Canadiens Suffer Second Period Collapse | RECAP: TBL @ MTL

Forwards

22 Cole Caufield - 14 Nick Suzuki - 20 Juraj Slafkovsky
11 Brendan Gallagher - 15 Alex Newhook - 40 Joel Armia
17 Josh Anderson - 71 Jake Evans - 56 Jesse Ylonen
55 Michael Pezzetta - 36 Colin White - 49 Rafael Harvey-Pinard

Defensemen
8 Mike Matheson - 21 Kaiden Guhle
72 Arber Xhekaj - 58 David Savard
47 Jayden Struble - 54 Jordan Harris

Goaltenders

Starter: 30 Cayden Primeau
Alternate: 35 Sam Montembeault 

Out of the lineup

Scratches: Tanner Pearson, Johnathan Kovacevic
Injuries: Carey Price (knee), Chris Wideman (back), Kirby Dach (knee), Christian Dvorak (upper body), Joshua Roy (hand)

The Canadiens were in a buoyant mood after winning four of their last five games. Prior to tonight's match, coach Martin St. Louis was even in a feisty mood challenging a Montreal reporter that dared breathe a whisper of negativity about his team.

But all of that came crashing back to earth, as the Tampa Bay Lightning had their way with the home team. In doing so, Tampa swept the four-game season series between the two teams.

Montreal opened the scoring on a well-executed set play. Joel Armia picked up his 15th goal of the season just 2:37 into the contest. But the Lightning struck for two goals before the end of the period. 

Once again, it was Armia scoring early in the second period to bring Montreal even. But Tampa wasted no time taking back the lead with a dominating middle frame. The Lightning scored four times and outshot the Habs 20-6 to take a firm grip on the outcome.

Nursing a four-goal lead, it's fair to say that the Lightning took their foot off the gas in the third. The Canadiens got goals from Juraj Slafkovsky  and Cole Caufield to briefly make a game of it.

But an empty-netter from Steven Stamkos, his second goal of the night would seal the Lightning win.

The Canadiens announced that Kaiden Guhle would not return to the game after sustaining an upper body injury in the first period. There was no update on his condition after the game other than to say that he is still being evaluated.

Lightning goaltender Matt Tomkins picked up his second NHL win, celebrating both victories at the Bell Centre.

It came as no surprise that the Canadiens were officially eliminated from the playoffs this evening.

Canadiens (29-34-12)
Shots: 30
Face-off %: 40.6
Power play: 0/4
Penalty minutes: 16
Hits: 18
Blocks: 15

Lightning (43-26-7)
Shots: 35
Face-off %: 59.4
Power play: 2/5
Penalty minutes: 14
Hits: 18
Blocks: 21

Canadiens Scorers
1st period: Armia (15)
2nd period: Armia (16)
3rd period: Slafkovsky (16), Caufield (22)
OT: --
SO: --

Lightning Scorers
1st period: Paul (21)-PPG, Eyssimont (11)
2nd period: Stamkos (33), Paul (22), Hagel (24), Kucherov (43)-PPG
3rd period: Stamkos (34)-ENG
OT: --
SO: --

Goaltenders
MTL: Primeau (L) 8-8-2
TBL: Tomkins (W) 2-2-0

Joel Armia - Armia has scored five goals in his last five games including two tonight.

Cole Caufield - Caufield scored his 22nd goal of the season and led the team with seven shots on goal.

Martin St. Louis 

"We shot ourselves in the foot in the second period. It was one of our worst periods of the season. It's rare that we play like this. I liked how we fought in the third, but the damage was done."

Brendan Gallagher

“[The second period] was self-inflicted for sure. They're a good team but we didn't really make them earn it. We handed it to them and made it easy especially with them playing a back-to-back."

The Canadiens will complete their five-game homestand on Saturday night against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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