Hutson OT goal lifts Canadiens past Lightning in Game 3 of Eastern 1st Round

MONTREAL -- Lane Hutson scored at 2:09 of overtime, giving the Montreal Canadiens a 3-2 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Bell Centre on Friday.

Hutson won it with a slap shot through traffic from above the right face-off circle after taking a pass by Alexandre Texier out of the right corner.

“That honestly might have been my first slap shot all year,” Hutson said. “I saw some space, lots of bodies, and just tried to shoot it as hard as I could, and luckily it went in.”

Montreal leads the series 2-1. Game 4 will be played here Sunday (7 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SNE, SNO, SNP, ESPN, The Spot).

“(Hutson) plays some important minutes for us and I feel comfortable with him on the ice in any matchup,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said of the defenseman. “I never try to protect him because he competes so hard. We love when he has the puck on his stick, he’s elite. We’re lucky to have him.”

All three games in the series have been decided in overtime.

“I thought out of the three games this was our worst game, you know, for us, from start to finish,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “It was fortunate for us that we took this to overtime. We gave up three pretty much full-ice breakaways, the goalie kept us in it, so that was a little disappointing in that sense.”

Texier and Kirby Dach each had a goal and an assist, Zachary Bolduc had two assists, and Jakub Dobes made 15 saves for the Canadiens, the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division.

Dach experienced the highs of a big night after enduring media scrutiny after icing the puck and then losing coverage on the play that led to J.J. Moser’s game-winner in Tampa Bay’s 3-2 victory in Game 2 on Tuesday. St. Louis moved Dach from right wing to center with Texier and Bolduc on a newly formed line that combined for six points.

“They put (Dach) up on the jumbotron in warmups and he felt the love from the fans, and he gave it right back with that performance,” Montreal defenseman Arber Xhekaj said. “We’re athletes, we get paid a lot of money to do our thing, and the way he handled that gave us a boost of confidence and we’re proud of him.”

Dach was a bit taken aback at the crowd’s encouraging reception.

“I didn’t really expect it, so it was nice,” Dach said. “The fans have been unbelievable for us all year, and for me, they’ve stuck by my side. It definitely meant a lot, but I think as a group we pulled together and used the crowd to our advantage, and we were finally able to win this game.”

Brayden Point and Brandon Hagel scored for the Lightning, the No. 2 seed in the Atlantic. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 26 saves.

“I thought they had the majority of the chances,” Point said. “‘Vasy’ gave us a chance to win the game, and (there were) some D-zone turnovers and the puck goes in. So I thought we needed to be better.”

Texier and his new linemates gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead at 4:53 of the first period. Bolduc took Dach’s return pass along the right side and fed a backhand pass into the top of the slot for Texier, who snapped a shot past Vasilevskiy’s blocker from above the left hash marks.

“Kirby made a really good play at the blue line and ‘Tex’ was at the right spot,” Bolduc said.

Point tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 7:42. He scored on a snap shot past Dobes stick side from the right hash marks off Jake Guentzel’s pass from the right corner.

Hagel put the Lightning up 2-1 with an unassisted goal at 4:47 of the second period. He stuck out his left glove to cut off Jake Evans’ backhand pass in the neutral zone before driving in and going wide of Montreal defenseman Kaiden Guhle’s coverage to put a wrist shot past Dobes from the top of the left circle.

Dach tied it 2-2 at 12:43. He turned back toward the net along the right boards to take a wrist shot that went off Tampa Bay defenseman Ryan McDonagh’s leg and got between Vasilevskiy’s pads.

“We weren’t as sharp as we need to be, for sure,” McDonagh said. “We talked about giving up breakaways and odd-mans, you know, we haven’t done a lot of that in this series. But tonight it certainly got away from us defensively. And hats off to Vasy, he gave us a chance there in overtime. But ultimately I think the right team won tonight and that’s on us.”

NOTES: Hagel has scored in all three games and has five points (four goals, one assist) in the series. … Point reached 90 career playoff points (45 goals, 45 assists) and became the second-fastest player in Tampa Bay history to hit the mark (95 games), behind teammate Nikita Kucherov (87 games). … The Lightning and Canadiens have combined for seven game-tying goals in the series.