In Montreal, Pat Maroon’s third period goal trimmed the Tampa Bay Lightning’s deficit with the Canadiens to 3-2 on Tuesday, but it wasn’t nearly enough, early enough as the Lighting lost by that score.
“Other than their first power play, which was really, really dangerous, I didn’t really sense scoring chances at all,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “So, everything they touched went in the net and we, for some reason, lost our scoring touch tonight. So yeah, that’s a tough one for us.”
Sam Montembeault made 31 saves in the Canadiens win
“I liked our game,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “It’s fun because you played the same team last game so you have a lot of examples, you can really show the things you need to improve and the way you want to show up against them, the things you want to do. So, we were ready.”
Montreal moved to 28-37-6.
Kirby Dach scored in the first period to give the Habs a 1-0 lead.
“I was ready for the game, the pace of play, and it felt good to be out there with the guys and contribute towards the win,” Dach said.
Montreal pushed the lead to 2-0 on a strike by Jonathan Drouin with six minutes left in the first.
“Obviously sitting on the bench and watching the game was not fun, but I’ve owned my mistake,” Drouin said. “It’s nobody’s fault other than me, so I wanted to have a good game tonight, and I thought the group had a good game as well.”
Tampa dropped to Lightning 42-24-6.
Brayden Point scored just ahead of the midway point of the second period to trim the deficit for Tampa to 2-1.
“We’ve just got to continue what we’re doing,” Maroon said. “This team has played a lot of hockey over the course of three years. We’ve got some new faces too, so we challenge ourselves too, to be a good hockey team. So, that’s what’s the beauty of our team. We all hold each other accountable, and we all just respect each other and go out there and try to do our best every single night.
“The next 10 games, we’ve got to find a way to keep our game going in the right direction here.”
Mike Matheson replied two minutes later to give the Canadiens a 3-1 lead headed to the third period.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 17 saves in the loss.
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