{"id":620107,"date":"2026-04-22T02:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T02:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620107\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T02:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T02:20:08","slug":"montreal-canadiens-lead-tampa-bay-lightning-after-two-periods-in-feisty-game-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/620107\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens lead Tampa Bay Lightning after two periods in feisty Game 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Montreal Canadiens<\/a> lead the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> 2-1 after two periods in a hotly-contested Game 2 of their opening-round series.<\/p>\n

Josh Anderson<\/a> gave the Canadiens the lead late in the second period with his second goal of the series.<\/p>\n

Brandon Hagel<\/a> scored the opener for the Lightning in the first period, and Lane Hutson<\/a> answered on the power play late in the opening frame to even the score.<\/p>\n

Jakub Dobes<\/a> has turned away 16 of 17 shots through two periods for the Canadiens, while Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> has saved 19 of 21 for Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens will open the third period with just over a minute of power-play time thanks to Ryan McDonagh<\/a>\u2019s roughing penalty at the 19:19 mark – the fourth roughing penalty called on the Lightning in the game.<\/p>\n

Anderson finally broke through on a \u2018right place, right time\u2019 kind of goal as he chipped a bouncing puck just outside the crease over Vasilevskiy\u2019s pad to give Montreal their first lead of the game.<\/p>\n

That goal came just moments after Dobes made a brilliant save on a dangerous chance for Brayden Point<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Through the midway point of the period, scoring chances were few and far between for the two sides as they tried to take the lead.<\/p>\n

The two stars of the series thus far, Tampa Bay\u2019s Brandon Hagel<\/a> and Montreal\u2019s Juraj Slafkovsky, let off some steam and dropped the gloves early in the second frame.<\/p>\n

After the fight ended – in which both players landed some good shots – Hagel taunted Slafkovsky with a \u2018too small\u2019 hand signal as the two made their way to the penalty box.<\/p>\n

Hutson found the opening marker for the Canadiens late on a power play in the first period on a shot from the point that fooled Vasilevskiy to even the score at 1-1.<\/p>\n

Hagel continued his torrid start to the series with the game\u2019s opening goal at the 8:40 mark in the opening frame – also on Tampa Bay\u2019s first shot on goal of the contest.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Montreal owns a 1-0 series lead thanks to a Slafkovsky hat trick in Game 1 – which included the overtime winner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Montreal Canadiens lead the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 after two periods in a hotly-contested Game 2 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[712,49,48,2338,78846,95645],"class_list":{"0":"post-620107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-montreal","12":"tag-montreal-canadiens-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-8","13":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-14"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620107","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=620107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}