The Blackhawks’ trip through Florida kept getting worse Thursday night.
Chicago fell 4-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena, taking its second loss in as many nights and its fifth straight overall. The defeat also kept the Blackhawks stuck in a rough road start, as they fell to 0-7-1 away from home this season. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, stayed perfect at home at 8-0-0.
The night belonged to a familiar face in a different sweater. Ilya Mikheyev, facing the Blackhawks for the first time since leaving in free agency this past summer, scored twice for Tampa Bay, including the game-winner. Victor Hedman scored on the power play, and Ryan McDonagh added the other Lightning goal.
Andrei Vasilevskiy handled the rest. He turned aside 25 of 26 shots and improved to 15-1 in his regular-season career against Chicago, allowing only 33 goals in those 16 games. The only puck that got past him came late, when Roman Kantserov snapped his shutout bid with 48.1 seconds left in the third period.
That goal was Kantserov’s team-leading eighth of the season, and it pushed his point streak to seven games. Sam Rinzel and Ethan Del Mastro picked up assists on the play, giving both defensemen assists in back-to-back games.
Chicago did show more edge physically after being pushed around the night before. The Blackhawks finished with a 31-13 advantage in hits, a sharp contrast from Wednesday’s 5-3 loss to the Florida Panthers, when they managed only 12.
Dillon Boucher led that effort with seven hits in 8:12 of ice time and also dropped the gloves with Jeff Viel in the second period for his first NHL fight. Cole Smith added six hits and was one of Chicago’s better skaters in the loss.
But the physical uptick didn’t translate into enough offense. The Blackhawks generated only nine high-danger scoring chances in 60 minutes and have now scored two goals or fewer in 11 of 17 games this season.
Tampa Bay grabbed control early and never really let go. Hedman opened the scoring at 4:12 of the first period while Del Mastro was in the penalty box for tripping. Anthony Cirelli found space between Frank Nazar and Alex Vlasic on the entry, then fed Hedman for his fourth goal of the season.
Mikheyev made it 2-0 at 18:22, beating Arvid Soderblom with a wrist shot through the five-hole. The Lightning took that two-goal lead into the first intermission after outshooting Chicago 8-6 in a quiet opening period.
The second period brought one brief flash from Chicago. Boucher and Viel fought early, trading heavy shots in a lively scrap. Later, the Blackhawks thought they had cut the lead when Nazar redirected Wyatt Kaiser’s point shot past Vasilevskiy, but the goal was waved off for a high-stick.
Tampa Bay kept the 2-0 edge through 40 minutes and had a 25-14 shot advantage by that point.
The Lightning then put the game away quickly in the third. McDonagh blasted a slap shot over Soderblom’s glove at 2:38 for his second goal of the season, with Point collecting the secondary assist to extend his point streak to six games. Just over two minutes later, Mikheyev struck again, deflecting Erik Cernak’s centering pass past Soderblom to make it 4-0.
Soderblom made his fourth start of the season and stopped 31 of 35 shots, but he remains winless in 2026-27.
Chicago will try to stop the slide in Saturday’s road-trip finale against the Carolina Hurricanes.
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