It has been noted that the Montreal Canadiens won Game 7 of their series with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Sunday night with a Stanley Cup Playoff record-low nine shots on goal. This is clearly not true. It was eight. It can only be nine if we are defining "on" as "behind," and "goal" as "the goalie's behind."
This matters because the Canadiens won the game, 2-1, and so stole the series despite being dominated by the Lightning in all the ways that the visible eye could discern, provided you're not picky about the scoreboard. It matters because the decisive goal, by Alex Newhook, was actually more of a desperate swipe at an airborne (as in three feet off the ice) puck while he was three feet behind the goal line that struck Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy on his right leg pad and then his seater and then bounced into the goal with 8:53 to play. It was Montreal's sixth (or technically seventh, if you're going to be whiny about it) shot on goal, and also an extreme example of how hockey can work despite all the provable evidence. Newhook's swinging bunt had no business being a goal for about six different reasons, but sometimes there's that seventh reason you never considered. This time, it won a series that frankly should still be going on this morning.
It was a monument to persistence—that is, to the hot rookie goalie too oblivious to the facts to surrender to them—in the face of an implacable foe on a night when all the other indicators said that Tampa would win with ease. The entire series had played against type, to the point where coaches, players, and knowledgeable observers all agreed that Game 6, which ended 1-0 in overtime for Tampa, would have been a great game even if it had somehow ended scoreless. It was the acme of "What the hell are you talking about," but also you could sort of see the point. Every game in the series was decided by one goal, which was the first time that had happened since the New York Rangers beat Washington in 2015. The home team lost five of the seven games, including two of the three overtime games. Tampa outshot Montreal in five of the seven games, most notably and absurdly on Sunday night.
But the Canadiens had two things that the Lightning either hadn't figured on or just couldn't do anything about: Montreal's out-of-character cussedness when it came to playing the body, and a small but perceptible advantage in goal, where rookie Jakub Dobes handled significantly more action while looking less rattled than the more obviously state-of-the-art Vasilevskiy. It would be wrong to say that Tampa was clearly the better team, if only because the games were too close to justify such a claim. But it would perfectly right to say that Dobes kept his hinder out of harm's way more often than Vasilevskiy did. In Game 7, this was true especially in the second period, when the Canadiens put no shots on goal at all, tying a record last achieved in 2017 and never bested because nobody has yet figured out to take fewer than zero shots. Not even these Canadiens could manage that, although they are one of the rare teams in history to get credit for a shot on goal that was barely a shot and was very definitely not on goal. Until it somehow was.
This is the first time since 2015 that the Canadiens have escaped the first round in a non-pandemic year, but it is also the fourth consecutive season that the Lightning has been knocked out in the first round. The last two seasons, Tampa lost to their brethren in Florida in five games, but the fact that the Panthers won the Cup both years mitigates those defeats a bit. The year before that, they lost to Toronto, who will never win the Cup again. That one was a little harder to swallow.
This series, though, is in final analysis something entirely weirder, insofar as Tampa can claim that they were not beaten by the better team. They can claim whatever they'd like, in fact, but none of it will make lining up a shot out of the bunker on the 11th hole next week any more satisfying. Also, nobody will hear them when they make this complaint. Hockey is just like that—once you've been shown the door, life is a lot of talk-to-the-hand.
The Canadiens may even feel slightly sheepish about how the series played out, but they needn't, and besides, nobody will hear those trepidations either. Buffalo looms on the horizon, in a series that could be even more lopsided because the Sabres have been the best team in the league since early December after having been the league's couch cushions for 15 years. This means that smug does not become them, but the turnabout was so dramatic and so rapid that it feels hard to know what else it might mean.
The heavy betting and punditry will lay its support on Buffalo and its superior everything, including vibes. But there are three things we can say with complete confidence before that series begins Wednesday. One, this is not a great year for leaning heavily into the favorite. Two, Montreal's playoff bona fides may be weird to the point of being nearly unquantifiable, but they are nevertheless real because Montreal is still here. And third and most importantly, no matter the situation or the run of play, Sabres goalie Alex Lyon had better watch his ass.
