MONTREAL — Let’s not pretend there was some deep lesson for the Montreal Canadiens to learn from their Game 4 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Both teams fought hard — against each other, and against the officials — and the one that needed to win more ultimately did.
The Lightning erased the first two-goal deficit of this series and won 3-2 to wrest back home ice advantage. It was the fourth of four games decided by one goal, even if it was the first that threatened to be taken completely out of every player’s hands by some remarkably incompetent officiating.
But in the end, the penalties cancelled each other out, both teams traded power-play goals, and the difference ultimately came down to an even-strength play that saw Nikita Kucherov turn and fire the puck off Brandon Hagel and in.
“I don’t know,” said Canadiens defenceman Kaiden Guhle. “Hopefully next time, the puck doesn’t go off a guy’s face and in the net.”
Could the Canadiens have prevented the one that went off Jake Guentzel’s stick with 54 seconds remaining in the second period? Ideally.
“We were in good position,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, who wasn’t wrong about that.
Jayden Struble was right there with Guentzel, but he just got beat by the player who’d previously scored 41 goals through his first 77 career playoff games.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper referred to Guentzel as “a weapon” on Sunday morning, and then he deployed him as one at four-on-four and watched him score his first of the series when they needed it most on Sunday night.
It capped a wild momentum swing that started with Max Crozier’s devasting hit on Juraj Slafkovsky and ended with Hagel’s fifth of the series 1:40 into the third period.
Maybe it never gets there if Dominic James doesn’t sell a phantom high stick from Oliver Kapanen after actually taking one that went unnoticed just seconds before. We’ll never know.
Just like we’ll never know if momentum lost and gained on both sides of all the other laughably bad calls from Brandon Blandina had any impact on the outcome.
The 37-year-old official sent Tampa’s Yanni Gourde to the box in the 11th minute of the game for crosschecking on a play where he barely pushed Montreal’s Mike Matheson. He evened it up 10:24 into the second by calling a phantom hook on Alex Newhook.
Then late in the third, with Matheson serving a deserved penalty for high-sticking Guentzel, Blandina took the bait of Kucherov diving into the boards on a shove from Jake Evans he called a cross check.
But hey, he evened that one up by sending Kucherov to the box with 2:33 left in the frame for a supposed slash on Matheson that never connected with any body part.
St. Louis admitted his team didn’t exhibit enough composure to win the game, acknowledged it would’ve been nice to lock down the 2-0 lead Cole Caufield and Zachary Bolduc gave it with their first goals of the playoffs.
But that was in between digging his tongue deep into his cheek and blurting out in both French and English that the Lightning are “a veteran team with talent,” and a team that is “good at making us take penalties.”
The part St. Louis was joking around about was the part to be taken seriously.
Same goes for Cooper, who could barely keep a straight face after he said he leaned on his experience to properly manage the game of emotions that came with how a game of this magnitude was being called in order to keep his team in control of itself.
“Is there footage of me (losing control)?” he asked.
Yes, Jon, but only of you screaming yourself hoarse after Corey Perry was split open from a stick that clipped him above his eye and never even got a glance from either official. Oh, and there was also that shot of you hollering for a major while Kucherov lay writhing on the ice following the light push from Evans he somehow miraculously recovered from in time to participate in the five-on-three advantage that followed.
This was Cooper’s 159th playoff game, and we’d not be talking about him learning to manage it better emotionally had he lost it.
We also wouldn’t be talking about how this Lightning team full of Stanley Cup winners need to avoid putting themselves in position to give the officials reasons to call penalties on them.
Even if the Canadiens do a better job toeing that line moving forward, it wasn’t the difference in this game.
This game was like every other one in this series to date minus the infused drama of bad officiating — a total coin flip.
The three prior to it were settled in overtime, and it’s hard to imagine the next three decided by wider margins.
Maybe it won’t go seven, but it sure feels like it will.
These two teams had 106-point seasons, and they have matched each other haymaker for haymaker, thunderous hit for thunderous hit, and goal for goal.
Literally! The score is 11-11 going back to Tampa, with each team holding 1-1 records at Benchmark International Arena and the Bell Centre after each going 1-1 against each other in their respective buildings during the regular season.
What have the Canadiens learned from it?
“They’re a tough team, and we knew it was going to be a tough series, and we’re right in it,” said St. Louis. “We’re in a battle. It’s a fine line between winning and losing in these games, but we’re battling.”
The Lightning feel exactly the same way about it.
And surely both teams will hope the officials will let them decide how it ends.