![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/indicator-big.gif\")
<\/p>\nThere was a little more than two minutes left in the second period. The Canadiens led 2-0 and had a commanding series lead in sight.<\/p>\n
\t<\/p>\n
The Bell Centre had broken into its \u201cOl\u00e9, Ol\u00e9, Ol\u00e9\u201d chant and the wave. Then came a collective gasp.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a big-time hit,\u201d Lightning forward Jake Guentzel said. \u201cThe bench got fired up, and sometimes something like that can change the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
It did on Sunday because of what followed 78 seconds later.<\/p>\n
Guentzel cut into the Canadiens\u2019 lead with 54 seconds remaining in the period, converting a perfectly timed cross-ice pass from J.J. Moser during 4-on-4 play.<\/p>\n
Brandon Hagel then scored twice in the third. First, he capitalized on the power play 1:40 in \u2014 after an Oliver Kapanen high stick that will be debated \u2014 before adding the go-ahead goal with 4:53 remaining when Nikita Kucherov\u2019s shot bounced off his chest and in.<\/p>\n
Kucherov and Moser each had two assists, while Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 16 shots for the Lightning in a game that featured 17 minor penalties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the Crozier hit is a dagger, that really helped,\u201d Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of Guentzel\u2019s goal. \u201cWe score in the last minute of the second and the first minute of the third, and all of a sudden the game\u2019s completely changed. You\u2019ve kind of taken the crowd out of it a bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re watching the game, you know that hit probably had a big thing to do with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slafkovsky stood up immediately after the clean-but-devastating blow, labouring off the ice before heading straight down the tunnel. The Slovak winger and Game 1 hat-trick hero returned in the third period to \u201cSlaf-kov-sky!\u201d chants.<\/p>\n
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said the goal that followed \u2014 rather than Crozier\u2019s big hit \u2014 made more damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir goal at 4-on-4 hurt. We were in a good position,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t much time left in the second, it would have been good to get out of there with a 2-0 lead. Goals at the end of periods like that often swing games.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it really did (swing the momentum),\u201d defenceman Kaiden Guhle added of the open-ice check. \u201cIt\u2019s just big hits happening in these types of games. Gotta find a way to come back after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cole Caufield and Zachary Bolduc replied for Montreal. Jakub Dobes made 17 saves in the first game of the series to end in regulation.<\/p>\n
The previous three games required overtime. Lane Hutson scored the Game 3 winner in a 3-2 victory Friday to give the Canadiens a 2-1 series lead after the teams split the first two games in Tampa, Fla.<\/p>\n
The series returns to the Sunshine State for Game 5 on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s playoff hockey, stuff happens,\u201d Guhle said. \u201cBounces, whatever you want to call it, it\u2019s part of the game. It\u2019s tight, there\u2019s a reason that we had three games in a row go to overtime. It\u2019s just, weird bounces, certain plays impact the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Canadiens also had their chances despite surrendering the two-goal lead \u2014 and committing three penalties in the third period alone.<\/p>\n
Moments before Hagel\u2019s winner, the home team had regained the momentum by killing a 71-second 5-on-3 disadvantage, as Kucherov tumbled into the boards from a Jake Evans cross-check with Mike Matheson already in the penalty box.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens also jumped on the power play \u2014 and a 6-on-4 advantage with the net empty \u2014 at 17:27 with Kucherov off for slashing, but couldn\u2019t produce the equalizer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t play a good enough third, I would say,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cWe take three penalties, it\u2019s a veteran team, talented. They\u2019re good at getting us to take penalties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bolduc broke the deadlock at 10:06 in the second period after Guhle found him with a stretch pass. He drove to the net with Lightning defenceman Darren Raddysh draped all over him as Vasilevskiy\u2019s poke check bounced off his chest and in.<\/p>\n
Caufield doubled the lead on the power play with 6:31 remaining for his first of the playoffs after a 51-goal regular season.<\/p>\n
Nick Suzuki found him alone in front to send the Bell Centre crowd \u2014 and the thousands gathered outside \u2014 into a frenzy as Caufield dropped to his knees in celebration. But the celebrations, on Sunday at least, stopped there.<\/p>\n
The closely contested series comes after both teams totalled 106 points in the regular season, with Tampa Bay holding the regulation-wins tiebreaker.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a clash between a longtime powerhouse in Tampa Bay \u2014 Stanley Cup champions in 2020 and \u201921 \u2014 and a rising Montreal team trying to follow that blueprint.<\/p>\n
Now it\u2019s a best-of-three to decide whether youth or experience moves on.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a little more than two minutes left in the second period. The Canadiens led 2-0 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[879,49,48,2467,2338,2461,2468,2460,2462,2463,44,2464,2465,2466,82],"class_list":["post-631604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-breaking-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-central-vancouver-island","tag-montreal","tag-nanaimo","tag-nanaimo-breaking-news","tag-nanaimo-news","tag-nanaimo-news-now","tag-nanaimonewsnow","tag-news","tag-oceanside","tag-parksville","tag-qualicum","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631604","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=631604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}