MONTREAL (AP) — Gage Goncalves scored off his own rebound at 9:03 of overtime and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Montreal Canadiens 1-0 on Friday night to force a Game 7 in the first-round series.
Goncalves scored soon after the Lightning killed scoring star Nikita Kucherov’s penalty for tripping Alexandre Carrier.
Game 7 is Sunday in Tampa. The Lightning are trying to avoid a fourth consecutive first-round exit, while the Canadiens are chasing their first series victory in five years.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 30 saves for Tampa Bay for his eighth career playoff shutout, and Jakub Dobes stopped 32 shots for Montreal. The first three games of the series also went to overtime.
The game was the second in three days to go to overtime scoreless, with Philadelphia beating Pittsburgh 1-0 on Wednesday night to end that series in six games. Before the season, the last 0-0 playoff game in regulation was in 2021.
Dobes and the Canadiens survived a flurry of shots on a late power play. The Lightning got the man advantage after Ivan Demidov broke in on Vasilevskiy, failed to score and was called for goalie interference.
Late in the second — with the Lightning’s Charle-Edouard D’Astous off for slashing Phillip Danault — Vasilevskiy stopped Demidov twice from close range.
Tampa Bay had a power-play chance early in the third after Kaiden Guhle was called for slashing Jake Guentzel. On the Lightning’s best chance, Nikita Kucherov fired a shot off the post.
Montreal had only one shot on goal on a power play to start the second period with Guentzel off for high-sticking Guhle with 11 seconds left in the first.
Danault kept it scoreless a few minutes later when he swept the puck away before it could cross the goal line. Montreal then killed Alexandre Texier’s high-sticking penalty.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
The Associated Press
