MONTREAL — Max Crozier’s open-ice hit on Juraj Slafkovsky shifted momentum in Sunday’s Game 4, setting the tone for the Lightning’s comeback from two goals down and a 3-2 win that evened their best-of-seven first-round series against Montreal.
The series returns to Tampa for Game 5 on Wednesday tied at two games apiece.
Inside the Bell Centre, the home crowd wanted a penalty on Crozier, but his hit, while unquestionably violent, was a legal check.
If there was anyone to blame, it was Slafkovsky, who had his head down while handling the puck at center ice. He had no idea that Crozier was coming and because of that couldn’t do anything to protect himself, which made the hit look even more jarring. But it’s on the players to be aware of being hit, especially when they have possession of the puck.
“It was just a clean, solid check,” Crozier said. “I was able to time it up right. … Head down, going through the middle. That was pretty easy to line it up.”
Montreal defenseman Alexandre Carrier’s touch pass to Slafkovsky is termed a “suicide pass” in hockey vernacular. That’s when the delivery is behind a player, forcing him to look back instead of at the ice ahead of him and putting himself at extra risk of taking a hard hit, like the one Crozier put on Slafkovsky.
As for Crozier’s hit itself, his main point of contact with Slafkovsky’s body was the chest area. While it could be argued that his shoulder ran into the head area, it was not an intentional head shot, which would have been illegal. Also, it’s not until Crozier makes contact with Slafkovsky that his feet leave the ground, which is more basic physics than anything nefarious.
Given the heavy-handed way the game was being called, it would not have been surprising to see the hit flagged as an infraction. From very early on in Game 4, when Lightning center Yanni Gourde was called for a cross check on a hit that was little more than an aggressive forecheck, the officials set the tone that they weren’t going to keep their whistles in their pockets. And that theme carried out for both teams throughout the game.
The Lightning desperately needed to win Game 4 Sunday at Bell Centre, as dropping both games in Montreal would put their season on the brink, requiring them to win three straight.
When Cole Caufield’s power-play goal with 6:31 left in the second period put the Canadiens ahead 2-0, it was the first multiple-goal lead for either team. That’s how tightly contested the series has been.
But a Tampa Bay team that has feared no deficit rallied, and two Brandon Hagel goals in the third period — giving him six for the postseason — propelled the Lightning to a 3-2 comeback win.
Here are three other moments that mattered:
Playing the villian
The Lightning love silencing the loudest of road crowds, and they got to do that when Nikita Kucherov drew a cross-checking penalty on Jake Evans with 8:27 to play. As Kucherov, who has been booed incessantly every time he touches the puck, slowly got up and skated to the bench, the crowd willed the Canadiens to a penalty kill. They got it, but Kucherov later had his say, finding Hagel in front for the go-ahead goal with 4:53 left.
Brandon Hagel (38) of the Tampa Bay Lightning celebrates his goal with teammate Nikita Kucherov during the third period against the Montréal Canadiens in Game 4 of the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs at the Bell Centre on Sunday. The Lightning defeated the Canadiens 3-2. (Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images/TNS)
A hole to climb out of
The Lightning continued to hurt themselves with offensive-zone penalties, and in the final moments of a Tampa Bay power play Jake Guentzel took a slashing penalty with 7:36 left in the second period. Guentzel skated in front of the net, fired a shot and then took a whack at Montreal goaltender Jakub Dobes’ pad while trying to find the puck. The Lightning penalty kill already had killed off a 3-minute, 48-second power play that included 12 seconds at 3-on-5. But with Guentzel sitting in the box, Cole Caufield slipped uncovered in front of the net and scored to put Montreal up 2-0 with 6:31 left in the period.
A critical final minute in second
After another offensive-zone penalty call, a slash on Hagel, negated a Lightning power play, Guentzel ran a give-and-go with J.J. Moser. Moser found Guentzel skating to the net for a tip-in with 54 seconds left in the second, a score the Lightning desperately needed to get back into the game. While the goal was huge for the Lightning, Dobes made a diving save to stop Crozier’s shot on net with five seconds left in the period that came so close to tying the game.