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Canadiens defencemen Mike Matheson and Alexandre Carrier go after Tampa Bay Lightning forward Jake Guentzel after he slashed Habs goalie Jakub Dobes during second period of Game 4 in Montreal on Sunday night. John Mahoney \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\nLife, death, taxes and lousy officiating in the NHL playoffs<\/p>\n
Those are four of the certainties in life, and the latter was on display Sunday night at the Bell Centre when the Canadiens lost 3-2 to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series.<\/p>\n
Canadiens defencemen Mike Matheson and Alexandre Carrier go after Tampa Bay Lightning forward Jake Guentzel after he slashed Habs goalie Jakub Dobes during second period of Game 4 in Montreal on Sunday night. John Mahoney \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n
The best-of-seven series is tied 2-2 with Game 5 slated for Wednesday in Tampa and Game 6 for Friday back at the Bell Centre.<\/p>\n
The Bell Centre crowd spent a good part of Sunday night chanting: \u201cRef, you suck!\u201d They were chanting that again as the players left the ice after the game. <\/p>\n
Referees Brandon Blandina and Wes McCauley called eight penalties against the Lightning and nine against the Canadiens, including some questionable ones on both sides, along with some missed calls. <\/p>\n
Just another playoff night in the NHL.<\/p>\n
But the call that really hurt Montreal was a high-sticking penalty on Oliver Kapanen only 51 seconds into the third period after the Lightning\u2019s Jake Guentzel had cut the Canadiens\u2019 lead to 2-1 with 54 seconds left in the second period. Zachary Bolduc and Cole Caufield (on a power play) had given the Canadiens a 2-0 lead with goals earlier in the second period.<\/p>\n
Replays during the game showed a referee\u2019s arm going up after the Lightning\u2019s Dominic James threw his head back while Kapanen\u2019s stick wasn\u2019t near his face. Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman showed another video of the play on X after the game with Kapanen actually high-sticking James seconds earlier, but the ref\u2019s arm never went up until James later threw his head back.<\/p>\n
So it looks like the referees missed the real high-stick and then called the reaction to a phantom high-stick.<\/p>\n
The Lightning\u2019s Brandon Hagel scored on the ensuing power play to tie the game 2-2, and then Hagel scored the winning goal at 15:07 of the third period when a shot by Nikita Kucherov hit him in front of the net.<\/p>\n
The Canadiens\u2019 Mike Matheson was upset with the referees when he was called for high-sticking at 10:44 of the third period, shortly after the refs missed an obvious high stick to the face of his teammate Jayden Struble. The Canadiens\u2019 Jake Evans was then upset at 11:33 of the third period, when he was called for cross-checking Kucherov, who slid into the boards and then lay on the ice writhing in pain.<\/p>\n
Kucherov needed some assistance after this play with Jake Evans ?<\/p>\n
After a review for a major, Evans was handed a minor for cross-checking. pic.twitter.com\/qE0ndimKhh<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) April 27, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n The Lightning trainers who came on the ice to tend to Kucherov must have had some of that \u201cmagic spray\u201d soccer trainers use to help players come back from what looks like near-death injuries to run around the pitch again shortly after. That spray worked on Kucherov, who was back on the ice during the ensuing power play, but the Canadiens were able to kill off the five-on-three that lasted 1:11.<\/p>\n Kucherov was then upset when he was called for slashing at 17:27 of the third period, which might have been payback from the officials for his injury acting. But the Canadiens couldn\u2019t capitalize on the ensuing power play, even after pulling goalie Jakub Dobes to make it six-on-four.<\/p>\n Canadiens head coach Martin St. Louis wouldn\u2019t have seen the video Friedman posted when he did his post-game news conference and I asked him how he deals with his frustration on phantom penalty calls.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just going to lean on Seinfeld on that one,\u201d St. Louis said before biting his lip.<\/p>\n St. Louis was referring to his comment earlier in the series when he said he likes to watch Seinfeld episodes to wind down and get to sleep after stressful games, adding that George Constanza was his favourite character on the TV show.<\/p>\n As a follow-up to my first question, I asked St. Louis what Constanza would say about the refereeing. Someone in the back of the room said: \u201cSerenity now.\u201d<\/p>\n St. Louis laughed and said: \u201cExactly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n On a more serious note, St. Louis said his team didn\u2019t handle the momentum swings in the game well enough.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we put ourselves in situations where there\u2019s a chance the ref\u2019s going to call a penalty,\u201d the coach said. \u201cThat\u2019s a veteran team. They\u2019re very good at drawing penalties. They got talented players. They\u2019re a tough team and we knew it was going to be a tough series. We\u2019re right in it. We\u2019re in a battle. It\u2019s a fine line between winning and losing in these games, but we\u2019re battling.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could have had more composure, for sure,\u201d St. Louis added. \u201cEspecially when you\u2019re ahead, you definitely want to have more composure.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n Canadiens defenceman Kaiden Guhle kept his composure after the game when asked about the officiating.<\/p>\n \u201cA couple of calls on both sides, probably, that were a little off,\u201d he said. \u201cGame happens fast for them (referees), too, sometimes. That\u2019s all I\u2019m going to say about that.\u201d<\/p>\n What about the frustration of seeing Kucherov make his miraculous recovery after falling into the boards?<\/p>\n \u201cYeah \u2026 frustrating,\u201d Guhle said with a tight grin.<\/p>\n Apart from the officiating, this is turning into a great series, and you can see why the two teams finished the regular season tied with 106 points and why the first three games all went to overtime.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re a good team and so are we,\u201d Canadiens defenceman Mike Matheson said. \u201cIt\u2019s two good teams going at it.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the officiating, Matheson said: \u201cIt\u2019s definitely frustrating, but we can\u2019t control it. You can get upset about it, but it\u2019s not going to help you win games. Like I said, it\u2019s out of our control and we got to keep focusing on the things we can control.\u201d<\/p>\n We now have a best-of-three series between two very evenly matched teams.<\/p>\n Hopefully it\u2019s not the officials who eventually decide the winner.<\/p>\n