Galchenyuk, Canadiens top banged-up Lightning

MONTREAL -- The Montreal Canadiens celebrated having two 30-goal scorers after sweeping the season series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had little to cheer after losing yet another key player to injury during a 5-2 loss at Bell Centre on Saturday.

Lightning center Tyler Johnson left the game at 15:53 of the first period with an upper-body injury and did not return after a cross-check by Canadiens defenseman Greg Pateryn into the end boards.
"There's lots of concern. Lots of concern," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "If we were in a playoff game (Johnson) wouldn't have come back. So that's where he's at."
Ondrej Palat and Jonathan Drouin scored in the third period, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves for Tampa Bay (46-31-5), which finished second in the Atlantic Division.
"After (Johnson) went down and everyone was concerned, I think the whole tide of the game changed after that," Cooper said.

The Lightning were without defenseman Victor Hedman and forwards Nikita Kucherov and Ryan Callahan, who are injured but expected to be ready for the start of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Center Steven Stamkos (blood clot) and defenseman Anton Stralman (fractured fibula) are out indefinitely.
"I don't really want to talk about it," Cooper said when asked about the Lightning's injury situation heading into the playoffs.
Tampa Bay will have home-ice advantage when it faces the Detroit Red Wings in an Eastern Conference First Round series.
"We have to get ready now, we definitely have stuff to work on," Drouin said. "Our game was not even close to the way we want to play, I know that and we know that as a team. We've got to be prepared for Wednesday against Detroit, that's a good team and we've played them a lot."

Alex Galchenyuk and Max Pacioretty each had two goals and an assist to give Montreal two 30-goal scorers for the first time since 2011-12.
Galchenyuk scored in the first and on a power play at 3:44 of the second to become the third-youngest Montreal player, after Bernie Geoffrion and Stephane Richer, to score 30 goals in a season at 22 years and 57 days.
"I'm glad we created as a line today and I'm glad I was able to score and (Pacioretty) got his 30 too, which makes this even better," Galchenyuk said.

Pacioretty scored 27 seconds into the second period and into an empty net with six seconds remaining.
"It was nice for him to put that in," said Brendan Gallagher, who set up Pacioretty's second goal for his second assist. "It would have been nicer if he scored a little earlier in the shift, but it was nice for him to get it."
Pacioretty said Elise Beliveau, the wife of the late Jean Beliveau, helped motivate him to reach 30 goals for the fourth time.
"In between the second and third Madame Beliveau pulled me aside and said, 'I want you to score another,' so I can't let her down when she expects you to do that, and when (Gallagher) made that great play on the empty net, I thought of her," Pacioretty said.

Mike Condon made 20 saves and Tomas Plekanec scored for Montreal (38-38-6), which swept its four games against Tampa Bay, but missed the postseason for the first time since 2011-12, when Erik Cole led the Canadiens with 35 goals and Pacioretty scored 33.
"We're disappointed even though we finished the season with a win," Canadiens coach Michel Therrien said. "The only thing I can say is we're all very disappointed."
Vasilevskiy turned the puck over behind his net on the play that led to the opening goal at 5:11 of the first. Gallagher passed the puck out front and Galchenyuk shot a backhand into the open net to make it 1-0.
Plekanec scored his 14th goal during a 4-on-4 play at 16:27 to make it 2-0 after Pateryn was given a major penalty for boarding and a game misconduct for his hit on Johnson. Palat was called for roughing after coming to Johnson's defense.

"You never want to see players get hurt," Therrien said. "I don't think Pateryn's intention was to hurt (Johnson)."
Cooper thought Pateryn's infraction was reckless and dangerous.
"The one thing about this game and why we all love this game is there's honor and there's respect," Cooper said. "That kid (Pateryn) had a blatant disregard for both. That was egregious what happened and there's no place for it. I'm at a loss for words on what happened. Hopefully he's going to be O.K.
"I'm not sure how this is going to end up with (Johnson) or how hurt he is, I haven't been in the trainer's room. But those are season-ending, those could be career-ending the way that went down. That wasn't good."

Pacioretty took a pass from Galchenyuk as he crossed the blue line with speed and shot past Vasilevskiy from the right faceoff circle to make it 3-0.
Galchenyuk made it 4-0 when he one-timed a slap shot past Vasilevskiy from the right faceoff circle after Pacioretty lost control of the puck when he tried to move it from his backhand to his forehand at the right side of the net.
Vasilevskiy made a save with the tip of his left pad on Pacioretty at 18:24 of the second. Pacioretty led Montreal in goals or tied for the lead in the past three seasons.