NHL Game Summary - Tampa Bay at Montreal
Montreal, QC (SportsNetwork.com) - After winning Game 1 in double overtime, Tampa Bay used an offensive outburst to end a pair of slumps and cruise past Montreal in Game 2.
Steven Stamkos finally scored his first goal of the postseason and the Lightning struck with four power-play goals in a 6-2 victory over the Canadiens in the Eastern Conference semifinals on Sunday.
Tampa Bay's man advantage was a meager 0-for-25 before Valtteri Filppula, Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman all tallied power-play goals.
"Our power play was hot," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "You can't predict when it is."
Kucherov finished with two goals, Filppula and Stamkos each provided a goal and two assists, J.T. Brown also scored and Ben Bishop made 27 saves in the victory.
Jeff Petry and Tom Gilbert each lit the lamp, while Carey Price allowed all six goals on 24 shots for the Canadiens, who have lost their last seven games against the Lightning.
"We had opportunities to change the game early and go up by a couple goals, but it didn't happen for us," Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban said. "It's just tough. This is the postseason. You can't give teams that many opportunities on the power play."
The series resumes with Game 3 Wednesday in Tampa Bay.
Stamkos, who had 43 regular-season goals before his offensive drought, gave the Lightning a 2-1 lead just over eight minutes into the second period. The Lightning captain took a stretch pass from Jason Garrison, split two defenders and capped off the breakaway with a slick backhand-forehand move.
"It's not like Stamkos got the 6-2 goal. It's a 1-1 game and a battle. He gets you the 2-1 goal," Cooper said. "That's what you need from your guy. You need the big goal and he got it for us."
Four minutes later, Kucherov added to the Lightning lead with another power play goal. Tyler Johnson and Stamkos played catch with the puck on the left side before Johnson sent a cross-ice pass to Kucherov, who snapped the puck into a wide-open cage past a sliding Price.
Hedman got in on the action with 14 seconds left by wristing in Alex Killorn's cross-crease dish on the man advantage for a 4-1 lead heading into the final stanza.
The Lightning continued with their special-teams onslaught as Kucherov deftly redirected Johnson's slap shot 6:37 into the third.
Gilbert ended Tampa Bay's string of goals with a heavy slap shot with under nine minutes to play, and moments later, Brown's deflection of Filppula's right-circle shot bounced off Price's pad into the air and over the goal line to account for the final score.
The Canadiens controlled the pace of play early on and got on the board first. After a failed clear, Torrey Mitchell worked the puck back to Petry, who fired a long-range wrister over Bishop's right shoulder from the point just 7:20 into the game.
With over a minute to play, Mitchell nearly put the Canadiens up by two with a nifty deke around Anton Stralman and a wrister in tight, but was denied by Bishop.
Filppula moved to the right circle and one-timed Hedman's feed from the blue line under Price's arm for a tied game and Tampa Bay's first power-play goal in their last 26 attempts with 24 seconds left in the first.