Gage Goncalves scored the overtime game-winning goal to give the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning a 1-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Friday and force Game 7 of their Stanley Cup playoff series.
The deciding game of their Eastern Conference first-round set will be Sunday in Tampa. That clash has quite the affair to top in entertainment value.
A thrilling Game 6 finally came to a close when Goncalves buried a loose puck amidst a scramble at 9:03 of overtime for his first career playoff overtime winner.
It came shortly after the Lightning killed a Montreal power play.
“I liked how we stayed even-keeled the whole game,” Goncalves told Sportsnet. “Some calls there. Some calls (were) not (made). A bunch of chances for them and for us throughout the night, but we stayed even-keeled and didn’t let it get to us.”
Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy had struggled to find his form during this series but delivered his best performance with 30 saves to post his eighth career playoff shutout.
“I’ve watched him the past few years and you think you’ve seen the best of it and then he does something like this,” Goncalves said of his netminder. “We’re pretty happy for him to be on our team.”
Montreal goalie Jakub Dobes stopped 32 shots in a fantastic goaltending duel.
All six games have been decided by one goal. Both teams have won twice in overtime.
The series winner will face the Buffalo Sabres in the second round.
“Tons of confidence. We’re a confident group,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said about going to Game 7. “We believe in what we do and how we do it. … That was probably the best game I’ve seen this young group play.
” You’ve just got to embrace the situation. Things are meant to be. I think it was meant to be for our growth to play a Game 7. It’s going to help for what’s next for us.”
The lack of goals was not indicative of the action. Both clubs generated a litany of scoring chances in a back-and-forth clash.
Tampa came within a whisker of scoring first early in the second period when Corey Perry slipped a shot through Dobes’ legs, but Phillip Danault pulled the puck off the goal line behind his netminder.
Late in the second period, Vasilevskiy robbed Ivan Demidov with a pair of sprawling saves that had the Montreal forward looking skyward during a Canadiens power play. Danault was also stopped on a partial breakaway in the dying seconds of the frame.
Alexandre Texier, who scored the winning goal in Game 5, rang a shot off the post early in the third period moments before Jake Guentzel was stopped on a breakaway at the other end.
During Tampa’s ensuing power play, both Nikita Kucherov and Guentzel struck iron.
Dobes also stood tall during another Lightning third-period power play, capping it with a clutch stop on Brayden Point.
–Field Level Media
