Disbelief lingered inside the Lightning dressing room at Benchmark International Arena Sunday night. The season was over, despite holding Montreal to just nine shots on goal, including none in the second period, a stretch in which the Canadiens went 26:55 without recording a shot.
With the series tied 3-3 and their season on the line, the stakes were high. The margin for error was thin, but the Lightning felt confident in their ability to get a win and move on to the second round.
“This team was different, it was different, they deserved better than what happened to them,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “And it’s too bad. Because how hard they worked and committed and just did everything we asked. And then to go out … they gave everything they possibly could and fell short."
Inside the Canadiens room, Marty St. Louis, whose number hangs inside Benchmark International Arena, channeled “The Wolf of Wall Street,” yelling, “We aren’t leaving! Let’s keep going!”
“Tonight, what did we have, nine shots, 10 shots? I felt like tonight they deserved better,” he said after the game. “I felt like Game 6 we probably deserved better and Dobes kind of stole the game. Probably similar to the way Vasy stole the game in Game 6 in my mind. You need a little bit of everything and that's what we got this series. We got a bounce. It’s not one thing, you’ve got to find a way and I feel like we didn’t differently.”
Nick Suzuki gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead at 18:39 of the first period when his redirection of Kaiden Guhle's shot that deflected in off J.J. Moser's skate.
Lightning rookie Dominic James tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 13:27, scoring on a redirection of a slap shot by Charle-Edouard D'Astous. The fourth line of James, Gage Goncalves and Oliver Bjorkstrand carried the speed for most of the 5-on-5 play.
© Morgan Tencza-Imagn Images"From start to finish we stuck with our process and our plan," said Ryan McDonagh. "In the end it doesn't matter because they had two and we had one, so it's a loss. Credit to them. They grinded and found a way."
The game-winning goal came when Lane Hutson took a shot that Andrei Vasilevskiy initially turned away, but the rebound came off the end boards, where Alex Newhook batted it in off Vasilevskiy’s back.
“I thought we got better as we went and I thought tonight we played our best game of the series,” said Cooper: “Sometimes you win the game and not the score, and it’s Game 7. There’s no moral victory in that.”
The entire series was defined by razor-thin margins. All seven games were decided by one goal, with four needing overtime. The road team won five of the seven contests, including three of four by Montreal in Tampa.
“You’re going to win 99 percent of those games,” said Brandon Hagel. “But at the end of the day, if you lose three games at home, you’re probably not going to win the series.”
The Lightning will have plenty to sort through this offseason after a fourth straight first-round exit. They're a team with Stanley Cup aspirations and a promising group of young players.
“Yeah it sucks, you don’t get any younger, that’s for sure,’’ Hagel added. “I’ve got one goal on my mind, one goal on my mind every single year … I just want to win, this sucks.”