John Kreiser
The Tampa Bay Lightning passed a gut check Sunday night, rallying from two goals down to defeat the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 at Bell Centre and even their Eastern Conference First Round series at two wins apiece.
Brandon Hagel’s second goal of the game with 4:53 remaining in regulation capped the comeback. Hagel was battling for position in front of Montreal goaltender Jakub Dobes when Nikita Kucherov flung the puck at the net from the right boards near the top of the circle.
The shot hit him and deflected into the net to give the Lightning their first lead of the night.
Hagel had tied the game 2-2 at 1:40 of the third period, winning inside position in front of the net and converting a cross-crease pass from Kucherov for a power-play goal.
Jake Guentzel’s goal in the final minute of the second period got Tampa Bay on the board after Montreal grabbed a 2-0 lead on goals by Zachary Bolduc and Cole Caufield.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 16 saves for his 69th career playoff victory. Dobes stopped 17 shots.
The teams get two days off before Game 5 at Benchmark International Arena on Wednesday night. The Lightning will try to win consecutive playoff games for the first time since the 2022 Eastern Conference Final, when they lost the first two games to the New York Rangers before winning the next four.
The Lightning got an early chance to grab the lead when Montreal was called for too many men just 2:04 after the opening face-off.  They controlled the puck in the offensive zone for most of the two minutes, but Dobes stopped a rocket by Darren Raddysh and Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle got his stick on Brayden Point’s open shot from the slot.
Montreal didn’t get a shot on goal until Caufield tested Vasilevskiy at 6:20. But the Canadiens got six shots in a 3:48 span after the Bolts took consecutive penalties – Max Crozier went off for high-sticking at 7:22 and Yanni Gourde was called for cross-checking at 9:10. Vasilevskiy was up to the challenge, stopping a shot by Game 3 hero Lane Hutson and denying Game 1 hero Juraj Slafkovsky on the rebound.
The last nine minutes of the period had penalty of hits by the Canadiens (who finished the period a 23-10 advantage), but few testing shots on either goaltender. Montreal finished the period with a 9-6 edge in shots on goal, but the Lightning held them to just three at 5-on-5 and none at all in the final 8:04 of the period.
The first half of the second period was more of the same. Tampa Bay did nothing with an early power play after Josh Anderson was sent off for boarding 41 seconds the period, and neither team generated much offense.
But the game turned just after the midway point when the Canadiens finally opened the scoring.
Bolduc took a pass at the Tampa Bay blue line and cut for the net, with Raddysh trying to fend him off. As Bolduc got close to the net, Vasilevskiy poke-checked the puck, but it hit the Canadiens forward and bounced into the net at 10:06, giving Montreal a 1-0 lead.
Guentzel took a bad slashing penalty at 12:24 for taking a whack at Dobes after a save, and the Canadiens capitalized at 13:29 thanks to a slick play by their top line. Nick Suzuki controlled the puck in the left corner and Caufield, a 51-goal scorer during the regular season, went to the front of the net and got inside position before deflecting a perfect pass behind a helpless Vasilevskiy for a 2-0 lead.
But the Lightning appeared to get a jolt of energy after Crozier, playing in his first game of the series, leveled Slafkovsky at center ice with a ferocious but clean hit just before the 18-minute mark.
Guentzel then made up for the power-play goal by getting the Lightning on the board with 54 seconds remaining. With the teams playing 4-on-4, he carried the puck around the net, gave it to J.J. Moser at the right point, raced to the front of the net and converted a sensational pass by Moser for his first goal of the season, cutting the deficit to 2-1.
The Lightning didn’t generate much on the power play in the first two periods, but they were nearly flawless after Oliver Kapanen was called for high-sticking 51 seconds into third. Tampa Bay worked the puck around the offensive zone before the Kucherov-to-Hagel combination tied the game.
Kucherov’s play on the winning goal appeared to catch the Canadiens by surprise. He caught a quick glimpse of Hagel heading for the front of the net and threw the puck on goal, where it caught a piece of Hagel and went into the net for the win.
Key takeaways after Lightning even series by beating Canadiens 3-2
Hagel keeps on scoring
The Lightning have scored 11 goals in this series. Hagel has six of them after his pair in the third period got the Bolts even in the best-of-7 series. Needless to say, Hagel leads all NHL players in postseason goals — no one else has more than four.
He also helped the Bolts make some history.
Hagel fueled the 10th multi-goal comeback playoff win in Lightning history, and their fourth on the road. It was their first since they rallied to beat the New York Rangers 3-2 in Game 3 of the 2022 Eastern Final. It was also the fourth consecutive comeback win in this series; Montreal and Tampa Bay are the first set of teams to combine for four straight comeback wins to start a series since the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets had five such games in the 2019 Western Conference First Round.
Crozier’s hit may have turned series
The Lightning looked like they were going to be heading home trying to avoid a fourth straight one-and-done in the Stanley Cup Playoffs after Caufield’s goal gave the Canadiens the first two-goal lead of the series. The Bell Centre crowd was roaring, the Canadiens were flying and the Bolts looked a bit shell-shocked.
Then Crozier, who hadn’t played for the Lightning in the postseason since 2024, stepped up – literally.
The 26-year-old, who played 35 games for Tampa Bay this season, finishing with one goal and 10 points, caught Slafkovsky near the red line just as he received a pass and flattened him with a clean but devastating hit.
The Canadiens barked at Crozier but didn’t try to avenge the hit, which lit a fire under the Lightning. The jolt of energy was palpable, and grew more intense after Guentzel’s goal less than 90 seconds later made it 2-1.
“He makes a big play and gets the fire back on the bench,” defenseman Ryan McDonagh told the Scripps Sports postgame show.
Vasy comes through again
The Lightning count on Vasilevskiy to deliver when it matters most. He did just that in Game 4
The “Big Cat” didn’t face a lot of shots – Montreal attempted 48 but just 18 got through. He finished with 16 saves to improve to 16-0 in his last 16 games following a Lightning playoff loss.
His biggest stop might have been the one he made on Ivan Demidov midway though the third period after Montreal’s star rookie had found a dead spot in the defensive coverage and was alone in the slot.
This was a game the Lightning had to win — and Vasilevskiy made sure they did.
