There really are no bad shots in overtime. Just over two minutes into the third straight overtime game between Tampa Bay and Montreal, Lane Hutson proved that as he wound up and unleashed a shot through a forest of players that somehow eluded every stick, elbow, skate, shin pad, and blocker before finding the back of the net to give the home team the 3-2 victory.
It was another tight game between the two teams that saw waves of momentum come and go for both sides. Montreal opened the scoring early in the first when Alexandre Texier wristed a shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy from the slot early in the first. Brayden Point countered with his first goal of the series as he slapped home a one-timer on the power play.
Brandon Hagel continues his strong series as he picked off a pass in the neutral zone, glided into the offensive zone and zipped his fourth goal of the series past Jakob Dobes. The lead lasted until the back-half of the period when Kirby Dach, who was the subject of a tremendous amount of criticism following his icing in overtime in Game Two that led to J.J. Moser’s game winner, snapped a shot from the right circle that glanced off the inside of Ryan McDonagh’s skate and through Vasilevskiy’s five-hole.
Montreal controlled much of the play in the third period, even generating a few chances on the Lightning’s lone power play in the third period. Neither team could score, mainly because of the play of the goaltenders, and that set up Hutson’s heroics in overtime.
Vasilevskiy was the hard-luck loser as he stopped 26-of-29 shots, including breakaways by Ivan Demidov, Cole Caufield, and Josh Anderson. Dobes wasn’t nearly as busy as he turned aside 15-of-17 with his skaters blocking 20 shots in front of him. It was another game where the Lightning struggled to get traffic and chances in front of Dobes. They were credited with just three high-danger chances (with two of those coming on the power play). Of the 30 attempts that weren’t blocked 13 went wide.
Tampa Bay was able to kill off their four short-handed chances while they converted one of their five power plays.
The Goals
Alexandre Texier [1] (Zack Bolduc, Kirby Day) 1-0 Canadiens
Bradyen Point [1] (Jake Guentzel, Nikita Kucherov) Power Play 1-1
Brandon Hagel [4] (Unassisted) 2-1 Lightning
Kirby Dach [1] (Arber Xhekaj) 2-2
Lane Hutson [2] (Alexandre Texier, Zack Bolduc) 3-2 Canadiens
The Charts
