TAMPA, Fla. Down one goal, Montreal battled back twice. Up one, it faltered twice. Dale Weise then
Bill Ranford Jersey put the Tampa Bay Lightning away for the night.Weise scored 18:08 into overtime and Carey Price stopped nine shots in the extra period, giving the Canadiens a 5-4 victory in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal playoff series on Wednesday."We kept our composure. We didn't want to get out of our game plan," Montreal coach Michel Therrien said. "The players stuck to our game plan, and we got rewarded in the end."MORE: | Daniel Briere pa sed from behind the net to Weise in the right circle, and he beat Anders Lindback for the winning score. Lindback stopped 39 of 44 shots while filling in for injured goaltender Ben Bishop."I can't remember the last time I had an overtime goal, so that one feels real good," Weise said. "I was surprised I was so wide open. ... That was a real breakdown on their side.""I kind of just turned my head and saw a pa s come out," Lindback said. "I was a little late on the play, so he buried it on me.
Jesse Puljujarvi Jersey "Price stopped 21 shots for the Canadiens, who blew a pair of third-period leads. Brian Gionta had a short-handed goal and Tomas Plekanec, Lars Eller and Thomas Vanek also scored for Montreal.Steven Stamkos scored twice for Tampa Bay, including the goal that forced overtime.Game 2 is Friday night.PHOTOS: "Bad news is, we lost the game. Good news is, one game doesn't win the series," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "We get to come back and regroup."Three of the four regular-season meetings
Grant Fuhr Jersey between the teams were decided in overtime or a shootout, while the fourth was clinched by an empty-net goal.This one was just as tight, with the Lightning making the most of a limited number of opportunities against Price and the Canadiens overcoming a pair of one-goal deficits before squandering a pair of their own while outshooting Tampa Bay 35-16 in regulation."I thought we played a solid game. Nothing was bothering the team," Therrien said. "They capitalized on our breakdowns, but their attitude was good."Vanek and Eller scored in the third period for Montreal, each giving the Canadiens a lead that Price couldn't protect. Alex Killorn countered for Tampa Bay to make it 3-all, and then fed a perfect pa s to Stamkos for the goal that forced overtime.Nikita Kucherov scored off a pa s from J.T. Brown to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead at 10:09 of the first period. The celebration for the sellout crowd of 19,204 had barely begun when Plekanec angled a well-placed shot past Lindback from the left circle to tie it just 19 seconds later.Stamkos' seventh career playoff goal gave the Lightning another lead that wouldn't hold up. Plekanec nearly knotted it for the second time when he hit the post le s than 30 seconds after Tampa Bay went up 2-1, but Lindback wasn't as fortunate when Gionta gathered a loose puck and skated in on a breakaway for his short-handed goal.The 6-foot-6 Lindback stopped
Jonas Gustavsson Jersey the first shot, but Gionta scored on the rebound to make it 2-2 at 16:39 of the second.Bishop mi sed fourth straight game because of a left elbow injury, and his status for the remainder of the series remains uncertain. Cooper said it would
Nail Yakupov Jersey be wrong to pin the blame for the Game 1 lo s on Lindback, who had just 13 minutes of playoff experience before Wednesday."He gives up five, so people are probably going to look and say: 'Oh wow, he gave up five,'" Cooper said."Look at the overtime goal, we put him in a tough situation when you leave a guy in front of the net all by himself. Couple of those other goals they scored, we hung him out to dry a little bit. So, it's tough. It's tough for any goalie."
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