Afterwards, Jon Cooper acknowledged that this had been a hard week for the Lightning. Not only had they played five games in eight days (including two sets of back-to-backs), they went through a couple of tough practices midweek. Cooper also stated that teams need to push through these circumstances, but that it's not easy. To that end, he felt that the Lightning's defensive issues in this game were due to "mental" mistakes.
Even though the Lightning took a 2-0 lead into the first intermission, those problems were evident during opening frame. The Canadiens repeatedly created dangerous looks off the rush. Some of those rush chances came from Lightning turnovers. Others were directly off Montreal d-zone breakouts. The result was a busy and taxing period for Brian Elliott. He was brilliant in stopping 15 first period shots. His best was a two-pad stack save on Christian Dvorak.
In the second period, the Lightning weren't able to tighten things up and the Habs kept accumulating Grade-A scoring chances. And unlike in the first period, Elliott couldn't erase all of those looks. The Habs netted three goals in the period. Two came off Lightning o-zone turnovers that resulted in breakaway goals. The other Montreal second period tally came at the end of a sequence in which the Lightning, though sloppy puck play, committed three consecutive icings. On the third face-off, Nick Suzuki won the draw and Corey Schueneman scored from the right point on a shot that deflected off a Lightning stick and beat a screened Elliott. A couple of second period power play goals helped the Lightning get out of the frame up by a goal, but the Habs tied it early in the third with another goal off the rush.
Once the game became 4-4, the Lightning owned most of the remaining possession time. Like Elliott, Jake Allen came up with some key saves to help his team get it to overtime and then the shootout. Suzuki secured a second point for his team when he scored in the third round.
The Lightning wrap up their four-game homestand on Monday against the Toronto Maple Leafs, one of the top offensive teams in the league. So the Lightning know they'll need to be much more in synch defensively than they were in this contest.
Lightning Radio Three Stars of the Game (as selected by Phil Esposito):
1. Cole Caufield - Canadiens. Goal.
2. Corey Schueneman - Canadians. Goal.
3. Brayden Point - Lightning. Goal.
