us, we’re taking. We’re not forcing issues. It’s kind of grinding through it. In some of these games it wasn’t maybe out best stretch of hockey, but we found ways to score and do the right things.”
Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour scored around Kane’s goal for a 2-1 lead to Florida.
“There’s a couple guys in front,” Montour said. “I don’t think [Fleury] was expecting it. I had a little bit of room. I took a quick wrister, and from what I saw, I don’t think he saw it. It hit the post — luckily for that one.”
Chicago dropped to 18-26-8.
“I think we fared pretty good with the challenge,” Blackhawks head coach Derek King said. “We hung in there with them. The third period, they came and they were like, ‘OK, enough with this.’ They started playing. But still, we were in it, we got back, we creeped back in. At least we kept it to the point where we could get our goalie out. It would’ve been nice to see us eat the puck in our skates or get on the forecheck a little harder and not back off. That’s stuff we’ll talk about.”
Barkov and Anton Lundell hit empty-net goals for the 5-2 final.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 20 saves in the Hawks loss.
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