On Wednesday night, the Canadiens fell victim to a third-period letdown that ultimately cost them a point in the Sunshine State as they began a three-game road swing at Amalie Arena against the Lightning.
Up 3-1 past the midway point of the final frame, Michel Therrien's troops admittedly failed to keep their collective feet on the accelerator and let their Atlantic Division rivals score twice in a span of 5:16 to tie things up and send the game to overtime. And, it didn't take Tyler Johnson long to settle the score with the decisive marker, his second of the night, which gave the Lightning a 4-3 win in their own barn.
If hard-fought losses late last week to Minnesota and Columbus, respectively, really stung, it's safe to say this particular defeat was even harder to swallow. After all, the Canadiens appeared to be in complete control of the game through 40 minutes of play and were clearly feeling good about their effort.
For one thing, they appeared to get their goal-scoring mojo back. Alexander Radulov, Shea Weber and Chris Terry had all managed to put the puck past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy as the Canadiens matched their goal total from their two previous outings combined. Unfortunately, things took a serious turn for the worse in the latter stages of the contest.
"I guess we just sat back, and obviously they're a good team and they can make things happen. We can't sit back and give them time and space because that gives good players the ability to make plays. They did that," said Weber, who found himself in the penalty box when left-winger Ondrej Palat scored the game-tying goal with 3:30 remaining in regulation. "We can't sit back like we did. You've got to keep playing."
Like Weber, captain Max Pacioretty said the Canadiens' work ethic simply wasn't there when it was needed most as the Lightning pressed to try and turn their fortunes around come the start of the third period.
"Putting the puck in deep, they can get it out in a couple of seconds and get it right back into our end. You can't just be content with throwing it out and putting it deep. You've got to make sure that when you have that lead, you still play the same way and that's attack them, challenge them, make them play defense, make them play in their end, make them defend, instead of sitting back on our heels," explained Pacioretty. "That's just exactly what went wrong."
The Lightning fired 30 shots on Carey Price, 13 of which came during the middle period alone. The four-time All-Star delivered another stellar performance between the pipes as he did his best to keep the Canadiens' Atlantic Division rivals at bay as they pressed to get back on track.
"We're obviously really disappointed in that [game]. I thought we played good for 40. We've seen this team enough that we know if we're going to let up that they're going to wind it up. It's pretty unfortunate the way we came out in the third," shared Nathan Beaulieu. "Ultimately, it caught up to us. We just weren't good enough in the third. That's basically the bottom line."
Therrien echosed those same thoughts with a rather frank evaluation of his own before the team boarded their charter flight to Sunrise where they'll battle the Florida Panthers on Thursday night.
"We were guilty. A lack of effort. A lack of desperation," concluded Therrien, whose squad is now winless in three straight games. "It's unacceptable as far as I'm concerned."
