Despite a parade to the penalty box for the first forty minutes of the night, the Tampa Bay Lightning tied the game late against the Montreal Canadiens. An unfortunate turnover 47 seconds after the game-tying goal turned into the difference as Jaroslav Slafkovsky scored with 1:04 left on the clock to give the home team the 2-1 victory.
Declan Carlile and Anthony Cirelli returned to the line-up as the Lightning had to kill off seven short-handed chances while racking up 71 penalty minutes. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves, including 7 short-handed in the loss. Nick Suzuki had two assists while Cole Caufield scored his 50th goal of the season.
First Period
With a fired-up crowd behind them, Montreal looked to get on the board early. Yanni Gourde’s early double-minor for high-sticking allowed the Canadiens to spend four minutes in the Lightning zone firing pucks at the Bolts’ net. Only three made it on target (and were stopped) but Montreal didn’t shy away from pulling the trigger as they were credited with nine shot attempts.
It took the Bolts a little while, but their first shot on goal was a good one as the Anthony Cirelli line generated a turnover, and Jake Guentzel had a shot from the slot that Dobes swallowed up before the first post-whistle scrum of the night.
The Lightning’s anemic power play (2 for its last 24) had a chance to give the Lightning a lead, but it went by the wayside without a goal. Montreal did have a chance short-handed, but Philip Danault snapped his shot wide. A high stick by Ivan Demidov gave the Lightning another chance with the extra skater, but it was as ineffective as the first one.
Following the penalty (and with Josh Anderson and Nikita Kucherov serving matching minors) the Caufield line had a really strong shift that resulted in shots from Nick Suzuki and Jayden Struble finding the iron within seconds of each other. Still, it’s better than finding the nylon, and the Bolts escaped the first period without surrendering a goal.
Second Period
Sometimes it’s the smallest things that touch raise the temperature of a game. After an icing by Montreal, Josh Anderson fired off a crosscheck on Charle-Edouard D’Astous. He didn’t care for it and turned to face him. Joe Veleno jumped in and everyone paired off. Emil Lilleberg unlocked the cage protecting his broken face in time to eat a punch from Struble. In the end, the Lightning ended up with a power play. Yay.
Once again, an inability to get a shot on net was the downfall of the power play as it was left wanting on the ice. Shortly after, the Habs had a two-on-one with the two players Vasilevskiy didn’t want to see racing down the ice – Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. Suzuki made the pass allowing Caufield to slide the puck home to hit the magic number of 50. The play started when Lilleberg stepped up to hit Slafkovsky at the Montreal blueline. That created a seam in the middle of the ice that provided the space for Suzuki to outskate Brayden Point and Gage Goncalves to set up Caufield for the historic goal.
The actual game of ice hockey took a step backwards after the goal as every stoppage was met with a scrum, and every hit carried a little extra meaning. Montreal had back-to-back power plays, some 10-minute misconducts were handed out, and Declan Carlile squared off against Josh Anderson. More penalties ensued after Brayden Point ran Jakob Dobes and the penalties continued to pile up.
Tampa Bay really struggled to generate any type of offense throughout the period (mainly because they had to kill off over seven minutes of penalties. Through forty minutes, Montreal failed to convert on any of their six power plays. With all of the broken play, the Lightning only had 17 shot attempts through the first two periods.
Third Period
The Lightning might not have been getting many shots on goal early in the third, but they were at least generating chances. Kucherov had a clean look down low that missed the net, as did Corey Perry. Cirelli had a back-door tap-in off of a centering feed muffled at the last second by Mikey Matheson as Tampa Bay started to put some pressure on the Canadiens defense.
Montreal was on their heels a bit, but they still managed to generate some chances as Vasilevsky stopped Oliver Kapanen on a point-blank chance early in the period and then Suzuki on a three-on-one. A needless penalty by J.J. Moser put Montreal on their seventh power play of the night.
Montreal really didn’t have a clean look and then returned the favor as Demidov went off for kneeing Corey Perry. The energy ramped up on this advantage as Guentzel was denied point blank (which led a Montreal three-on-one) and Kucherov had a sliver of an open net but rang the puck off of the crossbar.
Charle-Edouard D’Astous didn’t get a point when the Lightning tied the game up, but they don’t score without him. The first-year defender dropped down behind the Montreal goal line and won a puck battle behind the net against two Canadiens. Goncalves picked up the loose puck and fed it to Kucherov who set up Darren Raddysh for a big shot that beat Dubas and made it 1-1.
Sadly, they failed to carry the tie into the bonus frame. On the next shift, Nick Suzuki picked off a pass behind the Lightning net and fed it Slafkovsky who beat Vasilevskiy to reestablish the lead with just over a minute to go in the game.
The Goals
Cole Caufield [50] (Nick Suzuki, Jaroslav Slafkovsky) 1-0 Canadiens
Darren Raddysh (Nikita Kucherov, Gage Goncalves) 1-1
Jaroslav Slafkovsky [30] (Nick Suzuki) 2-1 Canadiens
Pretty Colors
