TAMPA – Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Lightning and the Montreal Canadiens hung on 0.3 seconds of time.Less than a second of clock time separated the Canadiens from a 1-1 tie heading to the third period and a 2-1 lead for the Bolts.
“We were fortunate to pull this game out,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “But the [Canadiens] team we saw tonight was more of the team that has run through the playoffs as opposed to what we saw in Game 1. … I give our guys credit for pulling this one out, but we’re in the Final. This can be hard. It’s really hard.”
Montreal continued to push the play in the third period, but the deflation of a Blake Coleman deflection of a pass across the slot with 0.3 seconds left in the middle frame took the stuffing out of Montreal.
“You look at what happened in the first round (against the Toronto Maple Leafs). We were down 3-1 and we stayed focused, stayed with our game plan, never changed, never did anything and continued to push,” the Canadiens’ Corey Perry said. “It’s no different now. It doesn’t matter the first round, second round, third round, Final, whatever it is. You continue to play your game, continue to do the things that got you here, you’re going to be successful.”
Barclay Goodrow sent the pass across to Coleman’s stick for the eventual game-winner in a 3-1 decision for the Lighting and a 2-0 series lead.
“I knew the clock was winding down, but I saw ‘Goody’ make that heads-up play in the neutral zone, the little poke past their D,” Coleman said. “I just tried to do everything I could to give him an option. Incredible aerial pass from him, and fortunately we beat the clock.”
The Canadiens had outshot Tampa 29-12 just ahead of the Coleman goal.
Andrei Vasilevskiy was busy throughout the match, he made 42 saves to get the win.
“Night in and night out the backbone of this team. Can’t say enough good things about him,” Tampa’s Ryan McDonagh said. “We certainly want to make it a little bit easier of a night than we had to for him, but man he’s an absolute warrior and competitor and obviously was probably the biggest piece of our win here tonight.”
Game 3 is set for Montreal on Friday.
After throwing 115 hits total in Game 1, the two teams seemed almost civil at 76 hits on Wednesday night.
Nick Suzuki scored off the power play to tie the game, 1-1, in the second period.
“I thought we had a good bounce-back game, had a lot of chances,” Suzuki said. “But we’ve just got to find ways to put the puck in the net, myself included. So we’ve just got to stick with that.”
Montreal was 1-for3 with the extra skater, the Lightning were scoreless on their three chances on the power play.
“I think these guys are very opportunistic and very lethal offensively if you do make mistakes in certain areas,” Montreal assistant Luke Richardson said. “Obviously, they showed that again tonight. … I thought we did a better job tonight, so we’re going to continue to get better and we’re going to find our offense and we’re going to start scoring a few goals, and I think that will give us confidence that way.”
Anthony Cirelli scored in the second period to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead.
“It takes tremendous effort, I think, to dive like that for a puck and still get good wood on the shot enough to get it at the net and raise it over the pad,” Goodrow said. “It’s a pretty special play. I think he’s got a knack for those diving shots.”
Ondrej Palat sealed the decision in the third period with an unassisted goal.
Palat picked off an errant pass off the backboards by Montreal’s Joel Edmundson and then banked the puck Carey Price’s skate for a 3-1 lead at 15:42 of the third.
Price made 20 saves in the loss.
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