Montreal 6 Tampa Bay 2 Tampa Bay leads series 3 games to 1.
Talk about total team effort. That's exactly what the Montreal Canadiens displayed enroute to a very convincing 6-2 dumping of the Tampa Bay Lightniing, thus staving off elimination.
With the momentum now shifting in their favour, the Habs hope to carry that over on Saturday night for Game 5 on home ice.
But first, this. The Habs figured out Tampa's Ben Bishop as they took him out to sea in the first fourteen minutes of the first period, scoring three straight goals that eventually saw Bishop replaced by the Lightning's backup netminder
Vasilievsky, who by the way, wasn't any better. By then, the score rang up as 5-0 for Montreal. The Lightning eventually got on the scoreboard, but by then it was futile.
It's worth noting that the six goals Montreal scored were more than their total of the first three games combined. That should tell you how dominant the Habs were in Game 4, getting goals from the likes of Max Pacioretty, Markov, Prust (yes, him!), Gallagher, etc. Gallagher's snapshot from in close was practically an exclamation mark on the night.
As for Tampa Bay, Steve Stamkos summed it up best:
"We stole one last game, probably did not deserve to win, definitely did not deserve it tonight, and we got what was coming," Stamkos said.
The Habs played it smart and it showed. However, no Canadian-based team has ever come back from from an 0-3 deficit in a playoff series to win it all. Les Habitants are determined to change history.
Game 5 goes Saturday in Montreal at 7:30PM.
Source: Sportsnet
