Caufield, Canadiens top Lightning for 6th straight win to gain in Atlantic
Guentzel tied it 1-1 at 13:41 with a wraparound shot that got past Dobes short side after faking a shot on the far side.
“They obviously defended well and the goalie had some big stops for them too,” Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “We had a lot of shots in the third. It took us 40 minutes to really get some sustained offense and sustained O-zone time.”
Caufield put the Canadiens ahead 2-1 at 12:49 of the second period after Slafkovsky raced down the left side, drawing the attention of the defense, and sent a pass to the slot to Caufield, who scored into an open net for his 300th NHL point.
Matheson scored into an empty net at 17:55 of the third period to make it 3-1 and Suzuki added another empty-net goal 59 seconds later for the 4-1 final.
“We gave ourselves a chance to at least get points out of the game; I can’t say we gave ourselves a chance to win,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “We had the puck a lot in the third period. It’s going to say we had 37 shots; we probably should’ve had 57. I didn’t think we created enough.”
NOTES: Caufield (165 goals, 135 assists in 360 games) became the fastest Canadiens player to reach the 300-point mark since Mark Recchi (316 games on Dec. 29, 1998). … Montreal has allowed one goal or fewer in four straight games for the fifth time since 2005-06. The others: 2016-17, 2014-15 (twice) and 2012-13. … Kucherov was minus-3 with six shots on goal in 23:10 of ice time.
