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<\/p>\n\u201cThe big one is obviously staying out of the penalty box,\u201d centre Anthony Cirelli said after practice Monday at Benchmark International Arena. \u201cThey have a really good power play, so I think that helps if we can try and eliminate our penalties.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
\u201cThe penalties we took were kind of no-brain calls,\u201d he added. \u201cThe high stick, too many men, those are ones that you put yourself in a bad situation, you give them a chance to call them. Got to be a little more disciplined in our stick checks and be a little bit more aware out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the Lightning clean that up for Game 2 on Tuesday, the Canadiens must find a way to generate offence at even strength.<\/p>\n
Montreal mustered just nine five-on-five shots Sunday as Tampa\u2019s second line of Cirelli, Guentzel and Brandon Hagel stifled the Canadiens\u2019 elite top trio of Slafkovsky, Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot more out there for us,\u201d said Caufield, a 50-goal scorer who only registered his first shot partway through the third period Sunday.<\/p>\n
Caufield added that his line \u2014 which combined for 262 points this season \u2014 can\u2019t \u201ccheat\u201d and take ill-advised risks to force chances, especially at this time of year.<\/p>\n
\u201cA mature game is waiting for them to make the turnovers and for us it\u2019s just taking care of the puck,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s just the way the games are played right now, it\u2019s pretty tight and you\u2019ve got to execute well on those opportunities. There\u2019s a lot to talk about five-on-five that we can do better at, and we\u2019ll do that for Game 2.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hagel took the Lightning\u2019s well-executed game plan against the Canadiens\u2019 top guns as a positive sign. And the mood in Tampa\u2019s room remained confident, if the team can clean up its discipline.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, the sun came up this morning, we\u2019re still in a series,\u201d Hagel said. \u201cI didn\u2019t believe coming into this series we were going to sweep these guys. They got a good hockey team over there and we have that same belief, so what does that mean? We\u2019re probably going to win one eventually.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was only one game, and we got a lot more to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
NO PANIC<\/p>\n
The Lightning\u2019s penalty kill showed cracks after finishing third in the NHL at 82.6 per cent, but Hagel doesn\u2019t see a need for an overhaul ahead of Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think you need to hit the panic button,\u201d he said. \u201cI think six penalties is too much, and you\u2019re starting to kill six penalties \u2014 they get one, they get two, and maybe you\u2019re gripping the stick a little bit tight.\u201d<\/p>\n
CARRIER STEPS UP<\/p>\n
Canadiens defenceman Alexandre Carrier didn\u2019t miss a beat in his return from a nine-game absence, even in a larger-than-usual role.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t an easy situation for him, but he looked like it was,\u201d defenceman Kaiden Guhle said. \u201cHe did a great job. He missed a couple of weeks and came back and looked like he didn\u2019t miss any.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the only right-shot defenceman in the lineup in Game 1, Carrier filled in for injured Noah Dobson on Montreal\u2019s top pairing with Mike Matheson. The five-foot-11, 174-pound blueliner played 18 minutes 36 seconds with three hits and two blocked shots in a steady performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was unbelievable,\u201d Caufield said. \u201cWell-rested for sure, but I think he worked his ass off to get back and be in shape for this \u2026 Couple big hits, which is unlike him. He\u2019s usually on the other side of those.\u201d<\/p>\n
HOME WOES<\/p>\n
On home ice, the Lightning have one win and eight losses since the beginning of the 2023 playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, that\u2019s not a very good look,\u201d Hagel said. \u201cBut at the end of the day, that\u2019s just a stat. There\u2019s a different group that comes in here every single year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay has also dropped six consecutive overtime games in the playoffs after Sunday\u2019s defeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a tough one, because it was the opposite before that, and now it\u2019s come into a tough trend,\u201d Cooper said of both stats. \u201cSomething we have to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u2019ASTOUS DOUBTFUL<\/p>\n
Cooper said Lightning defenceman Charle-Edouard D\u2019Astous was \u201cdoubtful\u201d after he left Sunday\u2019s game in the second period following a high hit from Josh Anderson.<\/p>\n
D\u2019Astous, a 27-year-old from Rimouski, Que., is playing his first NHL season after a journeyman career through the ECHL, AHL and the Swedish and Slovakian leagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a been a great story for us and for himself,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cYou never want to have guys out.\u201d<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 20, 2026.<\/p>\n
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe big one is obviously staying out of the penalty box,\u201d centre Anthony Cirelli said after practice Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-617606","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\/617606","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=617606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}