The first-round playoff series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens has quickly become a classic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One which will end in a Game 7.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We had yet another one-goal game in this series on Friday night, this time it was the Lightning scoring for a 1-0 win in overtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All six games have been decided by a single goal \u2014 with four going to overtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOne more,\u2019\u2019 Jon Cooper mouthed to the crowd as he walked off the Bell Centre ice, wagging his index finger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Friday, Gage Goncalves won it 9:03 into overtime when he got down low and swept in a loose puck off his own rebound.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Per ESPN, it was Goncalves\u2019 first-ever goal in an overtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHappy with the way we kept trucking through,\u201d Goncalves said. \u201cNow, we look at this moment, jjst forced a Game 7, so we\u2019re pretty fired up.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Game 7 will be Sunday night in Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The road team has won four of the first six games in this series.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The winner gets the Buffalo Sabres in Round 2 after they knocked out the Bruins 4-1<\/a> on Friday night.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was thrilling,\u2019\u2019 Cooper said. \u201cIt was epic.\u201d <\/p>\n Both goalies were fantastic with Andrei Vasilevskiy looking like, well, Andrei Vasilevskiy.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Tampa Bay goalie made 30 saves for his eighth postseason shutout with four in overtime which included a Montreal power play 5:30 in.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vasilevskiy had a shutout in an elimination game for the second time in his career, the first coming in Game 7 of the 2021 Stanley Cup Semifinals.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jakub Dobes\u00a0was vying to be the third\u00a0rookie\u00a0goaltender to earn a shutout in a series-clinching game for Montreal in the NHL\u2019s expansion era.<\/p>\n He made 32 saves in the loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a confident group, we believe in what we do and how we do it,\u2019\u2019 Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said.\u00a0\u201cWe played our game tonight. This is probably one of the best games I have seen this young group play. You just have to embrace the situation; things are meant to be, meant to be for our growth as a team to play in a Game 7. I think that will help what\u2019s next for us.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n The\u00a0Lightning\u00a0is 7-3 all-time in Game 7s but this will be its first since beating Toronto in the first round in 2022. It is 4-1 in Game 7s at home.<\/p>\n Montreal is 15-9 in 24 Game 7s in its history \u2014 with seven wins in 13 road games. The Canadiens could tie Boston for the most Game 7 wins in\u00a0Stanley Cup postseason\u00a0history. The seven road wins are the most in NHL history. <\/p>\n \u201dWe just have to block out all the distractions,\u2019\u2019 Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some lackluster games at home for whatever reason. We need to put our focus and mind in the right spot here, get the job done.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS: ROUND 1<\/p>\n TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING (Atl2) v MONTREAL CANADIENS (Atl3) \u00a0<\/p>\n GAME 7<\/p>\n Best-of-7 Series Tied 3-3\u00a0<\/p>\n When:\u00a0Sunday, TBA\u00a0<\/p>\n Where:\u00a0Benchmark Arena, Tampa<\/p>\n Tampa Local TV:\u00a0The Spot-66<\/p>\n National TV:\u00a0TBA<\/p>\n Streaming:\u00a0TBA<\/p>\n Season Series:\u00a0Tampa Bay won 2-1\u00a0<\/p>\n All-time Regular Season Series:<\/a>\u00a0Lightning leads 63-43-11, 6 ties<\/p>\n All-time Postseason Series \u2014 Lightning Lead 3-1:\u00a0Won 2021 Stanley Cup Final (5 games); Won 2015 Round 2 (6); Lost 2014 Round 1 (4); Won 2004 Round 2 (4)<\/p>\n Series Schedule (Series Tied 3-3) \u2014\u00a0Game 1:\u00a0Montreal 4, Tampa Bay 3 OT<\/a>;\u00a0Game 2:\u00a0Tampa Bay 3, Montreal 2 OT;\u00a0Game 3:\u00a0Montreal 3, Lightning 2 OT;\u00a0Game 4:\u00a0Lightning 3, Montreal 2;<\/a>\u00a0Game 5:\u00a0Montreal 3, Lightning 2<\/a>;\u00a0Game 6:\u00a0Lightning 1, Montreal 0 OT;\u00a0Game 7:\u00a0at Tampa Bay, Sunday TBD<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first-round playoff series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens has quickly become a classic.\u00a0 One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[34364,51845,78369,135,862,137,136],"class_list":["post-255297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-andrei-vasilevskiy","tag-montreal-canadiens","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-lightning","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}