Montreal Halts Lightning Point Streak Behind Dobes' Strong Performance
- Mike Smith
- 5 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Mike Smith | Thunderstruck Sports
Jakub Dobes stopped 36 of 37 shots he faced, including all 17 in the third period, to lead the Montreal Canadiens to a 4-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday night. Cole Caufield scored the game-winning goal and added an assist.
The win snapped Tampa Bay's eight-game point streak.
Jural Slafkovsky opened the scoring at the 12:25 mark of the first period on a 5-on-3 power play. Slafkovskiy scored from the right circle after a pass from Ivan Demidov just as the two-man advantage was about to expire.
Tampa Bay answered right back just over a minute later when Jake Guentzel scored his 36th goal of the season. Guentzel fought hard behind the Canadiens' net to carry the puck around to the front of the crease.
Gage Goncalves tied up Montreal defenseman Jake Evans long enough to spring Guentzel from behind the net. Guentzel's wrist shot slid past the left of Dobes's pad for the equalizing goal.
Guentzel has scored in five straight games and seven of the last eight.
Familiar Bad Habits Doom Lightning
Tampa Bay has had a bad habit of late, allowing teams to score first and often before rising to the level of play the team expects. Tuesday night was no exception as the Habs jumped out in front first.
The Bolts responded quickly to tie the game, but Montreal's even-tempoed play stymied their attempts to score.
The Lightning struggled to contain rushes in their own defensive end again tonight. Caufield's game-winning goal in the second period resulted from overcommitment by the Tampa Bay defense.
Slafkovsky entered the Lightning defensive zone and carried three Bolts players with him. As Lightning defenseman JJ Moser raced to the crease, a streaking Caufield slipped unnoticed to the backside of Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Slafkovsky found Caufield with a ripped pass through the Lightning defense. Caufield tipped the pass into the empty net at 12:49 to put the Habs up for good, 2-1.
Montreal tacked on two empty net goals by Mike Matheson and Nick Suzuki late in the third period to extend the final score to 4-1.
Lightning Fail To Capitalize on Scoring Chances
Tampa Bay failed to capitalize on 64 scoring chances against the Canadiens on Tuesday, which has been another Achilles Heel as of late. Montreal blocked 17 Tampa Bay shots, and the Bolts missed the net 10 times.
"We had some looks in the third (period)," Bolts forward Brayden Point said. "We had some looks, and we weren't able to finish."
The Lightning had a chance late in the game when Suzuki went off for cross-checking Yanni Gourde with 4:06 left to play in the game. However, the power play went for naught as Tampa Bay could not pull even.
Tampa Bay ended up 0-for-four on the power play while Montreal went 1-for-3.
"It becomes a special teams battle," Point said. "They got one tonight, and we didn't on the special teams. Credit them. They did well, but we have to find a way to put them in the net. Myself, especially."
"I got some good chances on the power play that I didn't finish."
For the third time during this home stand, Tampa Bay struggled to find open lanes to shoot the puck on net.
"They (Montreal) obviously defended well," Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. "It took us 40 minutes to really get some sustained offense."
"We have a tendency to have games like that, where we hang on to the puck and kind of pass our way around the perimeter. But we can take the lesson today to shoot to create havoc."
Three Stars of the Game
Jakub Dobes, Montreal. Stopped 36 of 37 shots.
Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay. Stopped 19 of 21 shots.
Cole Caufield, Montreal. Scored the game-winning goal with a nice play from behind the Tampa Bay defense.
Up Next
The Tampa Bay Lightning host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday at Benchmark International Arena. Game time is 7 pm.
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