Montreal's line of Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Jonathan Drouin and Joel Armia was on the ice for nearly two minutes late in the first period when Braydon Coburn scored for Tampa Bay during a delayed penalty with seven seconds remaining to tie it 1-1.
"I thought we did a great job of hemming them in the zone, and as you could tell on the goal, we were the beneficiaries of getting on the ice against some tired players," said Stamkos, who had the primary assist on the goal. "So it was a great change, we were able to get some fresh legs out there and we capitalized. ... That kind of gave us the momentum heading into the second."
Stamkos scored a power-play goal on a one-timer from the left face-off circle at 1:04 of the second to make it 2-1, and Tyler Johnson made it 3-1 at 2:01.
"Obviously we gave them a lot of momentum," Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber said. "Anytime a team scores in the last minute or the first minute of a period, it's a momentum killer and shifter."
Petry made it 1-0 at 15:46 of the first with a one-timer from the left point on Montreal's first power play. The Canadiens finished 1-for-5 on the man-advantage.
"After they scored that power-play goal, I think we got our game going and [Vasilevskiy] made some big saves for us, and our PK was outstanding for us the rest of the way," Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said.
