CANADIENS
Montreal

LIGHTNING
Tampa Bay

Game Report

The Tampa Bay Lightning are moving on to the Eastern Conference Final against the New York Rangers or the Washington Capitals. On the western side of the ledger are the Anaheim Ducks and the Chicago Blackhawks. Of that group, the Lightning are unbeaten in regulation against New York, Anaheim and Chicago, a rather impressive record against the elite of the NHL.

Tampa Bay is a team with speedy, skilled forwards and a big mobile defense. They have one of the best young coaching minds in hockey.  Their Achilles heel is average goaltending but the system and the talent surrounding him makes the weakness tough to exploit.

All of this explains why Tampa is such a tough matchup for the Canadiens, a team with a dearth of offensive talent playing a system that stifles production.  Montreal could not consistently take advantage of Tampa’s shortcomings.  When scoring chances are rare, hit goal posts receive much more attention.

On Tuesday night, the Lightning took the approach that it was their Game 7 and they gave their best performance of the playoffs. Tampa coach Jon Cooper saw Carey Price steal Game 5 in Montreal and knew that his team was in trouble should a seventh game be required. Hence Cooper’s ‘pedestrian’ comments which struck most as rather desperate.

But Cooper also devised a solid game plan and the Bolts executed it.

The Lightning got the all important first goal with less than five minutes left in the first period, a second at the 5:12 mark of the second period and it was over.  The Canadiens couldn’t cash on their limited scoring chances: Brandon Prust with hands of stone off a perfect feed from Lars Eller, Dale Weise succeeding on hitting a stationery glove on a breakaway and P.A. Parenteau catching a piece of the post with lots of room to bury it.

A goal with the man advantage could have helped the Canadiens but the successful formula proved more indecipherable to the Canadiens coaching staff than the code to the God particle. The penalty-kill at just 70 per cent efficiency for the playoffs gave up the third goal for Tampa sending some Bell Centre patrons to the exits during the second intermission — the bubble had burst on the fan party.

There was a brief moment of hope in the third period when Max Pacioretty scored but by then it was too little, too late.  And just like that the Canadiens season came to a sudden stop.

It was a study in contrasts in the post-game scrums with coach Michel Therrien saying he was disappointed that his team was physically and emotionally drained. The words were ill-suited for the occasion and avoided any personal responsibility.

On the other hand, Carey Price said that he didn’t play well enough in the series. Frankly his words were absurd. Price played brilliantly in the playoffs, and was the Habs best player by far.  But by  shouldering the load, Price, once again, showed that, without or without the ‘C’, he is the captain of the Montreal Canadiens.

Price is already the co-winner of the Jennings Trophy and likely will add the Vezina, Hart and the Lindsay awards. But he badly wants a Stanley Cup. And having just completed one of the best seasons a goaltender has ever had in hockey, it could have been within his grasp.

But now it’s time for the management to fill in the personnel gaps and decide whether they can win the ultimate prize with a coach who is stuck on a system that shoehorns players into it. The off-season games have now begun.

▲▲ Carey Price

▲     Max Pacioretty, Alexei Emelin

▼     Brandon Prust, Devante Smith-Pelly, Tom Gilbert, Tomas Plekanec, Torrey Mitchell, Michel Therrien

1.  Nikita Kucherov  TBL
2.  Ben Bishop  TBL
3.  Steven Stamkos  TBL

• “First of all you got to give the Lightning a lot of credit, they played their best game in this series tonight. For reasons for us right now it’s tough to evaluate out. Still, I felt as a coach, physically and mentally we were drained. So, (I’m) disappointed. I guess those things happen.”
• “The special teams, not only the power but our penalty kill, they weren’t good.”

Carey Price

• “We had a lot of fun all season long. It’s hard to choke down and look back on that in this moment. I thought we played well enough to win the series. I thought we played well enough to win in each game, except the one we got blown out in [in Game 2], but it didn’t go our way.”
• “I didn’t play well enough for us to win the series. I think that’s basically more or less what it comes down to. We lost a lot of tight games. I just needed to make that one more save in all the games that we lost and I didn’t do that.”

Tomas Plekanec

• “It’s the same story as pretty much the whole series. I thought I had a hell of a chance there, should have put it in. We would have been up by one. [Brendan Gallagher] had a good chance. We could have scored goals, then they did, and since the second period we started pressing, forcing the plays too much. They were playing whatever they needed to, and we were just pushing without any support, without any other plays that we wanted.”

P.K. Subban

• “Everybody in here wanted to continue playing, but that’s the playoffs. They give you seven total opportunities to win a series and it’s the first team to four games. They got to four before we could. We showed a lot of character after losing 0-3 to bring the series to a point where we had an opportunity to take it, but at the same token, I don’t think anybody will be satisfied. Our goal was to win the Stanley Cup and we didn’t. When you’re down 3-0 there’s no room for error and you definitely can’t play a bad game. Tonight, we didn’t play well enough.”

Max Pacioretty

• “It was a great group to be around. It was a lot of fun – overcoming adversity, proving a lot of people wrong. We were able to accomplish a lot, but we all had one goal in mind and we fell short. I know that down the road these are experiences that are going to make us all better.”
• “The core group of guys has been together for a while. Three years ago in the playoffs was obviously tough, losing in five [to Ottawa]. Last year we had a lot of success and this year we had an opportunity to do even better and we fell short. It’s hard to pinpoint what we learned, but I think as the summer goes on and the years go on, we’ll realize these were great experiences.”

Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop

• “I thought that was probably our best game, maybe since Game 1 of the playoffs. Hopefully we can take this and keep building on it.”

Lightning forward Steven Stamkos

• “I’ve always talked about 2011 was the most fun I’ve ever had playing this game. We’re getting on that right now. Obviously, I want a little better result this time, but this group has been resilient all year.”
• “This was our Game 7 tonight. This was the biggest game of the playoffs for us and we responded.”
• “That’s as good as a defensive period (third) as we’ve played all season.”

Lightning coach Jon Cooper

• “It’s impressive to watch this team grow in such a short time we’ve been together.”