Canadiens edge Lightning in Game 7 despite generating only 9 shots

TAMPA -- Alex Newhook scored the go-ahead goal at 11:07 of the third period, and the Montreal Canadiens eliminated the Tampa Bay Lightning with a 2-1 win in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Benchmark International Arena on Sunday.​

Montreal will next play the Buffalo Sabres in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Game 1 is in Buffalo on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET: TNT, truTV, HBO Max, SN, CBC, TVAS).

"I think it's a big moment," Newhook said. "Young group, young team, so to be able to rise to the occasion in a big game like this just shows what we're capable of and we're a hard team to beat where we're at right now."

Montreal advanced despite being held to nine shots on goal in Game 7, including zero in the second period, going 26:55 total between shots on goal during that stretch.

"Many times during the season the guys bail me out and help me out and I try to do the same," Montreal goalie Jakub Dobes said. "Sometimes they don't play good, sometimes I don't play good. They've always got my back and I've always got theirs. That's our mentality. We've got a really good group with good leaders. This wasn't anything special. I was just trying to keep the guys in it and I was just for them to get going and that's exactly what happened."

All seven games in the series were decided by one goal and four went to overtime. The road team won five of the seven games, with the Canadiens taking three of four in Tampa. 

"Can't say much about the game tonight. You're going to win 99 percent of those games," Lightning forward Brandon Hagel said. "But at the end of the day, if you lose three games at home, you're probably not going to win the series."

Nick Suzuki also scored for the Canadiens, who are the No. 3 seed from the Atlantic Division. Dobes made 28 saves.

“Tonight, what did we have, nine shots, 10 shots?," Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. "I felt like tonight they deserved better. I felt like Game 6 we probably deserved better and Dobes kind of stole the game. Similar to the way (Andrei Vasilevskiy) stole the game in Game 6 in my mind. You need a little bit of everything and that's what we got this series."

Dominic James scored for the Lightning, who were the No. 2 seed from the Atlantic. Vasilevskiy made seven saves.

The Lightning were eliminated in the first round for the fourth consecutive season.

"I've seen this movie before and it happened in Milan in February (in the Winter Olympics)," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "All you can ask of your team, whether it's the Olympic tournament or best-of-7 playoff, is to get better as you go. And I thought we got better as we went and I thought tonight we played our best game of the series. Sometimes you win the game and not the score and it's Game 7. There's no moral victory in that."

The game-winning goal came when Lane Hutson took a shot from the point that Vasilevskiy turned away with his blocker. The puck then went off the end boards, where Newhook batted it in off of Vasilevskiy's back.

"It's fun, it's kind of what you dream of when you're younger," Newhook said. "Those big moments in Game 7."

Suzuki gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead at 18:39 of the first period when his redirection of Kaiden Guhle's shot at the hash marks deflected in off J.J. Moser's shin.

"We knew we just needed to come in here tonight and anything can happen in a Game 7," Suzuki said. "I think all seven games could've went either way for either team. It was definitely a chess match the whole time out there."

James tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 13:27, scoring on a redirection from the slot of a slap shot by Charle-Edouard D'Astous from the point.

"From start to finish we stuck with our process and our plan," Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. "In the end it doesn't matter because they had two and we had one, so it's a loss. Credit to them. They grinded and found a way."

The Canadiens won a playoff series for the first time since 2021, when they advanced to the Cup Final before losing in five games to the Lightning.

"After the Cup Final there were a lot of tough times and a lot of guys left,” Suzuki said. “We started this rebuild slowly, but surely. We drafted some really good players and have an amazing coach. It's definitely been probably faster than most people expected, but when you have a lot of good players together with a great system and great leadership, things can turn quickly."