Bad penalties, PK struggles doom Lightning in Game 1 loss to Canadiens

One of the biggest challenges the Lightning knew they'd face in their first-round playoff series against the Canadiens was toeing the fine line between playing with physicality and emotion and making sure they weren't parading to the penalty box because of it.

And while the story of Sunday's gut-punch 4-3 overtime loss at Benchmark International Arena lied in the fact that they allowed three power-play goals, all to Juraj Slafkovsky, it was the thoughtless manner in which they committed those penalties that had them even more frustrated.

The Lightning were the most penalized team in the league during the regular season, but they managed to overcome it, earning 106 points and ranking among the top teams in the Eastern Conference.

Sunday, they had only themselves to blame for their Game 1 loss.

"I had a problem with us," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "I mean, come on, we took four offensive-zone penalties. You just look at them. That's not over aggression. That was stupidity on a lot of them, so that was on us. I thought it was a game that we just gave them an opportunity to win. And this is the Stanley Cup playoffs. This isn't Game 62 (of the regular season)."

Slafkovsky ended the game 82 seconds into overtime and with 19 seconds left on the power play that resulted from Jake Guentzel's high-sticking penalty with 21 seconds remaining in regulation.

Slafkovsky found a soft spot in the Lightning penalty kill and unloaded a wrist shot from the left circle that beat goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy on his glove side, setting off a Canadiens celebration.

After a pair of rough-and-tumble meetings late in the season, the tone was set for a physical series. And while there were some scrums - and an elbow from Montreal's Josh Anderson to the head of Charle-Edouard D'Astous that knocked the Tampa Bay defenseman out of the game - only two of the 13 penalties called were for roughing and there were no fighting majors.

"The chippiness is going to be there all series," Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. "It's the stick-penalty infractions and high-stick stuff, that's what you got to be accountable for. And they're all penalties that the refs had to call. So, we've got to do a better job."

Home, OT playoff struggles continue

The Lightning entered the game hoping to change their recent narrative of struggling at home in the postseason, but the loss was their eighth in their last nine home playoff games going back to the start of the 2023 postseason.

The Lightning also have dropped 12 of their last 13 playoff games decided in overtime, a stretch that goes throughout their Stanley Cup runs to Game 5 of the 2020 final against Dallas.

Just like that, they have lost home-ice advantage and are forced again to climb back into a series or face a fourth straight first-round exit.

"Game 1's are Game 1's," Cooper said. "I've been a part of series where we've won them and lost the series, lost and won the series, and everything in between. So that isn't as much a concern as how we lost it, and if that's going to be the way we keep going, then this series may not go as long as we thought."

Penalty kill flounders

The Lightning penalty kill, which was ranked third best in the regular season with a kill rate of 82.6%, had its worst showing of the season.

"We knew they had a good power play. We've got to execute on the penalty kill," said Lightning left wing Brandon Hagel, who was on the ice for two of Montreal's three power-play goals. "It's pretty simple. I think it starts with myself, it starts with (Anthony) Cirelli. It's our job to kill penalties often, and we didn't do that. …They're good. They have a lot of skill in their power play. But at the end of the day, we think we have a pretty good penalty kill, and we were terrible."

Said Cooper of the PK's 2-for-5 night, "If you're going to kill penalties off at 50%, then you're probably not going to last very long. But if you kill penalties off at 50% and you only give up two (penalties) ... well, maybe you can survive. ... That's on us. There's no excuses."

Where it started to go wrong

The Lightning had rallied from a one-goal deficit to take a 2-1 lead on Hagel's goal with 7:16 left in the second period, but forward Conor Geekie was penalized for high-sticking Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson deep in the offensive zone with 1:28 left in the period.

At that time, Montreal had just five shots on goal. But it made Tampa Bay pay for the error, as Slafkovsky scored with 24 seconds left in the period on a one-timer from the right circle to tie the score.

Slafkovsky scored again after Cirelli took an interference penalty early in the third, giving the Canadiens a 3-2 lead at 5:56 of the period. The Lightning responded just more than three minutes later on Hagel's second goal, when he slipped past the Montreal defense and tipped in Guentzel's pass to the edge of the crease.

Guentzel's high-sticking penalty late in regulation might have been the most head-shaking. McDonagh shot the puck from the left point, and Guentzel tried to bat it high in the air after it was blocked and caught Canadiens defenseman Kaiden Guhle in the head with his stick.

"We're a pretty accountable group here, and the types of penalties that we took (Sunday) are pretty much unacceptable," McDonagh said. "If it's a good penalty, that's one thing. But I don't think any of them (Sunday) were good. So, that's not great on our part."

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This story was originally published April 20, 2026 at 12:39 AM.