TAMPA, Fla. (WWSB) – The season is over for the Tampa Bay Lightning following Sunday’s 2-1 defeat in recreation seven of their first spherical collection towards the Montreal Canadiens.
For Tampa Bay it’s the fourth straight yr they’ve been defeated within the first spherical of the Stanley Cup playoffs. They haven’t superior out of the opening spherical since 2022 after they fell brief towards the Colorado Avalanche within the Stanley Cup Closing. Within the two earlier seasons earlier than that the Lightning have been the winners of the Cup.
Sunday’s contest with each workforce enjoying sturdy defensively, however after almost 19 minutes in Nick Suzuki, with the help coming from Kaiden Guhle and Josh Anderson scored the primary purpose of the sport to offer Montreal the primary lead of the sport.
That was the one rating of the interval. Within the second interval, Tampa Bay evened up the scoreboard. Dominic James scored on an influence play with an enormous help from coming Gage Concalves.
Nonetheless, Montreal would regain management within the third interval. After greater than 11 minutes into the interval, Alex Newhook scored a purpose to offer the Canadiens a 2-1 lead.
The Lightning had their probabilities. They outshot Montreal 29-9, together with a closing try within the final 5 seconds of the sport. This one not meant to be for Tampa, as they’d lose the competition and the collection.
Lightning head coach Jon Cooper spoke after the sport, and one of many issues he stored lamenting about is how there aren’t any do-overs.
“It’s not the flicks,” Cooper mentioned. “It’s not one thing we will retake and get the scene proper. It’s stay theatre proper in entrance of you. You by no means know what’s going to occur.”
For the Lightning, it’s their eleventh loss of their final 13 postseason video games at their residence venue of Benchmark Worldwide Enviornment. This contains shedding three out of 4 video games on their residence ice on this collection.
“I can’t say a lot concerning the recreation tonight,” Brandon Hagel, Lightning left winger, mentioned. “I imply, you’re going to win 99 p.c of these video games, however on the finish of the day whenever you lose three video games at residence you’re in all probability not going to win the collection.”
Now, it’s on to the offseason for Tampa Bay as they give the impression of being discover methods to proceed to enhance their workforce in an try and deliver residence the franchise’s fourth Stanley Cup in the course of the upcoming 2026-27 season.
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