Top Six Minutes: Habs head home with a 3-2 series lead

First period

They wanted to have towels for the fans to make Benchmark International Arena like the Bell Centre. You can hear a pin drop moments after the opening puck drop.
Well, that’s exactly what Martin St-Louis was hoping for when he inserted Brendan Gallagher into the lineup: charge at the net and clean up a rebound. It’s Newhook’s rebound after he got onto his own wide shot, leaving an empty cage for the veteran to hit.

Montreal had as many high-danger chances in the one-second span that that goal was scored as in all of Game 4.
Ryan McDonagh cross-checks Nick Suzuki in the face, and will have a four-minute minor for high-sticking. It’s the captain’s first drawn penalty of the series, and a good sign for the Canadiens.
Momentum shifts to Tampa Bay as the Canadiens accomplish absolutely nothing in those four minutes. They may need to replace Demidov on the top unit because he just can’t complete the one-time setups that the Lightning are leaving open.
Oliver Bjorkstand hits the crossbar and the post as the Lightning’s level ramps up coming out of the kill.
Suzuki gets a short-handed chance by dekeing around Nikita Kucherov and putting a dangerous backhand on net. He’s been good in this period.
Both Kaiden Guhle and Yanni Gourde are getting minors for holding one another.
The Lightning just set up a trap in Montreal’s zone to prevent a breakout. The Habs are having trouble finding open space even with the puck at four-on-four.
Not a bad period for Montreal, but the last two games they have hardly been able to use their speed advantage at all, and that’s a bit of a concern. Even trailing, the Lightning have them mostly shut down.

Lane Hutson tries to hold his broken stick together and clear the puck, but it whips out of play for the second delay of game call for Montreal.
Montreal kills the penalty well without much of a loo for the Lightning.
Out of the box, Hutson sets up Newhook for not one but two point-blank chances, but Andrei Vasilevskiy denies both.
Arber Xhekaj pulls Max Crozier off of Jakub Dobeš after he drove into the goaltender in the crease. Somehow Xhekaj ends up with the only penalty on the play. So just bowl Vasilevskiy over next time I guess.
Jake Evans gets a short-handed rush with Darren Raddysh keeping stride, and Vasilevskiy stops yet another breakaway.
Hutson takes a stick in the face, and as he’s checking his teeth takes a vicious slash from Bayden Point. Neither of those infractions are called. Later in the shift, Dominic James scores on a two-on-one.
The refs will have to start all over again in getting the Lightning back into this game, because Kirby Dach just scored on a power move. His initial shot was stopped, but he kicked it back across to himself and sent it in the net.

The broadcast is taking about Suzuki being unable to get involved in the series, but it’s pretty hard to do that when he’s being put in a headlock behind the Lightning net.
Hutson tries to hit Anderson with a pass off the end boards that the winger can race onto, but Vasilevskiy wisely smothers it as it comes out front.
Kucherov is unhappy with being tightly checked by Bolduc and slashes him in the ankle. No call of course. Reverse that situation and it would be four minutes.
Matheson comes on versus a tired Lightning group, sees them all leaning on his teammates, and decides to walk in and fire a shot. It misses the target and goes all the way along the boards and out of the zone to spring a two-on-one for Tampa Bay. Jake Guentzel picks it up and goes in to tie the game with a shot through Dobeš’s five-hole. Put another big goal against on Matheson’s ledger.
Gallagher does a great job of lifting Vasilevskiy’s stick behind the net and sends it out front. It could have gone in when it hit Vasilevskiy’s shoulder. It could have gone in when Phillip Danault took a swing at it with the net empty. But it remains a 2-2 game into the second intermission.

Raddysh gets the puck following a faceoff win in Montreal’s zone, and beats Dobeš, but not the post.
Hutson sends a long pass up to Alexandre Texier. Texier takes a shot that Vasilevskiy stops a lot of, but not enough as it flutters past and into the net to put the Canadiens back on top.

To that point, the goals had been scored in the same sequence as the wins in this series, so perhaps the third one getting scored by Montreal is a good omen.
As the Lightning begin to push, they’re no longer just clamped onto players in the neutral zone, and that’s opening things up for Montreal to skate a little bit.
The Canadiens are just playing the puck deep in the offensive zone right now, a great defensive display.
The first real chance for Tampa Bay comes when Matheson coasts back to pick up the puck and has it stripped. His decision-making is really beginning to bother me.
The Lightning are now diving everywhere trying to earn a late power play.
Three minutes to play.
Vasilevskiy goes to the bench.
Matheson fires at the empty net despite having a couple of teammates stationed further out in the neutral zone. Again, suspect decision-making from what is supposed to be the calming shutdown force on the blue line.
Montreal can’t win a defensive-zone faceoff after dominating the dots most of the game.
Oh, well Suzuki just won one and they blew it down because it didn’t go the way the linesman wanted.
The Lightning tried to break down the Habs wall with extreme pressure in the final minute, but the structure holds. Montreal wins a second game in Tampa Bay. It’s a 3-2 final, and a 3-2 series lead.
The Canadiens can win the series on Friday night on home ice.

3) He set the tone for this one

2) It’s been a gruelling five games, and the team is holding together well

1) Going up against seven skaters every night, and still a win from moving on