Lightning defeat Canadiens in Game 2 of Stanley Cup Final, extend lead

TAMPA -- Blake Coleman broke a tie with 1.1 seconds left in the second period, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 42 saves for the Tampa Bay Lightning in a 3-1 win against the Montreal Canadiens in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final at Amalie Arena on Wednesday.

Anthony Cirelli and Ondrej Palat scored for Tampa Bay, which extended its lead in the series after a 5-1 win in Game 1 on Monday.
Teams that take a 2-0 lead are 46-5 (.902) winning a best-of-7 Cup Final.
"We were fortunate to pull this game out," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "But the [Canadiens] team we saw tonight was more of the team that has run through the playoffs as opposed to what we saw in Game 1. ... I give our guys credit for pulling this one out, but we're in the Final. This can be hard. It's really hard."

Nick Suzuki scored, and Carey Price made 20 saves for Montreal.
"You look at what happened in the first round (against the Toronto Maple Leafs). We were down 3-1 and we stayed focused, stayed with our game plan, never changed, never did anything and continued to push," Canadiens forward Corey Perry said. "It's no different now. It doesn't matter the first round, second round, third round, Final, whatever it is. You continue to play your game, continue to do the things that got you here, you're going to be successful."
Game 3 is at Montreal on Friday.
Vasilevskiy has a .969 save percentage with two shutouts during Tampa Bay's five-game home winning streak.
"Night in and night out the backbone of this team. Can't say enough good things about him," Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. "We certainly want to make it a little bit easier of a night than we had to for him, but man he's an absolute warrior and competitor and obviously was probably the biggest piece of our win here tonight."

Cirelli gave Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead at 6:40 of the second period with a wrist shot from the point.
Suzuki tied it 1-1 with an unassisted goal on a power play at 10:36. His backhand from above the face-off circles beat Vasilevskiy five-hole through a Perry screen after it went off the sticks of Cirelli and McDonagh.
"I thought we had a good bounce-back game, had a lot of chances," Suzuki said. "But we've just got to find ways to put the puck in the net, myself included. So we've just got to stick with that."

Coleman gave the Lightning a 2-1 lead with a diving goal at 19:58. Barclay Goodrow started a rush when he got to the puck in the neutral zone after Canadiens forward Phillip Danault failed to control a pass. Coleman laid out to chip a saucer pass from Goodrow into the net.
"I knew the clock was winding down, but I saw 'Goody' make that heads-up play in the neutral zone, the little poke past their [defenseman]," Coleman said. "I just tried to do everything I could to give him an option. Incredible aerial pass from him, and fortunately we beat the clock."
Coleman scored a similar diving goal in Game 2 of the 2020 Eastern Conference Second Round against the Boston Bruins.
"It takes tremendous effort, I think, to dive like that for a puck and still get good wood on the shot enough to get it at the net and raise it over the pad," Goodrow said. "It's a pretty special play. I think he's got a knack for those diving shots."
Cooper said, "In my head, I'm like, 'Did he just do that again?' I know [they're] a little bit different scenarios, but it was remarkably similar. Just the timing was epic. Definitely a big lift going into the second [intermission]."
Palat made it 3-1 with an unassisted goal at 15:42 of the third period. Canadiens defenseman Joel Edmundson turned over the puck behind the net, and Palat chipped it past Price on the short side.
"I think these guys are very opportunistic and very lethal offensively if you do make mistakes in certain areas," said Montreal assistant Luke Richardson, who has coached the Canadiens six straight games since Dominique Ducharme tested positive for COVID-19 on June 18. "Obviously, they showed that again tonight. ... I thought we did a better job tonight, so we're going to continue to get better and we're going to find our offense and we're going to start scoring a few goals, and I think that will give us confidence that way."
NOTES: The Lightning played without forward Alex Killorn, who sustained an undisclosed injury in Game 1. Mathieu Joseph replaced him and had one shot on goal and four hits in 6:23. ... It was Vasilevskiy's sixth playoff game with at least 40 saves. ... The Lightning are 8-0 winning a best-of-7 series after taking a 2-0 lead. … The Canadiens have won the Cup twice after trailing 2-0 in the Cup Final (1966 against the Detroit Red Wings, 1971 against the Chicago Black Hawks). … Suzuki (21 years, 234 days) became the third player in Montreal history to score 10 Stanley Cup Playoff goals before turning 22 years old, joining Claude Lemieux and Stephane Richer. Suzuki had a game-high nine shots on goal.