The Montreal Canadiens took a 2-0 lead in Game 4 but couldn't hold on, losing 3-2 and allowing the Tampa Bay Lightning to even the series at 2-2.
After a dramatic OT win on Friday night, the Montreal Canadiens were hoping to take a commanding 3-1 lead in their playoff series with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Martin St-Louis made no change to his lineup, while Jon Cooper elected to take out Scott Sabourin and replace him with Oliver Bjorkstrand, and he swapped Declan Carlile to replace him with Max Crozier.
After Yvan Cournoyer on Friday night, it was Serge Savard’s turn to light up the ice with the torch to thunderous applause by the Habs’ faithful. The noise level might even have been higher than for Game 3, perhaps the fact that it was a weekend game and the weather was gorgeous helped a bit. Fans arrived early and tailgated outside.
Bolduc Gets On The Board
After struggling to get out of their own zone in the first half of the second frame and withstanding the Tampa storm, the Canadiens took control in the second half. Just past the 10-minute mark, Kaiden Guhle spotted Zachary Bolduc in space, launched a rocket of a pass, and the Trois-Rivieres native took off with Darren Raddysh hot on his heels. Raddysh caught up to him and did his best to prevent him from even shooting, but somehow the puck got in the net. That was Bolduc’s first-ever playoff goal.
A New And Improved Power Play
While St-Louis didn’t change the players on his first power play unit, the Canadiens were much more mobile tonight, swapping positions throughout the man-advantage. Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky moved around more, and they all took turns in the bumper position. It made their power play a lot less predictable, and it required Tampa to work harder to keep a close eye on Caufield.
It didn’t bear fruit in the first frame, but in the second frame, Caufield went headfirst in heavy traffic at the front of the net, positioned himself in front of J.J. Moser, and Suzuki immediately fed him for a tap-in. Needless to say, the snipper looked incredibly relieved to finally find the back of the net in the playoffs.
Slafkovsky Got Rocked
After getting a pass from Alexandre Carrier late in the second at center ice, Slafkovsky didn’t see Max Crozier coming, and the defenseman, who was inserted in the lineup for the game, hit the Habs’ forward with an insanely hard hit. The big Slovak fell heavily to the ice, but he was able to get back up on his own and went straight to the room.
Less than two minutes later, Jake Guentzel was able to get the Bolts on the board with under a minute left in the middle stanza, which was a gut punch for the Habs. Thankfully for Montreal, Slafkovsky came back for the third frame, but trailing by a goal and on the verge of falling behind 3-1 in the series, Tampa Bay came out strong in the final period.
They’re Good At Making Us Take Penalties
51 seconds into the final frame, Oliver Kapanen was called for a high stick on Dominic James and the general feeling in the press gallery, and in the Bell Centre was that the Finnish forward's stick never touched the Tampa Forward. It ended up being a costly penalty, and Brandon Hagel scored his fifth goal of the series to tie the game.
Talking to the media after the game, Martin St-Louis didn’t criticize the referees, at least not directly:
We put ourselves in situations where there’s a chance that the refs are going to call a penalty. You know, that’s a veteran team, they’re very good at drawing penalties. They’ve got talented players; they’re a tough team. We knew it was going to be a tough series, and we’re in a battle. It’s a fine line between winning and losing in those games, but we’ll battle.
In French, he had previously said that the Lightning was good at making the Habs take penalties.
When asked specifically about the Kapanen penalty and how he handled that kind of frustration, the bench boss replied that he’d just lean on Seinfeld on that one, with a little laugh.
Halfway through the third, Montreal found itself down two men, with Mike Matheson and Jake Evans, two penalty killers, in the box. The Sainte-Flanelle managed to kill both calls, and one would have thought it would have given them a huge boost, but it was the Lightning who got a goal minutes later. Hagel scored his second of the game when a Nikita Kucherov shot deflected off his face to beat Jakub Dobes for what would turn out to be the game-winning goal.
St-Louis’ men had a golden opportunity to tie up the game when Kucherov was called for a slashing penalty with two and a half minutes left, but they were unable to do so, even though they pulled their goaltenders.
The series now goes back to Tampa Bay with the score tied at 2-2 and becomes a best-two-out-of-three, meaning Cooper’s team has regained home ice advantage. The Canadiens will enjoy a day off on Monday before returning to the ice on Tuesday, in readiness for Wednesday night’s game.
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