{"id":615580,"date":"2026-04-20T01:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/615580\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T01:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T01:42:09","slug":"slafkovskys-hat-trick-lifts-canadiens-to-4-3-overtime-win-over-lightning-in-playoff-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/615580\/","title":{"rendered":"Slafkovsky\u2019s hat trick lifts Canadiens to 4-3 overtime win over Lightning in playoff opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776649329_593_imageRedirect.jpeg\" class=\"object-fit-cover\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Montr\u00e9al Canadiens left wing Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd (20) celebrates his goal with right wing Cole Caufield against the Tampa Bay Lightning during overtime in Game 1 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series, Sunday, April 19, 2026, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo\/Chris O&#8217;Meara)<\/p>\n<p>By The Canadian Press<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tApr 19, 2026 | 7:21 PM\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Juraj Slafkovsky scored his third power-play goal 1:22 into overtime and the Montreal Canadiens beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series on Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p>Slafkovsky fired a slap shot from the left circle that beat Andrei Vasilevskiy to the far side for the hat trick.<\/p>\n<p>Game 2 is Tuesday night at Benchmark International Arena, where Tampa Bay has lost eight of its last nine home games in the post-season. <\/p>\n<p>Josh Anderson also had a goal for Montreal and rookie goalie Jakub Dobes made 20 saves. Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield each chipped in with two assists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Montr\u00e9al Canadiens left wing Juraj Slafkovsk\u00fd (20) celebrates his goal with right wing Cole Caufield against the Tampa&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":615581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-615580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}