Ilya Mikheyev scored a pair of goals in his first game against his former team and the Lightning didn’t allow a goal until the final minute in a well-rounded 4-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.

Tampa Bay improved to 10-3-2 while extending the franchise record for best start on home ice (8-0-0) to open a season.

“For the most part, we played a pretty steady, solid game,” coach Jon Cooper said. “I give Chicago credit. That’s a young, young team, and they just kept coming and kept coming. It showed, and they scored in the end. But in the end, we had to get our job done tonight, and we did.”

Captain Victor Hedman kicked off the scoring with a power-play goal 4:12 into the game, rushing the puck through the neutral zone and passing to Anthony Cirelli at the blue line. The duo entered the zone, and Hedman one-timed the return pass through Chicago goalie Arvid Soderblom.

The Lightning power play now has goals in seven of its last eight games.

“I’ve played together with Tony for a long time, and we know our instincts,” Hedman said. “We trust those, and that’s why it was kind of open and had some good speed. So it was a good play.”

After spending the last two seasons in Chicago, Mikheyev doubled the Lightning lead in his first game against his former team, a goal that wound up as the game-winner.

The winger accepted a drop pass from Erik Cernak at the left point, moved to the circle and fired a shot between Soderblom’s legpads with 90 seconds left in the opening period for a 2-0 lead.

A quieter second period saw the Lightning fire 16 shots on goal before they extended their advantage 2:38 into the third period on Ryan McDonagh’s top-shelf slap shot from atop the left faceoff circle.

Cernak and Mikheyev combined for another goal to add some insurance, this time on a play that saw Cernak drive the right side of the offensive zone before feeding an open Mikheyev for a tap-in goal at the left post.

“I was just driving to the net and something happens, maybe,” Mikheyev said of the play. “Nothing crazy, nothing new.”

It was Mikheyev’s first multi-goal game as a Bolt and his first multi-point performance since the third game of the season on Oct. 5. His line with Zemgus Girgensons and Pontus Holmberg controlled play for much of the night.

“How about that? He gets to play against his old team and scores two. That’s pretty cool. Good for him,” Cooper said.

“That’s a pretty darn good trio, and they spent a lot more time in the offensive zone than the line they were going against. A lot of times your best defense is having the puck in the offensive zone, and if you don’t give those really high-end guys a chance to play offense it can get frustrating. The only time we kind of lost our matchup on that was on icings and stuff like that, but it was a great effort. “

Mikheyev and Cernak co-led the Lightning offensively, and Thursday marked Cernak’s 11th career multi-point game.

“In our system, defensemen have to kind of jump into the offense, into those rushes, and that happened to me twice today,” Cernak said. “Luckily, both of the goals from Micky went in. It’s always nice when you’re supporting the offense. It was good that both of those goals went in, and we just have to stay on top of it and jump to those places.”

Vasilevskiy was steady in his 600th career start. The Lightning goalie finished with 24 saves, turning aside multiple Chicago chances during a second period push. 

His .962 save percentage marked his best this season, and the only puck to beat him was a deflection in the game’s final minute.

“It was an unfortunate goal,” Cernak said. “The guy falls down, Vasy falls down and he just couldn’t see the puck. Unlucky for him that he didn’t get the shutout, but hopefully he’s gonna get the next one.

Vasilevskiy is just the third active goalie (Connor Hellebuyck, Sergei Bobrovsky) to reach 600 career starts and the 49th goalie all-time. He is now 8-3-1 this season, and his eight wins tie for third among all NHL goalies.

Other notable numbers:

Brayden Point’s assist on the 3-0 goal extended his point streak to six games, his longest since an eight-game run in December 2024.

Girgensons notched an assist on the 4-0 goal in his return from a three-game absence due to a lower-body injury.

Tampa Bay now hits the road for a weekend back to back, beginning with an 8 p.m. ET puck drop against the Minnesota Wild (11-3-3) on Saturday.

Benjamin’s Three Stars:

1. Ilya Mikheyev, TBL (2 goals)

2. Erik Cernak, TBL (2 assists)

3. Andrei Vasilevskiy, TBL (24-save win)