TAMPA, FLA. - Some hockey games are pendulums, and it just depends who gets the final swing. There was not much to choose between the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning in their first-round matchup: Tampa had an extra point over 82 games, secured in a shootout in their final game, and their strengths and weaknesses seemed complementary. Flip a coin, everybody said.
And in Game 1, Dale Weise - Dale Weise? - got the final swing at 18:08 of overtime, and it gave Montreal a 1-0 series lead with a thrilling 5-4 win at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.
The overtime was a debt-ridden cardiologist's dream. Josh Gorges saved the game from the stick of Teddy Purcell, Max Pacioretty hit a post, both teams could have won more than once. And it was Weise, the plugger acquired at the deadline, who was left alone and found by Daniel Briere, whose playoff mode looked fully engaged. Weise smacked the puck past Anders Lindback, proving that if you play long enough, anything can happen.
The two teams had taken and given away leads for the first 60 minutes like it was a swap meet. Tampa started down a goaltender: Starter Ben Bishop skated for 30 minutes long before Tampa's morning skate, and before he game the rode the freight elevator with a small brace in his hand, rather than on his injured right arm. His equally gigantic replacement, the 6-foot-6 Lindback, seemed small for most of the season, but loomed in the final week. He would have to do.
And after a slow start, off we went. Tampa opened the scoring midway through the first in the confusion that followed a Radko Gudas shot after it bounced high off the end boards: Nikita Kucherov wound up alone in the slot, and his shot leaked through Carey Price, and it was 1-0 for exactly 19 seconds before Tomas Plekanec faked Gudas out of his skates and beat Lindback high. Call it a preview.
Other than that, the Gudas shot was Tampa's only shot in the last 14:55 of the first, and Montreal out-shot the Lightning 14-4 over the first 20 minutes. This, it should be noted, was unusual.
In the second the temperature ticked up - a hit after the whistle here, a scrum led by Steven Stamkos there, wrestling and facewashing and hurtful words. Alexei Emelin even hit his teammate, Brendan Gallagher, in the throat with a shot. But that was an accident.
Meanwhile, Stamkos, who missed 45 games and the Olympics with a broken leg suffered Nov. 11, made it 2-1 on a screaming shot from a bad-but-not-terrible angle that whistled past Price. Naturally, Plekanec hit a post 24 seconds later - his quick counter-strike chances briefly seemed like series policy - and three minutes later Brian Gionta scored short-handed on his own rebound after Lindback couldn't hold the puck when it first hit his glove. It was tied 2-2 heading into the third period.
Tampa lost star rookie Ondrej Palat after a collision with P.K. Subban, and he did not return with an upper-body injury, and the game kept swinging. Eller beat Lindback on a puck the big man handled like a live fish; two minutes later Tampa's Alex Killorn beat Price on a hot shot after a Brandon Prust turnover. Four minutes after that, with 8:30 left, Montreal's Thomas Vanek danced past Erik Brewer on a 2-on-2 and deflected a shot home; it took less than two minutes for Stamkos to tie it, on a 2-on-1 pass from Killorn that was so pretty it could hang in a museum.
Back and forth, tick and tock, and neither team's defence was what you would call airtight. Price, Montreal's goaltending edge in the series, was beaten often; Tampa's possession game, their advantage in the series, was demolished, as Montreal out-shot the Lightning 44-25. Weird game, in a good way.
This series is still a lump of clay, without a real form: these two teams have no natural rivalry, no playoff history, and only the beginnings of some animosity. But Game 1 was fun. Flip a coin, flip a coin. Some playoff series are pendulums, too.
Post By http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/04/16/montreal-canadiens-win-game-1-against-tampa-bay-lightning-in-overtime-thriller/
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