It was a game made for Hockey Night in Canada.
The playoff-bound Montreal Canadiens were in Tampa Bay to face a Lightning team that had put together the NHL’s best record through the month of March just to keep their playoff hopes alive. Two teams with tantalizing speed, unheralded grit and otherworldly goaltending; rivals doing battle with the stakes as high as they can be in the regular season.
In the end it was the Canadiens who took a step closer towards their goal of clinching the Atlantic Division, notching points 98 and 99 of their season to give themselves an eight-point lead over the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators. Their counterparts pushed the game to overtime and took a half-step closer to theirs, keeping within four points of the Boston Bruins for the final available playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
You’d have not complained about the low 2-1 score line had you watched this one.
Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy was nothing short of heroic, particularly in the second period, when the Canadiens notched 17 of their 36 shots—including six quality ones on a power play that began with 17:26 remaining in the frame.
Chances from Andrei Markov, Shea Weber, Artturi Lehkonen, Andrew Shaw, Alex Galchenyuk and Max Pacioretty flew from every angle, and Vasilevskiy swam across his crease to thwart them all.
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Roughly 180 feet from Vasilevskiy’s net, Canadiens goaltender Carey Price, who made some incredible saves of his own, stood tall.
The ones on Lightning defenceman Victor Hedman and red-hot forward Nikita Kucherov—he had 12 goals and 22 points in 14 March contests—stood out. But Price’s best of the night was reserved for a second-period breakaway from centre Brayden Point, who attempted to beat him on the blocker side and was promptly stuffed.
On the physical side, Canadiens defenceman Nathan Beaulieu set the tone with two bone-crunchers in the first period. The fourth line of Andreas Martinsen (6-foot-3), Michael McCarron (6-foot-6), and Dwight King (6-foot-4)—with nearly 700 pounds of muscle between them—joined the parade, contributing to the 19 hits Montreal registered in the game.
Tampa’s Vladislav Namestnikov responded by pasting Andrei Markov with a hit that sent the 38-year-old flying, defenceman Jake Dotchin had four of his own, including one big one on Shaw, and Greg McKegg caught Alexei Emelin with an illegal check to the head.
Suffice it to say, it was a rough one.
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It was also a game begging for overtime.
Canadiens forward Phillip Danault scored his 13th goal of the season to give his team a 1-0 lead with just over five minutes remaining in the second period. A reply from Tampa’s Yanni Gourd, who tipped Hedman’s point shot into the top shelf of Price’s net with just over eight minutes left in the third, set this one up to go the distance.
Pacioretty dipped his shoulder and drove past Hedman for a chance denied by Vasilevskiy in the opening seconds of the extra period. In a flash, the Lightning countered with a 3-on-1 that died on Kucherov’s stick, with the Russian pushing his one-timed slap shot wide of the open net. The play went back down to the other end, where Pacioretty missed another chance but collected his own rebound, cycled back towards the point and converted on the second of two pass attempts to Alexander Radulov.
The game ended on Radulov’s perfect shot, which hit the top half of the net to give him his 17th goal of the season.
It was a fitting outcome, considering how play favoured the Canadiens throughout the night.
They had come to Tampa brimming with the type of confidence that had all but evaporated in the lead up to Claude Julien’s hiring as head coach on Feb. 14.
A disastrous month of January had undone all the habits that got the team off to a 13-1-1 start to the season, and Price had floundered with an .895 save percentage in coach Michel Therrien’s final 17 games.
But the turnaround, which is marked by Price’s .941 save percentage in 17 starts under Julien, was stamped by their impressive performance on Saturday. They went 9-3-1 in March, and as a result of Saturday’s outcome they now ride a four-game winning streak into their final four games of the regular season.
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Meanwhile, the Lightning have little to no margin for error from this point forward.
That’s why Steven Stamkos’ imminent return—perhaps as early Sunday for Tampa’s game against the Dallas Stars—comes sharply into focus. The Lightning captain has missed all but 17 games this season with a knee injury.
Forward Tyler Johnson, who last played on March 9, is also a strong possibility to play against Dallas.
They are two players who could’ve made all the difference in Saturday’s loss to the Canadiens, but at least the game’s entertainment value wasn’t marred by their absence.
