MONTREAL -- Steven Stamkos scored and so did his team's power play, four times no less, which is a scary proposition not just for the Montreal Canadiens but for the six other hopefuls left in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The Tampa Bay Lightning might have just kicked it into another gear, folks.
Playing as largely a one-line team with a terrible power play while surviving a seven-game series win over the Detroit Red Wings in the opening around, Sunday night’s 6-2 rout of the Habs to take a 2-0 series lead might just be looked back upon as a seminal moment in their playoff run.
Stamkos was a beast, his breakaway deke on Carey Price 8 minutes, 6 seconds into the second period opening the floodgates in a three-goal second period that buried the Canadiens.
After going 11 straight playoff games without a goal, not to mention scoring just three times in his previous 18 games overall, that was a goal that was worth more than just the single digit on the scoreboard.
"He’s one of the best players in the world, you can only hold him down for so long,” said Lightning netminder Ben Bishop, who stopped 27 of 29 shots in the win. "You know he’s going to break out. He’s been working really hard and to see him get that goal, and it was a really nice move too, he’s wanted it for a while. The team has been winning and he’s been doing other things besides scoring, which has been helping this team win. To see him on the score sheet, I know, is a relief. but he’s been doing a lot of other things, too, besides scoring."
The look on Stamkos’ face revealed relief mixed with sheer joy. It has been a stretch that has tested his confidence.
"It wasn’t quite as bad because we were finding ways to win and the guys in the room have been unbelievable, the coaching staff has been great," Stamkos said. "I tried to stay positive. All you can do at this time of year is keep working hard. Sometimes it takes longer than you want, but if you don’t cheat the game -- and you can’t afford to at this of the year and I don’t think I have -- you get rewarded. It was nice to see me getting some bounces tonight."
There was definitely an extra jump in his stride after the second-period goal. The old Stamkos was back.
"This game is about confidence," the Lightning captain said. "You score a goal and all of a sudden, nothing has changed but your legs feel lighter, you feel better with the puck, things are starting to bounce your way, that’s just the way this game goes. When you have the confidence, it’s not easy to get, and it’s easy to lose. So when you got it, you want to keep it as long as you can and hopefully I can do that."
Meanwhile, a power play that had mustered just two goals on 34 chances in the opening eight playoff games exploded for four goals on eight chances.
They whipped that puck around like they were the 1985 Edmonton Oilers, Nikita Kucherov's first of two on the night a thing of beauty -- zing, zing, zing -- and his one-timer finished it.
"There was a lot of movement, we made smart decisions and we shot the puck hard," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said his team’s power play. "When you’re making tape-to-tape passes, you give yourself a better chance. There was no goal bigger than Valtteri Filppula’s. They were carrying the play clearly in the first period and for them to walk into their dressing room and they have nothing to show for it, I thought that was a momentum swinger for us. I thought we took the game over after that."
Indeed, the Canadiens for a second game in a row enjoyed a great start, even scored the opening goal for once, but Filppula’s late-period goal must have felt like a punch in the kidneys.
It’s at that point when you can imagine the Habs thinking, "What the hell do we have to do to get the upper hand on these guys?"
What ensued was a total lack of composure that revealed perhaps a team cracking under the realization that it doesn’t know what to do to beat a team that’s now gone 7-0-0 against them this season.
"I’m thinking we pissed the game away," Habs winger Max Pacioretty said. "Great start, our building, got the fans into it, go up 1-0, we pissed the game away."
The unraveling of the nerves in fact began even before Tampa tied the game, Brandon Prust getting nailed with a pair of minor penalties on the same play, a roughing call for repeatedly punching Braydon Coburn in the face while the Tampa blue-liner didn’t respond. And then an unsportsmanlike penalty for barking at referee Brad Watson.
"We took a couple of bad penalties, myself included," Prust said. "It just kind of killed the momentum. They were just dumb penalties and we couldn’t recover."
Winning in the playoffs requires discipline and unselfish play.
Take Coburn. He takes a bunch of punches to the face from Prust and doesn’t respond. That’s a veteran who wants to win.
"That's what the playoffs are all about. Take one for the team," said Coburn, shrugging.
By the time Kucherov scored his second power-play goal of the night 6:37 into the third period to make it 5-1, fans began streaming out of the Bell Centre, the Habs’ lack of discipline having cost them once and for all.
"I think they were frustrated," Lightning winger Alex Killorn said of the Habs. "I think any time a team goes up like that and fans start walking out, it’s embarrassing. We expect a lot out of them next game."
The frustration didn’t end there. Prust then tripped Bishop behind the net late in the third period, which ignited a fight with Coburn.
"You could kind of see it coming from a mile away," Stamkos said of Prust going after Bishop. "It's obviously not the first time he's done something like that. Again, for us, we're staying focused, we're not worried about that. [Coburn] took care of it, he's an unbelievable team guy. And again that just shows frustration. If we're the ones that are coming out on top at this time of the year, sometimes you have to take some hits, take some punches, take little bumps like that."
Prust, however, said he barely touched Bishop on the play.
"He flopped like he normally does," the Habs winger said. "I got a piece of him, but it was nothing. Coburn came at me, so I dropped them."
Prust wasn’t done stealing some of the spotlight, keeping his harshest words after the game for Watson regarding his double minor in the first period.
"I thought the original call was kind of soft and I let him know on the way to the penalty box," Prust said. "He kept provoking me. He came to the box and called me every name in the book. He called me a piece of you know what, a mother----er, coward, said he’d drive me right out of this building. I kept going, 'Yeah, OK, yeah, OK, yeah, OK.' He kept on me, he kept on me. I kept saying, 'Yeah, OK.' I wasn’t looking at him. He teed me up. That’s the ref he is. He tries to play God. He tries to control the game and he did that tonight."
Hmm, pretty sure Prust might find himself with a chat or a fine from NHL executive vice president Colin Campbell for that.
All of which, again, to me is indicative of the bigger picture here. The Habs came unglued Sunday evening. They’re down two-zip in the series heading to Tampa and don’t yet have an answer.
Are we looking at a possible sweep here? Don’t count out the Habs just yet, Prust warned.
"I think it’s just going to feel that much better when we win and the floodgates open and we get rolling," Prust said. "It’s going to feel that much better."
Bold words, but it’s on the ice the Canadiens have to prove themselves now. They look lost, and the Lightning are looking more dangerous than they have all playoff long.
