Lane Hutson scored at 2:09 of overtime Friday night at the Bell Centre, lifting the Montreal Canadiens past the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 in Game 3 and giving Montreal a 2-1 lead in the series. It was the third straight game in the matchup to go beyond regulation.
The finish came on a slap shot from the blue line, a shot Hutson said was probably his first of the season. He said he saw space and bodies in front of him, then tried to fire it as hard as he could. It worked, and the Canadiens walked off with a lead that now puts them in control of the nhl playoff bracket path in this series.
Kirby Dach and Alexandre Texier also scored for Montreal. Before the game, fans chanted Dach’s name during warmups, and after the final horn he said he did not really expect that kind of reaction. He added that the fans had been unbelievable for the team all year and that they had stuck by him through a lot, which meant a lot to him.
Brandon Hagel scored in a third straight game and had his fourth goal of the series for Tampa Bay, while Brayden Point also scored. Andrei Vasilevskiy kept the Lightning close with breakaway saves on Ivan Demidov in the second period and Josh Anderson in the third, but Montreal kept pressing in a game that swung on one late look at goal.
The series has been razor-thin from the start. Sportsnet said it was only the eighth time in NHL history that the first three games of a playoff series all went to overtime. Friday’s crowd at the Bell Centre was into it before the puck even dropped, with the anthems delayed during the pregame introduction and a watch party outside the arena drawing massive crowds.
Nick Suzuki said Montreal had been the better team in the series, and he pointed to the fact that the Canadiens still had not scored at five-on-five in the playoffs despite his own 101-point regular season. He said it was great to have a 2-1 lead with another home game coming up, and that the team wanted to take care of its chances at home while depth scoring has helped. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, knows it had a chance to leave with more and now has to answer back after another overtime that slipped away. Ryan McDonagh said the Lightning have to control their effort and execution, adding that even in a game he thought everyone would feel poorly about, they still had a chance in overtime where anything can happen. He said they have to dig deep, understand what is at stake and give themselves a better chance to win.
For Montreal, the result was the kind that can shape a series. For Tampa Bay, it was another night in which a tight game stayed tight until one shot from the blue line ended it.
