TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Blake Coleman scored on a diving, one-handed buzzer-beater at end of the second period to give the Tampa Bay Lightning a 2-1 lead over the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Coleman scored off a rush feed from Barclay Goodrow with 1.1 seconds left before the second intermission, sending the Lightning to the locker room up after one of their worst periods of the playoffs. They were outshot 16-7 in the second and 29-13 overall.
That has forced Vezina Trophy finalist goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to be Tampa Bay’s best player. He was serenaded often with chants of “Va-sy! Va-sy!” from the crowd of over 18,000 at Amalie Arena for making save after difficult save.
Vasilevskiy was perfect except for Nick Suzuki’s power-play goal midway through the second when the puck took a weird bounce on the way in. That goal came with defenseman Mikhail Sergachev in the penalty box for interfering with Artturi Lehkonen, who went to the locker room after going hard into the boards.
Suzuki tied it for Montreal after Anthony Cirelli put the Lightning on the board a few minutes earlier. Cirelli’s seemingly harmless point shot found its way through traffic and beat Carey Price on the Lightning’s sixth shot of the night.
The Lightning are 13-2 this postseason when leading and the Canadiens 0-5 when trailing after two.
Tampa Bay won Game 1 by a score of 5-1 after taking the physicality to Montreal, getting plenty of traffic in front of Price and ending a streak of 32 successful penalty kills. Getting Joel Armia back helped the Canadiens find a different gear in Game 2 and take the play to the Lightning, but Coleman’s late goal put them in comeback mode again.
