Landon Slaggert scored the go-ahead goal in his season debut as the Chicago Blackhawks opened a three-game Eastern Conference road trip with a 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night.
Slaggert, who was recalled from the American Hockey League on Sunday, broke a 1-1 tie in the second period with his second career goal. That propelled Chicago to just its sixth road win overall and its first since beating the New York Rangers on Dec. 9.
Connor Bedard notched a power-play goal and Ryan Donato scored before Teuvo Teravainen tallied into an empty net for the Blackhawks. Seth Jones posted two assists and Arvid Soderblom stopped 34 shots in the win.
Chicago won for just the second time in the past 12 meetings (2-9-1) with Tampa Bay.
Brayden Point scored his team-best 28th goal for the Lightning, while goalie Jonas Johansson got the start over Andrei Vasilevskiy (illness) and made 16 saves.
Tampa Bay’s blue line was without defenseman Emil Lilleberg, who began serving a two-game suspension for an interference penalty Saturday in Detroit.
Point streaked in and made it 1-0 Lightning at 3:34 of the first period.
However, the Blackhawks dodged further trouble when their penalty-kill unit, which failed to stop the Lightning once on three power plays in a 4-3 overtime loss four days earlier, stepped up after former Tampa Bay forward Patrick Maroon went off for a double minor.
Maroon crunched Luke Glendening for a boarding infraction then drew two more minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct at 16:17 of the first. The Lightning failed to capitalize and eventually lost their lead midway through the second period.
Bedard found the equalizer with a sharp-angle shot after a 5-on-3 power play, hitting the net at 10:19 after the first man advantage expired. Playing in his 17th career game, Slaggert grabbed a feed from Lukas Reichel and blistered the twine to put Chicago ahead 2-1 with 1:46 left in the second.
The Blackhawks took a 3-1 lead in the third when Donato fired in a hard carom off the end boards at 8:02.
The Lightning pulled Johansson with four minutes left, but Teravainen scored with 57 seconds to play to secure Chicago’s second straight win at Tampa Bay.
–Field Level Media
