Stanley Cup Final: Top moments from Lightning vs. Canadiens Game 3
The Tampa Bay Lightning are showing no interest in giving up the title of champions. None at all.
After back-to-back home victories to start the Stanley Cup Final, the defending champ Lightning dominated the Canadiens in Game 3 on Friday in Montreal.
Unfazed by being on the road, the Lightning scored the first two goals of the game and never looked back on their way to a convincing 6-3 victory.
Now, after another dominant performance, the Lightning are one win away from repeating as Stanley Cup champions.
Here are the top moments from Game 3.
Up 2-0 in the series, the Lightning didn't wait long to go up 1-0 in Game 3, scoring in the first two minutes thanks to Jan Rutta.
In the blink of an eye, the Lightning had scored another goal, this time from Victor Hedman. It was his 88th career goal in the playoffs, the most of all active NHL defensemen.
Two goals on two consecutive shots is a pretty efficient way to operate an offense.
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While the Lightning were able to score quickly, they also ran into a bit of adversity, with Blake Coleman having to exit the game due to injury after a hard crash into the boards.
The home-team Canadiens regrouped and responded. With roughly eight minutes to play in the opening period, they cut their deficit in half when Phillip Danault scored.
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After the first intermission, the Lightning started the second period the same way they started the first: with a goal.
This time it was Nikita Kucherov, marking the third member of the Lightning to score.
If you blinked, there was a chance you might have missed the next goal by Tyler Johnson, which gave the Lightning a 4-1 lead.
But the Canadiens didn't go down without a fight. Nicholas Suzuki scored his seventh goal of the playoffs to once again cut the Lightning's lead in half.
The Canadiens' efforts were for naught, however, as with less than five minutes to play in the third, Johnson scored a second goal to push Tampa Bay's lead to 5-2 and effectively put the game out of reach.
Still, Corey Perry and the Canadiens kept fighting, tallying another to make it 5-3.
But with an empty-net goal from Blake Coleman to finish it off, the Lightning won 6-3, tightening their grasp on this series.
They will look to complete the sweep in Game 4, which begins at 8 p.m. ET Monday (NBC).
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