Fast-starting Canadiens rout Bolts, avoid sweep
The Montreal Canadiens avoided a sweep on Thursday night. (USATSI)
Every night during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Eye On Hockey writers Adam Gretz and Chris Peters will bring you up to speed everything you need to know about all of the action around the NHL. Here’s what you need to know about Canadiens vs. Lightning, Game 4.
Montreal Canadiens vs. Tampa Bay Lightning, Game 4
Canadiens 6, Lightning 2 | Lightning lead series 3-1 | Game 5, Saturday
Game 4 in a nutshell: The Montreal Canadiens didn’t really play any better than they did on Wednesday night. They were just able to capitalize on some of their chances in Game 4. A lot of their chances, actually. The Canadiens scored at least five goals in a game for the first time since Febuary and were able to avoid elimination, sending the second round series back to Montreal for Game 5 on Saturday night.
Turning point: After scoring the first goal of the game early in the first period, Montreal’s Andrei Markov was sent to the penalty box for cross checking Ryan Callahan. It was a great opportunity for the Lightning to tie the game. Not only did the Canadiens successfully kill that penalty, they also scored a shorthanded goal when Max Pacioretty won a race to a loose puck and beat Lightning goalie Ben Bishop on a partial breakaway. Then, instead of going into a defensive, prevent shell with that two-goal lead, Montreal kept attacking and built on that lead, something we haven’t seen enough of in these playoffs from any team.
Three things we learned
1. The Canadiens actually can beat the Lightning. Their Game 4 win on Thursday snapped what had been a season-long eight-game losing streak, including the first three games of this series. Now they need to turn this into a four-game winning streak by winning the next three games to move on to the Eastern Conference Final for the second year in a row.
2. Tampa Bay has been pretty bad the past two games and is lucky the series isn’t tied right now after allowing Montreal to control both games. The fact it’s not shows once again just how fine of a line there is between winning and losing in the NHL. Still holding a 3-1 lead in the series it’s not time to begin worrying if you’re a Lightning fan because the odds are still in their favor when it comes to winning the series. But if they keep playing like they have the past two games this series could get very interesting, very fast. What might be a concern: Steven Stamkos has just two shots on goal over his past three games, and has now gone two games in a row without one. That hasn’t happened for him since the 2010-11 season. Earlier in the postseason when his goal scoring wasn’t there he was at least still generating chances and getting his shots. Now the shots are starting to dry up, too.
3. The Canadiens found their offense, at least for one night. After winning their first three games this postseason, Montreal entered Game 4 in Tampa Bay on Thursday night having lost five out of six games and scoring only seven goals. They nearly matched that total on Thursday. It also had to be nice to see Pacioretty get rewarded for his hard work in recent games, averaging more than five shots per game over the first three games of the series but only having one goal to show for it.
Video of the game: The aforementioned Pacioretty shorthanded goal that started to turn this game in Montreal’s favor. Ben Bishop would eventually get pulled after giving up a goal off of his glove to David Desharnias early in the second period.
Shorthanded shelf. Patches makes no mistake on the breakaway. #MTLvsTBL #StanleyCup http://t.co/Ryyj2oMV06
— NHL (@NHL) May 7, 2015
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
