The Tampa Bay Lightning opened the scoring, but the Montreal Canadiens found an answer on the power play as the sides are tied 1-1 after one period of their Game 2 clash.
The first period featured a lot of jawing between the teams, with scrums forming after seemingly every whistle and physical play the flavour of the night.
Brandon Hagel scored for Tampa Bay, and Lane Hutson scored the first playoff goal of his career for the Canadiens.
Andrei Vasilevskiy turned away nine of 10 shots for the Lightning, while Jakub Dobes stopped five of six for Montreal.
After the buzzer sounded at the end of the first period, the two sides broke out in a full-on brawl. Yanni Gourde will start the second period in the penalty box, as the Lightning forward received the third roughing penalty of the game for the Lightning.
A feisty first period continued with a second set of roughing penalties handed out late in the frame, as Hagel and Josh Anderson got into a fight after a whistle that drew a large crowd.
During the scrum, referees decided that Corey Perry had gone too far and gave the Canadiens their first power play of the game on a double-minor for roughing at 14:20.
Hutson found the opening marker for the Canadiens late in the power play on a shot from the point that fooled Vasilevskiy to even the score at 1-1.
Tampa Bay was awarded the game’s first power play just past the halfway mark of the frame, when Arber Xhekaj went a little too far in a scrum after the whistle and took a roughing penalty.
After going 2-for-5 with the man advantage in the series opener on Sunday, Tampa Bay was unable to score on their first try in tonight’s game – and it was the Habs who had the best scoring chance in a 2-on-1 short-handed rush.
Hagel continued his torrid start to the series with the game’s opening goal at the 8:40 mark – also on Tampa Bay’s first shot on goal of the contest.
A broken stick for a Habs player left the team undermanned on an even-strength play, and Hagel found a good spot to unleash a shot that banked in off the post to beat Dobes.
Hagel scored twice in Sunday’s series opener.
The Canadiens controlled the pace of play through the first five minutes of the game, forcing Vasilevskiy to make a couple of difficult saves early.
Montreal owns a 1-0 series lead thanks to a Juraj Slafkovsky hat trick in Game 1 that included the overtime winner.