Habs face elimination with 6-3 loss
Montreal fans given little to cheer about as defending champs dominate Game 3
TAMPA BAY 6, MONTREAL 3
More than two hours before the puck dropped in Game 3, the singsong chorus of “Ole! Ole! Ole!” could be heard from blocks away as you walked toward the Bell Centre for what was the biggest hockey game of the year.
Inside, where the Quebec government had refused to increase capacity past 3,500, scalpers were asking as much as $1,200 for a seat in the upper bowl. But it was outside, where admission was free and even more were packed shoulder to shoulder in their Habs jerseys, where the once-in-a-generation party seemed to be happening.
And what a party it could have been.
This was the first time in 28 years that the Stanley Cup Final was played in Montreal — and the first time since 2011 that it was played by a Canadian-based team — and not even the pandemic could keep the mask-wearing, thunderstick-banging crowd from celebrating like it might not come for another three decades.
“Their fan base is huge,” said Lightning forward Patrick Maroon. “Playing regular season here, it's a very loud building. Passionate fans. They love their Montreal Canadiens. No matter how many people are in the stands tonight, that building is going to be rocking. It's going to be loud.”
Unfortunately for the Canadiens, who lost 6-3 to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3, once the puck was dropped there wasn't much to cheer about.
This might have been Montreal's worst game of the playoffs. It certainly was the worst game that goalie Carey Price had played in a long time. That it occurred in a game that the Canadiens had to win made it all the more confusing.
Tampa Bay scored twice in the first four minutes of the first period and scored twice more in the first four minutes of the second period. From there, the game was over. By the looks of it, so is the series.
This was technically not a must-win game for the Habs.
But it might as well have been. They needed to win this game. They more or less had to. They couldn't go down 3-0 and expect to take the series.
Sure, the Canadiens had come from behind against the Maple Leafs. But being 3-1 is not the same as being down 3-0, especially when it's the defending Stanley Cup champions who have the lead.
Game 4 is on Tuesday, where the Canadiens will hope to save face and reward their fans with at least one win. Not that you should expect the Lightning to lift their foot off the gas. As we saw on Friday, they want this series to be over. And they want it done fast.
“The focus is on the end goal for us,” said Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman. “That's the Stanley
Cup. You don't need a whole lot more motivation than that.”
You have to wonder why the Canadiens, whose season was essentially on the line, weren't just as motivated. Coming off a tough loss in Game 2, where Montreal had been better in every area other than scoring goals, you would have figured they would have come out flying for Game 3 and rewarded their fans with a performance worth cheering over.
Instead, they let the Lightning dictate the pace and played catch up for most of the night.
This was a game that got away from Montreal early on, as Tampa Bay scored twice in the first three minutes and 27 seconds of the first period to take a 2-0 lead.
Lightning defenceman Jan Rutta started things off on a harmless looking wrist shot that seemed to have eyes and found its way through a crush of bodies and into the top corner. It looked like Price lost sight of the puck or never saw it to begin with.
A few minutes later, with the Lightning on the power play, a similar play unfolded. This time, it was defenceman Victor Hedman sneaking what appeared to be a slap pass — rather than a slap shot — through Price's legs. Upon first glance, it was a shot that Price should have stopped. But with the number of bodies in front of his net, he might as well have been blindfolded.
Luckily for the Canadiens, he wasn't the only goalie battling the puck.
Not long after Montreal's Cole Caufield cleanly beat Andrei Vasilevskiy with a wrist shot that rang off the post, Phillip Danault cut into the lead on a shot that beat Vasilevskiy and went in off the post.
The start of the second stanza was much like the start of the first, as the Lightning scored twice in three minutes and 33 seconds to go up 4-1.
Both goals were avoidable. On the first, Tampa Bay caught Montreal on a bad line change, with Ondrej Palat feeding Nikita Kucherov on a two-on-none breakaway that Price had no chance of stopping. Less than two minutes later, Price gave up a juicy rebound off a Mathieu Joseph shot that Tyler Johnson put into the back of the net for his first of two goals.
Montreal tried to claw back. With 1:56 remaining in the period, Nick Suzuki, who has been the team's best forward in the playoffs, made it 4-2 on a shot that went through Vasilevskiy's legs. The teams then traded goals in an otherwise meaningless third period that saw Tampa Bay put the game out of reach with an empty-netter.
Three games in, it's not the only thing that's out of reach.