FINAL | Stanley Cup Final, Game 3 | Friday July 2, 2021

Lightning lead series 3-0

Canadiens Lineup

Tyler Toffoli – Nick Suzuki – Cole Caufield

Artturi Lehkonen – Phillip Danault – Brendan Gallagher

Paul Byron – Jesperi Kotkaniemi – Josh Anderson

Joel Armia – Eric Staal – Corey Perry

Ben Chiarot – Shea Weber

Joel Edmundson – Jeff Petry

Erik Gustafsson – Jon Merrill

Carey Price – Jake Allen

Tomas Tatar, Michael Frolik, Charlie Lindgren, Brett Kulak, Alexander Romanov,  Jake Evans

Alex Belzile, Laurent Dauphin, Lukas Vejdemo, Jesse Ylonen, Cale Fleury, Otto Leskinen, Xavier Ouellet, Cayden Primeau, Michael McNiven

Jonathan Drouin (undisclosed)

Game Report

There were 3,500 fans as the Bell Centre hosted a Stanley Cup Final game for the very first time. Unfortunately most went home disappointed as the Canadiens lost their third straight game to the Lightning.

I suppose the reaction on social media was understandable following the Canadiens defeat to the Tampa Bay Lightning in game 3. The old hockey adage states that a team isn’t in trouble in the playoffs until they lose at home. So the Montreal Canadiens are definitely in trouble yielding a wide range of emotions in the Habs online community.

There are the ‘last to arrive, first to leave’ types, the casual fans who jumped aboard once the Canadiens playoff bandwagon was rolling. There are fans who choose to believe that the Habs can complete the improbable comeback. And there were a whole legion of Leafs fans, not seen since May 31st when their team was bounced from the playoffs unexpectedly, armed with gifs of sweeping brooms.

Interestingly enough, the Toronto Maple Leafs are the only team in NHL history to win a Stanley Cup final series after trailing 3-0. That feat hasn’t happened in almost 80 years. But let’s not jump ahead.

Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes

So what went wrong? Montreal’s interim coach summed it up this way, “Every time we made a mistake, we paid cash.” It was a familiar phrase from Dominique Ducharme. He used it often as the Canadiens struggled in April and May to finish the season.

Ducharme’s phrase is only colloquial, not literal. Because as we witnessed, the Canadiens only paid a tiny portion of their bill tonight. The Habs mistakes started early,  were abundant, and continued throughout the game. Many times Carey Price was there to erase the errors, but in game three, even Price could not make up for a team that looked confused and overwhelmed.

The stat sheet showed the Canadiens outshot Tampa 35-30 but once again this masked the true picture. But the Lightning had double the high danger shots 10-5 in that category. Andrei Vasilevskiy is doing a very good job turning aside low quality shots by the Canadiens. 

The Canadiens had 11 shots on goal when their top line of Phillip Danault, Brendan Gallagher and Artturi Lehkonen was on the ice. But only two were considered high danger chances. Danault scored his first goal 20 games into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

In short, the Lightning are winning the battle of the slot hands down at both ends of the ice. That keeps Habs shooters away from Vasilevskiy and ensuring that Price faces a larger number of Grade-A scoring chances typically with a crowd in front of his crease.

One game at a time

So how can Canadiens fans still have hope? Well, that brings us to the last group of supporters online, the pragmatists. They know that rather than get overwhelmed by the size of the challenge, they must narrow their focus to winning the next game.

When Price was asked why his team could rally, he said “You don’t have a choice. We’ve overcome adversity all season long.” It’s a realistic goal, one game at a time, that fans can believe in.

Up Next

It goes without saying that the Canadiens must score first next game. They have not led at any time during the Stanley Cup Finals.

The series continues on Monday night in Montreal with game 4 as the Canadiens try to extend the series. The Habs are 3-0 in elimination games in these playoffs.

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