What the Montreal Canadiens Need to Do to Win Game 3 vs the Lightning

The Montreal Canadiens dominated Game 2 against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The game was tied 1-1, when the Canadiens made two mistakes, each creating a goal and ultimately costing them the game to lose it 3-1.

They’re now down 2-0 in the series and back in Montreal for Games 3 and 4, where they have to do everything in their power to win, and that means they can’t afford to make mistakes, not even one.

As they saw in Game 2, even if they play a near-perfect game, if they make mistakes, the Lightning will capitalize on them, and that’s not something they can afford to do when playing against such a strong team.

That means no turnovers, no no-look passes (especially not in their defensive zone), no “it’s the end of the period, they won’t score” moments.

They have to be 100 per cent perfect to win those games, and with how they played last game, they showed that they can do it.

Shea Weber and Ben Chiarot were on top of their game, and will need to keep playing extremely well.

Carey Price was great, and can’t really be blamed on those two flukes we have to call goals. But he will have to outplay Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi probably had their best game of the playoffs, if not of the year. They’re both developing to be the centres the Canadiens need them to be.

Cole Caufield, once again, keeps showing everyone why he belongs in the NHL. Not only is he creating good scoring opportunities, but he seems to be learning defensive skills from Phillip Danault and Suzuki.

Josh Anderson and Brendan Gallagher keep using their speed and physicality to frustrate the opponent, and they need to continue doing it and even more. I’m expecting some more scrums between Gallagher and Mikhail Sergachev, and Anderson and Pat Maroon.

In other words, the Canadiens just need to keep doing what they’re doing, but better.

Here’s what veteran Corey Perry had to say after Game 2:

“We were down 3-1 and we stayed focused, stayed with our game plan, never changed, never did anything and continued to push. It’s no different now. It doesn’t matter the first round, second round, third round, Final, whatever it is. You continue to play your game, continue to do the things that got you here, you’re going to be successful. I said it in the room. I said, ‘It’s fun. This is hockey. It’s fun. Enjoy it.'”

This probably means that there won’t be many changes in Game 3 – whether those are lineup changes or strategy changes.

The Canadiens are sticking with what got them to the Stanley Cup Final, and rightfully so. After all, they’ve beaten all odds to make it this far, and if they can stop making costly mistakes, maybe they could even get further.