In Montreal, the Canadiens surrendered two goals with under three minutes to go in 
regulation to cough up a 2-1 lead and drop a 3-2 decision to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night.
Tampa’s Corey Perry knotted the game, 2-2, at 17:51
“He’s my best friend and obviously playing against him the last two years in the Stanley Cup [Final], I just know what he’s capable of,” Tampa’s Pat Maroon said. “He’s a goal-scorer, he’s an elite player and I just knew he could help our team. And he’s got that leadership that he can bring over. He’s won before, he gets it and he plays the right way. We’re obviously very happy to have Corey. He’s been on a tear here lately and it’s been fun to watch.”
Ondrej Palat hit for the winner with 38 seconds left in regulation.
“It wasn’t our best game,” Palat said. “I thought Montreal played well, executed good. It wasn’t a perfect game, but we have two points on the road so I’ll take it.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 21 saves in the Lightning win.
Tampa improved to 16-5-4.
Tampa took a 1-0 lead off a strike from Pat Maroon midway through the first period.
“We weathered the storm,” Maroon said. “I guess good teams find a way to win, and we found a way to win tonight. I thought Montreal was really good. They played fast and pushed the pace pretty well.”
Nick Suzuki and Mike Hoffman scored to give the Habs a 2-1 lead.
“They obviously beat us in the Cup Final last year, so we wanted to take it to them tonight,” Suzuki said. “I thought we did a good job pretty much all game.”
Montreal dropped to 6-18-3.
“With the puck, I thought we created some good looks,” Montreal head coach Dominique Ducharme said. “Without the puck, I thought we were at the right spot most of the night. And we wanted to make sure that we were solid and a block of five, and I thought most of the night we did that.”
Jake Allen made 21 saves in the Habs loss.
“It was right there for us and it hits ‘Perrs’ in the knee and goes in,” Suzuki said. “And then another just rush at the end and they scored and we lose the game. Just two little things, and that’s the kind of bounces we’ve been getting so far.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.