TAMPA, Fla. -- It was believed that for the Montreal Canadiens to win their first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, just about everything had to go perfectly. There was little margin for error.
A 3-2 overtime loss in Game 2 that evened the series 1-1 heading back to Montreal showed how slim that margin truly is.
A strong defensive play from Cole Caufield with less than seven minutes left in regulation and the Canadiens up 2-1 led to a poor decision from Juraj Slafkovský, who blindly wheeled a pass toward the middle of the ice in the defensive zone rather than just ensuring the puck got out. Moments later, Nikita Kucherov was tying the game on a wraparound.
There was Kirby Dach seven minutes into overtime and 40 seconds into his shift needing two more strides to gain the red line before dumping it in to get a change, and not doing that. Or needing to dump it in a bit softer, and not doing that either. Or covering his man off the ensuing defensive zone faceoff and also not doing that, getting a great view of J.J. Moser scoring the winning goal as he chased him.
It is easy to focus on those two errors because they cost the Canadiens goals. Yet the Canadiens made even more down the stretch that didn't cost them goals, but still contributed to them losing this game.
The errors were the result of a lack of poise, which comes with experience. Slafkovský was playing in his seventh career playoff game and Dach was playing in his second since his rookie season in 2020.
"I'll probably say something, but things like that, you learn from," Nick Suzuki said of Dach's mistakes that led to the overtime winner. "Next time he's in that situation, he's going to remember that play and he's not going to do it. I think sometimes you've got to go through those. I've definitely had my fair share of plays like that. You just learn from it and move on."
Those errors were emblematic of the Canadiens' biggest disadvantages in this series: their youth and lack of playoff experience.
Still, the Canadiens are still heading back to the Bell Centre with home ice advantage despite missing top-pairing defenceman Noah Dobson and the fact that their top forward line has been outscored 3-0 at five-on-five in the two games.
The Canadiens announced on April 12 that Dobson would be re-evaluated for an upper-body injury in two weeks, and Game 3 is on April 24 ... 12 days later. Could he be back? It's the playoffs, anything is possible.
As far as the line centered by Suzuki, the lack of five-on-five production is something he took responsibility for after Game 2. He felt that cost the Canadiens the game far more than the errors that cost them the tying and winning goals.
"It's a tough building to play in," Suzuki said. "I think we did a lot of great things out there. Going home 1-1 is pretty good. I think personally and my line, I think we can definitely do a better job and help the guys out five-on-five a little more. Looking to do that in Game 3."
Lightning coach Jon Cooper has matched Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel against Suzuki's line with Slafkovský and Caufield through the first two games, with Jake Guentzel being replaced by Kucherov in the third period of Game 2.
"The thing about the Cirelli line, too, Hagel's a 90-point guy, and Guentzel is a 90-point guy, so you have some offence tied to the way they can check as well," Cooper said prior to Game 2. "So if we can take advantage of that, hopefully you come out even or get on the plus-1 side of things, that's a bonus for us and that's our reason why (for the matchup)."
Through two games, the Lightning are even better than that at plus-3, with Hagel and Kucherov scoring against the Suzuki line at five-on-five in Game 2 and Hagel scoring in Game 1.
"Honestly I thought we did a little bit better tonight, I thought we were able to possess a little bit more, generate a little bit more,it just didn't go in," Suzuki said."It's a fun matchup to go up against that line.
"In order for us to win the series our line's going to have to find a way to produce five-on-five."
As "fun" as Suzuki might find that matchup with Cirelli considering how poorly it has gone through two games, it would be shocking if Suzuki faced it in Games 3 and 4 in Montreal, where the control of the matchups will shift to Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis.
Canadiens defenceman Kaiden Guhle didn't buy Suzuki taking responsibility for his lack of production.
"It's playoff hockey, it's tight, there's not much space," Guhle said."He's our captain, he's got to say that stuff,but it's not on them.The power play's clicking at least,so at least we've got that.I'm sure we'll look at some five-on-five stuff on the offensive side of the game.But it's not on them.It's tight out there.They'll be fine."
St. Louis, though, was buying it,and did not make any effort to push back.
"I agree," he said."It's a line that can dominate five-on-five.They just haven't yet."
That last word, "yet," is an important one. St. Louis can influence the Suzuki line's ability to bust out at five-on-five. Caufield scored 40 even strength goals during the regular season, essentially one every two games, and has none in the series thus far. The line combined for 110 goals in the regular season, or 39.4 percent of the Canadiens' season total of 279. It is a big reason why the Canadiens are where they are.
But St. Louis has something in his back pocket, a mid-season experiment in which he moved Slafkovský to the second line with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov that produced good results. He can turn there again if this situation does not resolve itself, and before the series began, Slafkovský half-jokingly said, "You never know when we'll see it again."
At least we thought he was joking.
It might actually be necessary. It would be worth seeing how the Suzuki line does away from Cirelli, if in fact that is what happens in Game 3. If things remain the same as they were in Games 1 and 2, then we could see St. Louis make a move.
Despite the lack of five-on-five production from the Suzuki line and the absence of Dobson -- which hurts the Canadiens far more than the absence of Victor Hedman hurts the Lightning, as strange as that sounds -- Montreal is still in a very good spot.
"It would have been nice to get two (wins)," St. Louis said."But if you would have told us before we came (to Tampa) we would get a split,we would have taken it.It felt like after two periods we were so close to getting two (wins),especially the way we were playing.It just kind of got away from us a little bit.We lacked a little bit of poise in the third,we didn't play with the puck a lot and I felt we carried that into overtime too.
"We tried to talk about it.That’s a good team,and when you keep giving them the puck,you’re rolling the dice a little bit."
St. Louis can see to it that the Canadiens roll the dice a bit less over the next two games. He has the chance to dictate the flow of the game a bit better and hide his team's weaknesses.
He also has the chance to get his top line going. The Canadiens getting a split on the road without much from Suzuki's line is a big reason for them to be very optimistic.