Observations from Game 4, in which Montreal extended its stay in the Stanley Cup Final on Josh Anderson’s overtime winner …
▪ Chalk it up to the Hockey gods, if you’re so inclined. The Lightning dominated this game, pushing hard in the first and third periods. They hit the post twice on the power play. Nikita Kucherov missed a back-door dunk, off a brilliant look from Ryan McDonagh, with about three minutes left.
▪ And yet, here are the Canadiens. Full marks for killing a late high-sticking double-minor to captain and top penalty-killer Shea Weber, in which he returned to the penalty box for a miserable 2:59 of overtime. The Canadiens almost ended it with Weber in the box, breaking shorthanded and forcing Andrei Vasilevskiy to make a split-legged save on a Phillip Danault-to-Nick Suzuki chance. The Habs, 5 for 5 on the PK on Monday, are 53 of 58 in the postseason.
▪ At one point, the Bruins were interested in trading for Anderson, whom they faced in a meat grinder of a series with Columbus in 2019. In Game 4, he showed why the Habs were smart to give up Max Domi in a trade for the rough-and-tumble forward.
Anderson opened and closed the scoring, tapping home a beautiful Suzuki feed and finishing the game with a monster sequence. He stripped Yanni Gourde in the defensive zone, broke out himself, bullied Jan Rutta down low as he got the puck to the front of the net, and chipped home the winner on the rebound.
Game 5 is 8 p.m. Wednesday in Tampa. No team other than the 1942 Maple Leafs have come from 3-0 down to win a Cup Final.
▪ This was still a game where Tampa Bay’s missed opportunities spoke louder than the strength of Montreal’s comeback. By measure of expected goals, this should have been about a 4-1 or 4-2 result, the other way. Shot attempts were 70-41 for the visitors, shots, 34-21.
“What could we have done different?” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “Probably not hit as many posts as we hit.”
▪ The Bolts arrived on time, controlling shots (11-2) and attempts (18-4) in the opening 15 minutes. Montreal’s game was rife with turnovers and soft plays. On one early rush, Paul Byron, instead of putting it on net while his teammates were pulling coverage and chaos toward Vasilevskiy, held the puck until his only option was a backhand into traffic.
▪ The Canadiens kept pressing until, 15:39 into Game 4, they finally had a lead in this series. Suzuki set up Anderson with a play with a similar degree of difficulty as the one Byron tried. Suzuki looked like David Krejci as he slipped down low and put a give-and-go saucer pass on Anderson’s tape. Suzuki is fast becoming Montreal’s most impactful center since Saku Koivu.
▪ A killer sequence from McDonagh helped the Lightning tie the score with 2:40 left in the second. He read the Habs’ break out and stepped up to deny the exit, then pinched deep. When Carey Price let up a rebound, McDonagh’s backhand feed to Barclay Goodrow tied it. Two-way defending at its finest.
▪ Rookie defenseman Alexander Romanov, inserted into the Montreal lineup with Brett Kulak — coach Dominic Ducharme swapping out his little-used third D pair of Erik Gustafsson and Jon Merrill — had the lowest TOI of his team’s defensemen (12:16). With Ben Chiarot and Jeff Petry in the box, Romanov had a chance. At 8:48 of the third, the defenseman fired through an Artturi Lehkonen screen to make it 2-1.
▪ Five minutes later, Mathieu Joseph recorded his second slick assist in the last two games with a saucer pass over a Montreal stick to Pat Maroon. Tie game. Joseph is fourth-liner on this Tampa Bay team, which means he’d be a solid citizen on someone else’s second line. He’s the Lightning’s 13th forward, playing because Alex Killorn is hurt. As for Maroon, his quest to win a third straight Stanley Cup is on hold.
▪ This was the first time this series the goaltending battle was close between Vasilevskiy (18 saves) and Price (32). The latter, who entered with an .835 save percentage this series, was behind only Gerry Cheevers (.822 against the Habs in 1977) and Tony Esposito (.831, 1973) on the list of lowest save percentage through three games of a Cup Final. Price now stands at .883.
▪ Tough game for Brayden Point, who logged 7:34 of his 22:19 on the power play and landed two of four attempts, hitting the bar on a slot one-timer near the end of the first. He also took a pair of penalties, one in the offensive zone, and missed the end of the second period after taking a Victor Hedman cannon blast to the knee.
In the second, Weber went after Point, stapling the Lightning star to the boards on one hit, and missing another attempt. Good thing Weber did miss, since Point was being held by Jake Evans and his head was about to take the full brunt of Weber’s 230 pounds. It had “DOPS” written all over it.
▪ Tampa Bay was, as usual, clearing the slot. Montreal came away with seven high-danger shot attempts, to the visitors’ 16.
▪ Before the game, Tampa’s mayor, Jane Castor, expressing her desire to have a Cup celebration at her city’s waterfront, suggested the local squad should “take it easy” in Game 4, and “give Montreal just the smallest break” to send it back down south. Asked and answered.
Matt Porter can be reached at matthew.porter@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter: @mattyports.
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