Blackhawks beat Penguins after finally holding on to third-period lead

The Blackhawks finally held on to a lead Sunday, snapping a streak of four games in which they led past the halfway point but wound up losing.

Frank Nazar scored his first short-handed goal in the NHL, Sam Rinzel notched his first point and Ilya Mikheyev tallied twice in the third period as the Hawks beat the Penguins 3-1 at the United Center.

‘‘The last three weeks [or] month maybe, we’ve played good,’’ Mikheyev said. ‘‘Not [always] win, but we have more advantage during each game, and we sometimes crack in the third period. It takes time to learn for young guys and for everybody to be patient and maybe play more simple.’’

Mikheyev’s analysis is correct. During five-on-five play, the Hawks only have been outshot 300-267 since March 10, their most respectable 13-game stretch by that indicator since the calendar flipped to 2025.

Before Sunday, however, they had won only once during that span, depriving their posse of young players the most meaningful kind of positive feedback.

In that sense, the victory was significant, even though it barely affected the Hawks’ 22-45-10 record. It also guaranteed they’ll finish this season, which has five games left, with more points than they did last season.

‘‘We were going into the third [period] in a position we’ve been in the past two games, and we just stuck with it,’’ goalie Spencer Knight said. ‘‘We didn’t try to open up the game. Everyone played pretty selfless, and then we battened down the hatches.’’

Knight finished with 28 saves on 29 shots, including a gem on Penguins forward Rickard Rakell late in the second period. Rakell, however, spoiled Knight’s shutout bid with a power-play goal in the third that made the finish interesting.

Aside from that, the Hawks did a better job of maintaining possession — rather than hanging on for dear life — in the third. Their touches and plays weren’t sharp for most of the game, but they hustled.

‘‘There were a lot of just 50/50 shifts going on,’’ interim coach Anders Sorensen said. ‘‘But for us as a group, that’s also a positive, learning how to play those games. We’ve had a tendency to open things up sometimes.

‘‘We were playing more on the front of our foot. We were encouraging guys to be more on the forecheck, reminding them [the Penguins] played last night: ‘Let’s stay on them.’ ’’