{"id":256999,"date":"2026-05-03T21:35:30","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T21:35:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256999\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T21:35:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T21:35:30","slug":"lightning-canadiens-made-game-6-epic-even-before-lone-goal-was-scored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/256999\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning, Canadiens made Game 6 \u2018epic\u2019 even before lone goal was scored"},"content":{"rendered":"

It continued that way for most of the evening, right from the get go when the Canadiens\u2019 Josh Anderson<\/a>\u00a0pancaked Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak<\/a>\u00a0into the boards just 10 seconds after the opening face-off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And so it went for 60 minutes of hockey, back and forth, chance after chance. The Lightning hit three goal posts, the Canadiens one. Both goalies, Jakub Dobes<\/a>\u00a0of the Canadiens and Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a>\u00a0of the Lightning, made save after save, many of the spectacular variety. There were big hits aplenty sprinkled in for good measure. The shots were 28-26 for Tampa Bay after three periods.<\/p>\n

This game, at least in regulation, had everything but a goal.<\/p>\n

Asked if he\u2019d ever been in a better 0-0 game, Lightning forward Jake Guentzel<\/a>\u00a0shook his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cNope,\u201d he said, \u201cthat was the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lightning coach Jon Cooper has been in some classiques himself in the past 14 months. As the coach of Team Canada, there was the 3-2 overtime victory against Team USA in the final of the 4 Nations Face-Off. Two months ago, there was the 2-1 overtime defeat to Team USA in the gold medal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.<\/p>\n

Now this.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone wants goal-scoring,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cThat\u2019s what everybody talks about, wanting more goal-scoring in the League. But if you watched the game, that game didn\u2019t need a goal. All it needed was one goal to end it. And that\u2019s how exciting it was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was thrilling. It was epic. It was goaltenders making extraordinary saves, players doing things that were of grace and skill and magic, and there was intensity. There were hits. It was everything. And there wasn\u2019t a goal scored yet. Everyone in the building was on the edge of their seats.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I think, I guess, that\u2019s how epic games become epic.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, in this case, un Classique.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It continued that way for most of the evening, right from the get go when the Canadiens\u2019 Josh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-256999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256999","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=256999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}