Crozier hit on Slafkovsky could prove to be series-changer for Lightning

MONTREAL -- Max Crozier?

On a team highlighted by names such as Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel, Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point and Andrei Vasilevskiy, could it be third-pair defenseman who ends up keeping the Tampa Bay Lightning’s realistic Stanley Cup aspirations alive?

Crozier certainly did that in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference First Round against the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday with one crunching body check heard around the hockey world.

Asked where his flattening of Canadiens forward Juraj Slafkovsky at 17:48 of the second period of Tampa Bay’s 3-2 victory ranked among his all-time hits in hockey at any level or age, Crozier replied, “No.1. Easily.”

It should, considering it proved to be the turning point of the game.

Perhaps the series too.

The Lightning were trailing 2-0 late in the second and struggling to gain momentum in front of a raucous Bell Centre crowd that was feeding off two recent Montreal goals. Having already lost two of the first three games, Tampa Bay was in danger of falling behind 3-1 in this best-of-7 series and having to subsequently win the next three to advance.

Then, suddenly, Crozier caught Slafkovsky with his head down and flattened the 6-foot-3, 225-pound forward. The building immediately went silent except for the Lightning bench.

“I think it was a clean solid check,” Crozier said. “I was able to time it up right. And yeah, it felt good.”

The hit was the catalyst for a three-goal comeback, starting with Guentzel's goal with 54 seconds remaining in the second. Hagel scored twice in the third period, making this series a best-of-3.

“I mean, that’s just a big-time hit and it got everyone into the game,” Guentzel said. “The bench really got fired up about it.

“Sometimes something like that can change a game. We ended up scoring right after that. It was obviously great.”

Crozier, a fourth-round pick (No. 120) by Tampa Bay at the 2019 NHL Draft, has 53 regular-season games on his resume, including one after Feb. 1 because of a lower-body injury that required surgery. The 6-3, 204-pound stay-at-home-defenseman understandably was dealing with some accrued rust and hadn’t played this postseason prior to Sunday. In an attempt to alleviate that, he told assistant Dan Hinote he wanted to get some extra hitting in in case he’d be called upon to play against Montreal in what has been a physical series.

The result? Under Hinote’s watchful eye, Lightning forward Conor Geekie took runs at Crozier at Bell Centre on Saturday, a physical type of prep work that proved to be valuable in Game 4.

Game 5 is at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; The Spot, SN, CBC, TVAS).

“Since my surgery, I haven’t had a lot of contact,” Crozier said. “I think I got one game in during the last regular-season game against the (New York) Rangers (on April 15), but it was kind of like a shinny game, so I didn’t really get hit. So before coming to this one, I know I wanted to get some contact before and feel it out.”

It obviously worked.

“I think that’s the fun in the game, and that’s why I love it,” he said. “Playing physical just comes naturally for me and I have fun doing it.”

Slafkovsky spent a couple of minutes on the ice after being hit before heading to the dressing room. He was able to return and take regular shifts in the third.

“The hit obviously got our bench out of their seats,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “But you still have to take advantage of that. We score in the last minute of the second, and in the first minute of the third, and all of a sudden the game’s completely changed. It helped take the crowd out of it.

“But if you’re watching that game, you know that hit probably had a big thing to do with it.”