Blackhawks’ Streak Snapped as Tampa Triumphs

In a battle of winning streaks, the Tampa Bay Lightning triumphed as they won their seventh consecutive game in a 2-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks.

The loss snaps the Blackhawks' franchise-record winning streak at 12 games, and it comes in a game where they were outshot by a wide margin. Artem Anisimov scored the lone goal of the game for the Blackhawks, who split their season series with the team they beat in the 2015 Stanley Cup Final.

The game got off to a tremendous start for the Blackhawks as they scored less than a minute into the contest. Dennis Rasmussen fed a pass up the ice to Anisimov, and he tossed the puck to Patrick Kane. Kane went to the bottom of the face-off circle, flipped a pass to Anisimov, and the center backhanded a shot past Ben Bishop to give his team a 1-0 lead.

After that goal, the momentum shifted over to the Tampa Bay side of the ice, and it remained there for a long time. With good puck movement in the offensive zone, the Bolts ultimately found Victor Hedman out at the point, and the defenseman's shot was tipped home by Anton Stralman to knot things up at 1-1.

The remaining time in the third period belonged solely to the home team, but Corey Crawford helped keep his team in the game as he denied high quality chances from Ryan Callahan and J.T. Brown to maintain the tie on the scoreboard.

After managing just four shots on goal in the first period, the Blackhawks got a power play early in the second period, but the Lightning continued to dominate the contest. They got consecutive power plays of their own later on in the frame, and ultimately they cashed in. With Kane in the box on an interference penalty, Nikita Kucherov dropped down into the zone and ripped a shot past Crawford to make it a 2-1 game.

Valtteri Filppula was sent off to start the third period to give Chicago another power play, but the Hawks continued to be ineffective in the offensive end of the ice. Scoring chances came few and far between for the Hawks as the game wore on, and Tampa simply sat back and avoided mistakes as they cruised to victory for the seventh straight game.