Lightning top Canadiens on Erne's late goal

TAMPA --Adam Erne scored the tiebreaking goal with 1:02 remaining, and the Tampa Bay Lightning extended their point streak to 14 games with a 6-5 win against the Montreal Canadiens at Amalie Arena on Saturday.

Erne, who had two goals and an assist, scored on a wrist shot in the right circle off a pass from Yanni Gourde. He tied it 5-5 at 9:36 of the third period with a backhand on a rebound at the top of the crease.
"Late in the game, we wanted to work the puck down low," Erne said. "Gourde] made the pass and I just wanted to get a shot on net."
***[WATCH: [All Canadiens vs. Lightning highlights]*
Gourde and Anton Stralman each had a goal and an assist, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 33 saves for Tampa Bay (30-7-2), which is 13-0-1 during its streak.
Nikita Kucherov had a goal and an assist to extend his point streak to 10 games (six goals, 15 assists).
"Adam did an unreal job finishing for us and obviously, we needed those to win this game," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "But the Lightning team that played the third period down a goal, tying the game and winning the game was not the same team that played the first two periods."

Andrew Shaw scored two goals, Jordie Benn had a goal and an assist and Phillip Danault had three assists for Montreal (20-14-5), which had won three straight. Antti Niemi made 26 saves.
"We understood that we needed to play good hockey because they are a good team," Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher said. "Later on in the game, they controlled the pace of the play and that led to them scoring goals."
Shaw gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead at 9:44 of the first period with a power-play goal. Kenny Agostino scored 16 seconds later to make it 2-0, redirecting Benn's point shot.

Gourde cut it to 2-1 at 14:12 with a deflection off a shot from Erne, and Stralman tied it 2-2 with his second goal of the season at 17:07.
"We played more simple as the game went on," Gourde said. "We got pucks deep and when we get pucks deep, we're a hard team to beat."
Benn put Montreal ahead 3-2 at 17:35 with a slap shot from the right point.
Kucherov scored a power-play goal at 7:55 of the second period to tie it 3-3, and Tyler Johnson gave Tampa Bay a 4-3 lead at 8:33 on a give-and-go with Mikhail Sergachev.
"We did a pretty good job of getting on them quick," Canadiens coach Claude Julien said. "We fall behind and we get back in the lead in the [third] period. I thought our guys showed a lot of character there."

Brett Kulak tied it 4-4 at 12:19 with a shot from the point that beat Vasilevskiy five-hole, and Shaw scored to make it 5-4 at 13:11 on a one-timer off a cross-ice pass from Artturi Lehkonen.
"It would have been nice to grab a point and maybe two," Canadiens forward Jonathan Drouin said. "When you have a lead going into the third, you want to shut it down. We did some good things though and we'll take the positives and move on."

They said it

"I think there are a lot of good things we can take. We competed, we skated, we were on top of them, we frustrated them as much as we could. It would have been nice to come out of it with a point or two."-- Canadiens forward Andrew Shaw

"The third was obviously our best period of the night, we only gave up two scoring chances and capitalized on our opportunities. You're not going to win every game 6-5, but we had to score to six today to win the game, so that was our mindset going into the third." -- Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman

Need to know

Tampa Bay has 62 points through 39 games, the same amount as the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens, who set the NHL record for most points in a season with 132. … Kucherov has 15 points (four goals, 11 assists) in the past five games, passing Vincent Lecavalier (14 points; 2007-08) for most in Lightning history. …Canadiens forward Tomas Tatar had two assists and has six points (two goals, four assists) in the past three games. …Hedman had two assists and has 301 in the NHL. …Gourde's goal was his 100th NHL point. He said he will give the puck to 8-year-old Benjamin Roy, a
Make-A-Wish kid from Quebec
that Gourde hosted Saturday. "To be able to put a smile on his face … It was very special night for me and a special night for him."

What's next

Canadiens:At the Dallas Stars on Monday (8:30 p.m. ET; FS-SW+, TSN2, RDS, NHL.TV)
Lightning:At the Anaheim Ducks on Monday (8 p.m. ET; PRIME, SUN, NHL.TV)