In Dallas Tuesday night, the visiting Montreal Canadiens struck in the middle frame for a 1-0 lead.
The problem for the Habs was the Stars came right back to score twice in just 59 seconds to take the lead into the third period en route to a 3-1 win.
Brendan Gallagher‘s goal midway through the second period gave the Habs the 1-0 lead.
Devin Shore tied the game 18:22 and Jason Spezza scored at 19:21 of the middle frame.
“I thought the game was great,” Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. “It was a playoff game, and two desperate teams. They had a little momentum at the start. They had us checking them, and we took over for a lot of the second and then they pushed hard in the third. That’s playoff hockey.”
Ben Bishop made 29 saves to get the win.
“Sometimes the game kinds of goes in waves like that,” Spezza said. “We’ve seen it against us; when you’re offensive players you get a few shifts in a row and you kind of get rolling a bit.”
The loss dropped Montreal to 8-12-2 as they lost their fourth straight.
Surprisingly, the two-goal collapse in less than one minute was not unique to Tuesday night; this was the ninth time this season the feat has been accomplished by the opposition.
“I don’t know if I’m going to have to call a timeout after we get scored on,” Montreal head coach Claude Julien said. “It’s just something that has got to get better. We need to be strong, and when you get scored on, the biggest thing you [have] to do is push back, and right now that’s not happening.”
Tyler Seguin scored an empty-netter late to seal the win.
“It was really hard to find a rhythm tonight. We were trying to match pretty heavily and our lines just couldn’t get that tempo and you saw a lot of different combinations. Sometimes that sparks stuff, but when we got out together, we felt like we were chasing the puck all night and weren’t able to create anything,” the Habs’ Max Pacioretty said after the loss.
All Canadiens vs. Stars highlights]
Charlie Lindgren made 26 saves in taking the loss.
“I thought tonight [I] played well,” Lindgren said. “I gave the team a chance to win, but at the end of the day, it’s a loss, and now it’s [four] in a row or whatever it is. We [have] to turn that around.”
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