Two of the teams tied atop the Atlantic Division in points face off when the Tampa Bay Lightning visit the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
The Lightning (48-24-6, 102 points), the Canadiens (46-22-10, 102 points) and the Buffalo Sabres (47-23-9, 102 points) each have a shot at claiming the division title, each with four games left. Buffalo is in action Wednesday night against the New York Rangers.
The division winner gets matched up against a wild-card team in the first round while the second- and third-place finishers play each other.
Montreal surged into contention with an eight-game winning streak before splitting its past two games. After a 3-0 home loss to the New Jersey Devils, Montreal bounced back with a 4-3 shootout win against the visiting Florida Panthers on Tuesday, thanks in part to the heroics of Nick Suzuki.
The Montreal forward scored the game-tying goal with 21 seconds left in the third period.
Ivan Demidov and Phillip Danault also scored, and Jakub Dobes made 30 saves.
“We showed a lot of character,” Danault said. “Obviously, it wasn’t our best game structure-wise, but we found a way. We’ve done that a lot this year, actually, come back from behind, and that’s one of our strengths going toward the playoffs. But we definitely have to come out stronger every game.”
Suzuki has a career-high 96 points (28 goals, 68 assists). Demidov, 20, leads all rookies with 61 points (18 goals, 43 assists).
“He was probably our best player tonight,” Suzuki said of Demidov. “He’s creating stuff out of nothing. He’s learning the game, what to do against other teams, how he can be effective. You see him in transition, he’s really tough to stop.”
The Canadiens have probably the toughest final four games of the three division contenders. After Thursday, they host the Columbus Blue Jackets before playing at the New York Islanders and Philadelphia Flyers, all teams still in playoff contention.
Tampa Bay is looking to get back on track after losing 4-2 at Buffalo on Monday and 6-2 at the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday.
Against the Senators, Nick Paul and Corey Perry each had a goal and an assist, and Jonas Johansson made 26 saves. Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov extended his point streak to four games (three goals, three assists) with an assist.
Tampa Bay has lost three of five (2-3-0).
“We’re a playoff team, we’re just not playing like one right now,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We only have a couple games here to figure it out and see where we land, but we need to be better than we are right now.”
The game at Ottawa was tied 1-1 entering the third period, and the Lightning pulled within 3-2 midway through the period before the Senators scored three straight in the final 7:09 of the second.
“At the end of the day, we have to figure out how to sustain the first 10 minutes (of the game) that we really had,” Perry said. “We were all over them, so we’ll figure it out.”
The Lightning have a road game against the Boston Bruins on Saturday before finishing the regular season by hosting the Detroit Red Wings and New York Rangers.
Tampa Bay won the first two meetings between the teams, 6-1 at Montreal on Dec. 9 and 5-4 at home in a shootout on Dec. 28. The Canadiens won 4-1 at Tampa Bay on March 31.
