CANADIENS
Montreal

LIGHTNING
Tampa Bay

Lineup

Forward lines and defense pairings 

[one_half]Tatar – Danault – Gallagher
Drouin – Domi – Hudon
Lehkonen – Kotkaniemi – Armia
Deslauriers – Peca – Shaw
[/one_half]

[one_half_last]Benn – Petry
Reilly – Juulsen
Ouellet – Mete

[/one_half_last]

Goaltenders

Price
Niemi

Scratches

Scherbak, Alzner

Injuries

Weber, Schlemko, Plekanec, Byron

Game Report 

Carrying the emotion from Thursday’s exciting win, the Canadiens got off to a quick start. For the fourth time this season, Max Domi scored the opening goal, his seventh of the year. The Bell Centre was celebrating just 58 seconds in to the contest.

Montreal fired the first six shots of the game before the Lightning responded. All the momentum was going the Canadiens way until Nicolas Deslauriers took a needless boarding penalty. Steven Stamkos scored a goal resulting from the power-play just as Deslauriers’ penalty expired.

After the penalty was called, shots on goal were 12-2 for the Lightning. The momentum had swung against the Canadiens in rapid and dramatic fashion.

Just two and a half minutes later J.T. Miller put the Bolts up 2-1 after taking advantage of a Charles Hudon turnover.

Tampa Bay held just a one goal lead after the first period but the Canadiens offered very little push back for the final 40 minutes. The second period featured the ‘quantity over quality’ Habs offense. Andrei Vasilevskiy was very good in the Lightning net but faced perimeter shots with little traffic, few second shot chances and no one the caliber of Steven Stamkos.

Carey Price was solid in the Habs net making spectacular saves on Dan Girardi and Mathieu Joseph.

Post-game, Claude Julien specifically called out Hudon’s poor defensive play that led to Tampa’s second and third goals.

The Canadiens defensive lapses and failures to execute in the neutral zone hurt them. Dismal play by Montreal’s special teams and the fourth line were the deciding factors in this game against a very good Lightning team.

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▲  Carey Price, Max Domi

▼  Nicolas Deslauriers, Jonathan Drouin, Matthew Peca, Charles Hudon

1. Andrei Vasilevskiy  TBL
2. Steven Stamkos  TBL
3. Anton Stralman  TBL

• “Obviously, on the second goal, [Charles Hudon] forces a pass when he could have (cleared.) In the D zone there’s still some areas that Charlie can work at.”
• “Guys didn’t execute well through the neutral zone and on our entry we let a guy come in late and we didn’t pick him up. That’s a mistake that had a cost.”

Carey Price

• On Hockey Fights Cancer pre-game ceremony: “Obviously it’s a special moment in those kids lives, and we’re very happy to make it so.”

Steven Stamkos

• “It’s Carey Price, one of the best goalies in the world, but so is ‘Vasy,'” Vasilevskiy said it’s premature to put himself in that class. He has had only one good season to Price’s 12 per Diana Nearhos, Tampa Bay Times.

Quotes courtesy of NHL.com