Lane Hutson scored 2:09 into overtime and the host Montreal Canadiens took Game 3 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-2 on Friday, moving ahead 2-1 in the best-of-seven set.

While Hutson scored the game-winner and his second goal of the series, it was Montreal’s fourth line that lifted the Habs to victory. Kirby Dach and Alexandre Texier both had a goal and an assist, and Zack Bolduc had two helpers.

Jakub Dobes made 15 saves for the Habs in the third straight game of the series to require overtime. Game 4 is Sunday night in Montreal.

Brandon Hagel and Brayden Point scored for the Lightning, with Jake Guentzel and Nikita Kucherov generating assists.

Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 shots for the Lightning.

The Canadiens controlled most of the play in the second half of regulation, outshooting the Lightning 18-4 in the 32:34 before overtime. Cole Caufield and Josh Anderson had breakaway chances in the third that Vasilevskiy denied.

That domination finally paid off in the extra session. Hutson scored on the first shot of overtime after getting the puck from Texier at the point and then beating Vasilevskiy through traffic.

“I thought of the three games, this was our worst game 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 in the game. The goalie kept us in it.”

Montreal started the scoring less than five minutes into the contest. Bolduc and Dach’s give-and-go got the puck into the offensive zone, and Bolduc found Texier at the top of the slot with 15:07 remaining in the first.

The Lightning evened the score less than three minutes later on their third power-play goal of the series. Point’s first goal of the series came with 12:18 left thanks to Dobes earning a minor for tripping Yanni Gourde.

Hagel gave Tampa Bay the lead with 15:13 to go in the second. He capitalized on a bad pass from Jake Evans in the neutral zone, swatting in down, skating into the zone and getting his fourth of the series from the top of the circle to Dobes’ right.

Montreal’s fourth line got its second goal of the game nearly eight minutes later as Dach — vilified by some Canadiens fans for plays that led to the Lightning winning Game 2 in overtime — added to his redemption with a shot from the left circle that beat Vasilevskiy with 7:17 left in the period.

“I think as a competitor, anybody, you want to be able to bounce back and put your best foot forward,” Dach said. “At the same time, we have such a great group of guys here. Everybody was lifting me up and helping me out, (including) the training staff and coaches. It definitely wasn’t just myself kind of digging myself out of that hole. I had a lot of support.”

–Field Level Media

The Philadelphia Flyers are soaring through their first-round playoff series, but the status of goaltender Dan Vladar is unclear heading into Saturday’s Game 4 against the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins.

Philadelphia leads the best-of-seven series 3-0 after notching a pair of wins in Pittsburgh followed by a 5-2 home victory Wednesday. Vladar made 27 saves in Game 3 but injured his right arm during a chaotic sequence in front of the net in the third period.

He rested both Thursday and Friday and is listed as a game-time decision as he hopes to take the ice for the potential series clincher on Saturday.

“It’s another maintenance day for him,” Flyers coach Rick Tocchet said Friday. “Two days off is going to help him. That’s basically it for him. We’ll see how he is (Saturday).”

After a strong regular season, Vladar has a .946 save percentage in this series, including a shutout in Game 2. If he cannot play Saturday, Samuel Ersson will make his postseason debut.

“I feel like I’m in a good spot with my game,” said Ersson, who has not played since April 14.

Of course, it will help either goaltender if the Flyers continue to receive scoring production from up and down their lineup. The team had five different goal scorers in Game 3, including four players who registered their first career playoff tally.

Trevor Zegras and Noah Cates each had a goal and an assist for Philadelphia, which has won six straight games dating back to the regular season. The Flyers will try to ride the momentum of their home crowd to their first series victory since 2020.

“That was the craziest building I’ve ever played in,” defenseman Nick Seeler said of the Game 3 atmosphere. “The fans were fantastic.”

Part of the chaotic atmosphere was a product of a penalty-filled second period in which the teams combined for 17 penalties. Penguins coach Dan Muse was not happy about how the officials handled the physicality in that period, but his squad doesn’t have time to dwell on their recent losses.

“We have to win a hockey game,” Muse said. “So, we’ll have a practice (Friday) and get ready for that game and then go into that game and we need to win a game. That’s entirely where the focus is right now.”

Evgeni Malkin and Erik Karlsson scored in Game 3 for Pittsburgh, which has dropped six straight contests, going back to the regular season. Malkin has two goals in this series, although that’s as many as his teammates have combined.

“Now we’re going to see what we’re really made of,” Karlsson said. “Now it’s do-or-die. The toughest game to win is that fourth one, so hopefully we can start by winning one.”

Only four teams in NHL history have come back from a 3-0 series deficit to win the final four games. It hasn’t happened in more than a decade – the Los Angeles Kings turned the trick against the San Jose Sharks in 2014 — and the Penguins have never accomplished it.

“There’s not much room for error when you’re in this position. That’s reality,” Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby said. “But the fact is, we’ve got to win a game. That’s got to be our focus. You can’t grab three on Saturday. You’ve got to win one.”

–Field Level Media

The Minnesota Wild haven’t won a Stanley Cup playoff series since 2015, losing in the first round eight times since then.

So with the Wild staring at a 2-1 deficit heading into Game 4 of their Western Conference first-round series against the Dallas Stars on Saturday in Saint Paul, are they feeling a little antsy?

“We’re confident in our group,” Wild forward Matt Boldy said. “It’s a long series, so this whole narrative that we’re frustrated and all this, that’s not true. We’re so confident in our group, so let’s nip that in the bud now because it’s made up.”

Minnesota looked superior when it blew away the Stars 6-1 in Game 1, but then Dallas answered back with a 4-2 win in Game 2 on Monday.

The Wild and Stars then battled into double overtime in Game 3 on Wednesday before Dallas prevailed 4-3.

“From my experience, and I think in the last few years, I’ve been in about three of these that went a couple periods and I don’t think it gives you any momentum other than the win for carryover,” Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan said. “Whether it’s 6-1 or in OT, I think every game is its own entity. Momentum can swing in a series so quickly both ways. It’s just like, tuck it away and move on.”

Both teams agree the difference in Game 3 was special teams.

Dallas went 3-for-8 with the man-advantage and Minnesota was 1-for-7.

“You never know when you’re going to get hot on the power play,” Minnesota defenseman Quinn Hughes said. “It could be the next game, could be the game after that. Whether we were 4-for-4 on the power play or whatever we were, that doesn’t change how we have to approach the next game.”

Dallas had the second-best power play during the regular season at 28.6%, with the Wild right behind at 25.2%.

“You look around the league, it comes down to (special teams),” Dallas forward Jason Robertson said. “Every team is so tight, every team defends hard. You’ve got to take advantage when you can. We definitely think we can improve a little bit of our 5-on-5 offense, and we’ll look at that and try to improve for Game 4.”

Stars forward Wyatt Johnston, who led the NHL with 27 power-play goals during the regular season, which was a franchise record, has scored with the man advantage in each of the past two games.

“It’s important to capitalize when you get those (power-play) chances,” Johnston said. “I just try to pitch in and do what I can to help.”

Minnesota forward Mats Zuccarello will be a game-time decision on Saturday because of a lower-body injury that kept him out of Games 2 and 3. Zuccarello had three assists in the Game 1 victory.

Yakov Trenin will also miss his second straight game after the Minnesota forward was injured in Game 2. Trenin was the only Minnesota player to appear in all 82 regular-season games, totaling six goals and 17 assists.

The Stars will remain without forward Roope Hintz, who has played just one game since the Olympic break because of a lower-body injury.

“It’s the time of year where you just got to stick with it,” Gulutzan said. “You can’t get frustrated. It’s not even an emotion that helps at this time of the year.”

–Field Level Media

The Ottawa Senators will be in danger of elimination when they host the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 4 of their best-of-seven first-round playoff series on Saturday afternoon.

The Hurricanes, the top seed in the Eastern Conference, went up 3-0 in the series with a 2-1 win over the host Senators on Thursday night.

“Just going to keep believing, keep playing our game,” Ottawa forward Tim Stutzle said. “I mean, we scored three goals in three games, so it’s tough to win like that, and we just got to find a way.”

Carolina will be trying to win at least one round in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the sixth consecutive season.

“We’re feeling good about ourselves, but you know, the hardest to win is always that fourth win,” said Hurricanes forward Taylor Hall.

Carolina’s Logan Stankoven has scored the first goal of the contest in all three games. It is only the second time in NHL history that a player has scored the opening goal in the first three games of the postseason since George Armstrong did it for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1956.

Stankoven is also one short of the all-time playoff opening-goal streak of four, set by Michel Goulet of the Quebec Nordiques in 1985.

“Good feeling to start the game and takes a little bit of pressure off of us,” Stankoven said. “They were going to be excited to come out and try to steal this one, so it was nice just to settle things down.”

He opened the scoring in Game 3 at the 5:13 mark.

Drake Batherson tied it for the Senators with 3:54 left in the second period but Jackson Blake untied it just 1:23 later.

“They scored one, the building erupted a little bit there, and I don’t know if they got a little momentum there, and then just to get that one quick answer right away, I think that was really big for us as a group,” Blake said.

The line of Stankoven (three goals and an assist), Hall (one goal, four assists) and Blake (one goal, three assists) has dominated the series.

Ottawa will have to try and stay alive without top defenseman Jake Sanderson, who is out with a concussion. He left Game 3 in the second period after getting hit in the head by Hall, who received a two-minute minor penalty for an illegal check. Sanderson played two shifts after the hit before departing.

“Not fun,” fellow Ottawa defenseman Thomas Chabot said of Sanderson’s injury. “That’s the biggest piece of our team, probably. So seeing him going down the tunnel is not good. He plays such big minutes. The way he plays, it’s like I’ve said earlier this year when we lost him, there’s no other Jake Sanderson, so it’s a big loss for us, for sure.”

Sanderson played a game-high 43:06 with two assists and was plus-2 in the Senators’ 3-2 double-overtime loss in Game 2 on Monday night.

Ottawa is already without defenseman Artem Zub, who suffered an undisclosed injury in Game 1. He and Sanderson made up the team’s top defense pairing.

Defenseman Tyler Kleven returned on Thursday after missing nine games with an upper-body injury.

–Field Level Media