TAMPA, Fla. — Long after the oldest player on the Montreal Canadiens scored on the first shot of his first shift of this series, his young teammates offered their most mature performance of the season when they needed to most.
The Canadiens took a 3-2 lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning when 26-year-old Alex Texier scored 1:06 into the third period, and everything they did after that secured their 3-2 lead in the series. They notched six of the next seven shots of the game over the next 12 minutes, established offensive zone pressure for much of it, managed the puck to near perfection to disable the Lightning from generating any odd-man rushes, denied clean entries to their zone, and then they locked it down in front of their own net over the final 3:30 of play.
Yes, 33-year-old Phillip Danault was on the ice for all that time at the end.
But 21-year-old Juraj Slafkovsky was right there next to him for the final 2:33, while the Lightning had Andrei Vasilevskiy on the bench, six skaters on the ice, and were pressing to tie the game. And thanks to him, Danault, Jake Evans, Nick Suzuki, Mike Matheson and Alex Carrier, rookie goaltender Jakub Dobes was able to see all 10 shots he stopped to seal the win.
This was the harmonization of the Canadiens in one performance. A group driven by young talent, steeled by the experience of veterans like Danault, Evans, Matheson, Carrier, Josh Anderson, and yes, Brendan Gallagher.
It was Gallagher who stormed off the bench, drove down the gut of the ice, put his stick down and buried his first goal of the playoffs after watching the first four games of this series from the sidelines.
“Just classic,” said Evans.
He wasn’t just talking about Gallagher’s goal from three feet away. He was also referring to the other nine shifts he played — all around the blue paint, all up in the Lightning players’ faces, all the more noticeable over his 6:48 than Oliver Kapanen was in his place in his 34 minutes spread from Game 1 through Game 4.
“It’s impressive, and that sums up his character,” said Evans. “He was obviously frustrated that he wasn’t in, but he showed that he’s a playoff guy and those are the type of games he needs to be in. He was awesome. Even if he didn’t score, he meant a whole lot to this group. And you talk about maturity, and he’s a big reason why we were so mature in the third.”
Danault didn’t have a single shot attempt in the game, but he prevented a bunch just by winning six of 10 face-offs (including some huge ones near the end), notching two hits, earning a key takeaway, and just generally making every play right to be the same pain to play against he’s made a career of being.
But again, it wasn’t just Danault.
“We did the job when it was time,” he said. “This team is special, and it will be for the next few years for sure. We’re learning still, but we can do damage. I like what I see. You need offence to move forward. But you also need a lot of character and maturity, and we’re showing it.”
You could see how youth and inexperience plagued the Canadiens in Game 2, when they led 2-1 and ended up losing 3-2.
Kirby Dach, 25, wore the blame for that one at Benchmark International Arena, with his unforced errors in overtime leading to J.J. Moser’s game-winning goal.
But Dach responded with a goal and an assist in a Game 3 win for the Canadiens at the Bell Centre, and he scored a huge goal in Game 5 that wrestled back the lead for Montreal 11 seconds after they lost it in the second period.
This was Texier’s 26th career playoff game, and he punctuated it with the biggest goal of his life — a high wrister that blew right through Vasilevskiy’s glove, tumbled into the net and proved to be the winner.
This was Gallagher’s team-leading 77th playoff game, and he emerged from it proud, triumphant, and of course, wearing a badge of honour near his right eye.
“You grind all season to have this opportunity,” he said after playing his first playoff game in this arena since losing his last one here in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final.
Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said he probably would’ve put Gallagher in one sooner had he not felt good about how his team was playing through the first three games.
But after the Canadiens dropped Game 4, St. Louis knew what he had to do.
“With the way we lost the last game after leading 2-0, emotionally, I think it could hit us a bit,” he said. “And to get a jolt, we were able to turn to a veteran who’s carried himself so well when it’s not easy for a veteran like him to be sitting with all the experience he has. Not easy for a coach to sit a veteran out like that, either. But this was the right moment to bring him in. You think of all the baggage he carries, you know what he’s going to give you. I didn’t think he’d do what he did tonight, but after his whole journey of his career, I was confident he deserved the chance to give us a jolt.”
It worked, with the Canadiens flying through the start of the game before Gallagher scored at the three-minute mark.
And while St. Louis’ other decisions — moving Slafkovsky away from Suzuki and Cole Caufield and putting Evans next to Ivan Demidov — didn’t unlock the Canadiens’ top six at five-on-five, they still helped the team come together for the most pivotal moment of this series.
“What I liked most was our response,” said St. Louis. “We were up 2-0 in the last game, and we lose that game, and then we have to start rebuilding our game. And then we’re playing a good game, and they score quick, and we respond again. The line is so thin between winning and losing, and every play is important. I loved our push back, I loved the way we played tonight, I loved the way we controlled the puck. It was one of our best games in terms of how we managed the puck and forechecked.”
It was the young guys, the older guys, everyone really. Especially at the end.
“They go and execute big blocked shots,” said St. Louis. “Dobes was awesome. It’s not easy to go that long five-on-six, and I thought we managed it pretty well. And it wasn’t one thing, it was just collectively we found a way to keep it out of our net.”
It gave the Canadiens the chance to return to Montreal with their first opportunity to eliminate the Lightning.
That’ll present an even bigger challenge.
“They’re a veteran team, a great team,” said Danault, “so they’re going to be hard to close.”
There was nothing easy about doing it on this night, but the Canadiens came together and found a way.