Donato scores 2 more, lifts Blackhawks past Lightning late

TAMPA -- Ryan Donato scored twice, including the go-ahead goal with 54 seconds left in the third period, for the Chicago Blackhawks in a 3-2 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena on Thursday.

Donato gave the Blackhawks the 3-2 lead with a shot into an open net after Andrei Vasilevskiy was moved out of position to make a save on Frank Nazar. Teuvo Teravainen initiated the rush by stealing the puck from Nikita Kucherov.

"A great two-way play by 'Turbo.’ Unreal stop on defense and he laid it in a great area for me to go down," Nazar said. "And Donato coming down, working hard to get up ice and send it home."

Donato has five goals during a four-game streak.

"That puck ... I was a little nervous when it came to me because it was such an open net and there was so much spin on the puck," Donato said. "I'm like, if I miss this, I'm going to lose my mind."

Nazar had a goal and an assist, and Teravainen had two assists for the Blackhawks (4-2-2), who have won two straight and four of five (4-0-1). Spencer Knight made 29 saves.

"I thought we worked extremely hard, I thought we competed extremely hard," Chicago coach Jeff Blashill said. "I think we make some mistakes and when we made mistakes, ‘Knighter’ has been great. He makes big saves at big moments and gives us a chance to win the hockey game."

Ryan McDonagh had a goal and an assist, and Kucherov had two assists in his return for the Lightning (1-4-2), who are 0-2-2 in their past four games. Vasilevskiy made 22 saves.

"It's a game of small margins and we're being hurt by the margins that we cause against ourselves," McDonagh said. "It's so close. It's the NHL. We've been on the right side of it a lot of times when you don't deserve it and tonight, maybe, you think you deserve something...but at the end of the day the final score is all that matters."

Kucherov, who missed the previous two games with an illness, pulled within one point of 1,000 in the NHL.

Nazar gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 10:41 of the first period, scoring on a one-timer from the hash marks off a pass from Tyler Bertuzzi.

"It's been some hard times, some good times, but learning from losses and learning from mistakes," Nazar said. "We got guys going out working their tail off to kill penalties...being able to keep maturing our game and finishing and closing out games like that is super rewarding."

Jake Guentzel tied it 1-1 at 6:57 of the second period with a redirection off a slap shot from McDonagh with Kucherov providing the initial setup pass.

"I think tonight was a step in the right direction, there's things obviously we need to clean up," Guentzel said. "But I thought we were a lot better. We've got to stay with it and bear down on our chances."

Donato put Chicago back ahead 2-1 at 10:16 with a wrist shot from the left circle that beat Vasilevskiy to the short side.

"It's obviously nice that we have [Knight] backing us up when we make mistakes...you're playing against Kucherov, (Brayden) Point, these guys are going to create offense and it's a matter of weathering it," Donato said. "The younger guys are starting to understand that. If you do the hard things right, usually good things happen."

McDonagh tied it 2-2 at 19:18 with a snap shot from inside the right circle off a cross-ice pass from Kucherov, who recorded his 999th career point with the assist.

"I liked a lot about our game,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “I didn't like the penalties we took; I thought we took some careless penalties that put us in a little bit of a peril in the third. I didn't like the last minute and I didn't like the result. Everything else, there was a ton of positives to take out of the game, but unfortunately it's a results-oriented game and we didn't get the result."

NOTES: Donato became the fourth Blackhawks player in the past decade to score a go-ahead goal in the final minute of regulation. The others: Connor Bedard (59:06 on Dec. 15, 2024), Patrick Kane (59:43 on Feb. 27, 2019) and Duncan Keith (59:51 on April 4, 2018). … Vasilevskiy’s 13-game winning streak against the Blackhawks ended. It was tied with Thatcher Demko (13 games against the San Jose Sharks) for the longest active win streak against a single opponent. … Nazar has four points (three goals, assist) in his past four games.