In Chicago, Victor Hedman scored just past the midway point of the third period to give the Tampa Bay Lightning a 3-2 lead on the Blackhawks on Thursday night.
“I think overall we played a real solid game,” Hedman said. “We kept plugging away, and I thought we were the overall better team.”
Brandon Hagel hit an empty net with 49 seconds left on the regulation clock for a 4-2 win for the Lightning.
Jonas Johansson made 13 saves in the win.
The Lightning improved to 7-6-4.
Chicago grabbed a 1-0 lead at 12:59 of the opening stanza off a power play goal from Lukas Reichel.
“I didn’t even know that I scored,” Reichel said. I thought [Corey] Perry had a stick on it, so I didn’t even know. But then I was like, ‘Yeah … right.’”
The Blackhawks dropped to 5-9-0.
“I thought the first period we had an excellent period and start and played fast and played behind,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “We didn’t have a whole lot of extended [defensive]-zone time. I think in the second period it was a little bit part on our part and them probably turning it up. I think we saw that in the third especially. I thought they had the puck way too much in our zone. We just couldn’t get it back.”
Tampa replied with two goals in the middle frame.
Brayden Point knotted the game up. 1-1, at 4:40.
“It’s always nice to score,” Point said. “Two games we went there with no [goals]. For the most part, I liked our game tonight. We just kept playing our game. I thought for the most part we played a pretty good game tonight. I didn’t think we panicked.
“We’ve been giving up some leads here, and it kind of snowballs on us. But tonight I thought we didn’t panic. We kept playing the same way, and we were able to get the win.”
Tampa took a 2-1 lead with nine minutes gone in the second on a strike by Mikhail Sergachev.
“When Brayden Point scored that first goal, then I think things changed for us,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “Give their goalie credit; I thought he played really well tonight. But we just kept coming. Eventually you do that, you don’t sacrifice your end of the ice, and good things will happen. It did tonight.”
Chicago tied the game, 2-2, at 2:09 of the third on a goal from Corey Perry .
“Yeah, but at the same time, I think we passed up a lot of shots,” Perry said. “Especially in that second period, we had some good shifts and we tried to maybe be a little too 
cute where some of those pucks have to get on net.
“They’re a good team. When they get the lead, they kind of sit on it and play strong and there’s not much room out there. Those are learning curves that we can build along the way.”
Petr Mrazek made 25 saves in the loss.
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