TAMPA – A sloppy last few seconds of the middle frame of Game 2 on Wednesday night cost the Montreal Canadiens the game.
Coleman tipped in a pass across the slot, as he was diving for the puck, to beat Carey Price and give the Lightning a 2-1 lead in the game.
That goal came with 0.3 seconds left in the frame and deflated the Canadiens heading to the third.
“I thought we played a lot harder physically and the battle level was higher,” Montreal’s assistant coach Luke Richardson said Thursday. “Now we’ve just got to compete at the same level and push to finish a little bit better and maybe score that first goal, play with the lead in this series and see where it takes us.”
Tampa knows they need to be better on Friday night.
“If we let them play they’re going to take advantage of us,” the Lightning’s Mikhail Sergachev said Thursday. “That’s what we did yesterday. We didn’t play nearly good enough and still found a way to win, but we’ve still got to be better and got to find a way to play a full 60 [minutes] and find our game.”
Ondrej Palat scored late in the third period to seal the win for Tampa.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” Sergachev said. “We can’t be turning the puck over like that … can’t be playing defense like that. Everybody has got to be better, so next game we’re expecting a different team.”
Game 3 is set for Montreal Friday night.
“It’s hard to play perfect hockey every single night,” Tampa head coach Jon Cooper said. “There are nights you’re going to be off or the puck is not going to go your way. It’s how you adapt to that or how you fight through that. When some guys were fighting it a little bit they found different ways to contribute and that’s what we needed for the win and we got it.”
Nick Suzuki scored the Habs’ lone goal on Wednesday night.
“I don’t think you need the perfect shot right now in this situation,” Montreal’s Cole Caufield said Thursday. “We’ve got to stick to what works and that’s doing the right things that we can and what we can control. Getting people in front of him so he can’t see it [the puck], getting rebounds, getting guys to the net and stuff like that, just winning our battles.
“Obviously he’s a really special goaltender and someone that’s really hot right now. So we’ve just got to keep finding ways to get it past him and I’m sure at some point we will.”
Anthony Cirelli also scored for Tampa in the win.
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