CHICAGO — The Chicago Blackhawks were tested on consecutive nights in a way they hadn’t been tested all season.

The Carolina Hurricanes and Tampa Bay Lightning are the top two teams in the Eastern Conference, and the Blackhawks got to see why on consecutive nights. Though there is still a Minnesota Wild-Colorado Avalanche back-to-back ahead for the Blackhawks, they hadn’t faced a back-to-back like the Hurricanes on the road Thursday and the Lightning at home Friday to date.

The Hurricanes and Lightning showed why on both nights they’re so good. They swarmed and attacked the Blackhawks shift after shift. At times, the Blackhawks were overwhelmed and looked as if they might cave. And overall, the analytics weren’t pretty — the scoring chances were 60-25 against the Blackhawks in five-on-five over the two games — but the Blackhawks got quality goaltending from Spencer Knight and Arvid Söderblom, scored a few clutch goals and ultimately found ways to pull points from both games, winning in a shootout Thursday and losing in a shootout Friday.

For a team that entered the week in desperation mode with its playoff chances fading, the Blackhawks kept those hopes alive by compiling 5 out of a possible 6 points in the week. But also important, they went toe-to-toe with two of the league’s best teams on consecutive nights and can take a positive feeling out of the experience.

“I think it says a lot about us when we’re playing the right way and playing good hockey,” Blackhawks forward Ryan Greene said. “I think we’re a tough team to handle, and we’re just trying to keep that going moving forward.”

Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill thought there were lessons in the two games, too.

“I think there’s value in continuing to measure yourself against these teams,” said Blashill, whose team has a .490 points percentage after 51 games. “But I think it’s interesting, I talked to a young player today and said it was the first time he ever played in Carolina. I hadn’t really thought of that. That’s a different experience. Then to see where Tampa’s at, because they’re similar to us structurally in a lot of ways, obviously systematically we have a lot of similarities, what we’ll take from tonight is just a lesson on how hard you have to be on your stick, how crisp you have to be with your passes. I thought they were harder and a little more crisp, so that’s the level we have to get to. That said, we were able to get a point and obviously had chances to win it in overtime, so we just have to continue to get better.”

The Lightning were the dominant team through two periods. They didn’t have a lot of high-quality chances, but they were constantly in the Blackhawks’ zone. If they didn’t have the puck, they were taking the puck from the Blackhawks. The Lightning led 41-15 in shot attempts through two periods. The Blackhawks had just six shots on goal up to that point.

Despite those lopsided numbers, the Blackhawks were tied at 1 with the Lightning going into the third period. The Blackhawks’ goal play started when the puck came out of the Lightning’s zone and slid to Oliver Moore. Moore recognized teammate Nick Foligno wasn’t onside and waited to touch the puck back inside the Lightning’s zone until Foligno reached the blue line. From there, Moore found Greene cutting through the middle of the ice. Greene found a clear path as the one Lightning defender in Greene’s way followed Nick Lardis’ path. Greene had Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy alone, and Greene capitalized. He faked a shot to the middle and then shot to the right corner.

After having a 19-game goal-less streak, Greene has scored three goals, including one empty-netter, in the last seven games. Greene didn’t think much had changed.

“I don’t think necessarily changing anything,” Greene said. “Just capitalizing on chances is something I’ve struggled with, so just trying to find a way to get those in.”

Greene has needed to see those goals go in. For Söderblom, it was just as important not to see them pass him. Coming off allowing five goals against the Boston Bruins last weekend, Söderblom bounced back with a strong performance against the Lightning. He stopped 30 of 31 shots. It was his first game with a save percentage greater than .905 since Nov. 19.

“It was a busy night,” Söderblom said. “It was fun to play, see a lot of shots. For me, personally, it felt good. Sucks we didn’t get both points. I think we played our best in the third and made our push. Obviously not enough.”

The Blackhawks were at their best in the third period. The game was much more even, and the Blackhawks had more chances. Frank Nazar and André Burakovsky had some of the Blackhawks’ best chances.

NHL GameScore Impact Card for Chicago Blackhawks on 2026-01-23: pic.twitter.com/KRnvvLvpDL

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Blashill had switched up the lines to start the game and put Connor Bedard with Ilya Mikheyev and Tyler Bertuzzi and placed Nazar with Burakovsky and Greene, but he went away from that as the game went on. Bedard had one of his quietest games of the season. He had no shots on goal and one shot attempt. It was just the second time this season he didn’t record a shot on net.

“We’re trying to figure out what our best four-line combo is,” Blashill said. “Didn’t love it obviously through the first two. Coop (Jon Cooper) does a good job of getting people on and off the ice for certain matchups. So, I thought we were on our heels a little bit, so I just said, let’s go back to similar lines of what we had and see if we could get rolling. Power plays, penalty kills, it just didn’t seem to be much flow in the game.”

Blashill did give Artyom Levshunov more ice time Friday after limiting it Thursday. Levshunov finished at 21:59 Friday compared with 16:37 against the Hurricanes.

“I thought Arty played better, for sure,” Blashill said. “I thought he was noticing better, made some really good defensive plays late in the game. I thought overall he had a better game, for sure, it was back in the right direction.”