Three moments that mattered in Lightning's Game 3 loss to Canadiens in OT

Eduardo A. Encina, Tampa Bay Times on Apr 24, 2026

Published in Hockey

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MONTREAL— The Tampa Bay Lightning want to be the bad guys, and there might not have been a better place for them to fit the bill as villains Friday than at Bell Centre.

The arena was not only deafening, but with a towel-waving sea of red right on top of the ice, it could have felt suffocating. Every time the puck touched the blades of Brandon Hagel, Nikita Kucherov or Corey Perry, they were welcomed with a chorus of boos.

Lightning coach Jon Cooper jumbled his forward lines from the start with combinations not seen this season but still managed to get the matchup tandem of Anthony Cirelli and Hagel against the Canadiens’ dangerous top line of Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Juraj Slafkovsky.

The margin between winning and losing in this series has been razor thin, and for the third time in as many games the teams needed overtime to decide a winner.

Now, following their 3-2 loss in Game 3 — Lane Hutson’s seeing-eye slap shot from the right point ended the game 2:09 into overtime — the Lightning’s margin of error becomes thin. They have to win three of the remaining four games to win the series.

Here are three moments that mattered from Game:

Point finds back of net

After the Canadiens’ Alexandre Texier opened the scoring 4:53 into the game, the Lightning simply couldn’t afford to go down by two goals on the road. After Yanni Gourde drew a tripping penalty on goaltender Jakub Dobes while trying to retrieve the puck behind the Montreal net just over a minute later, it was Brayden Point who tied the score. Point, whose offensive production dipped this season, snapped a shot from the bumper position on the power play at 7:42. The goal not only tied the score and quelled the crowd, it finally gave Point something to build on after scoring just two goals in his last 21 games, including the first two of the playoffs.

Six minutes of hell

The Lightning took a 2-1 lead 4:47 into the second period on Hagel’s goal from the left circle. But after Kirby Dach tied it with 7:17 left in the period, Tampa Bay took three penalties in the final six minutes of the frame, each infraction on a player who is part of the penalty kill. Darren Raddysh’s high-sticking penalty on Jake Evans put Montreal on the power play for the first 90 seconds of the third period. The Lightning have been susceptible to early-period goals all season, especially when an opponent’s power play carries into the opening moments of a period, but they were able to kill off Raddysh’s penalty.

Vasilevskiy bailout on jall break

Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped three Montreal breakaways. He shut down Ivan Demidov in the second period, then Cole Caufield early in the third. His stop on Josh Anderson later in the third was not only the most impressive, it had to make the Canadiens wonder what they had to do to get the puck past the Lightning goaltender. Anderson had just exited the penalty box and was sprung at the blue line. He pulled the puck back, trying to tuck it inside the right post, but Vasilevskiy stuck out his left pad to deny the attempt.

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