The hockey gods favored the Canadiens in Game 7

The Montreal Canadiens defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 in Game 7 of their first-round series Sunday night, advancing to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2021.

It was a strange win for the Habs, who generated just nine shots on net, including a second period where they weren’t able to get a single one. But goals from Nick Suzuki and Alex Newhook sealed the victory and the series for Montreal, who will now face the Buffalo Sabres in Round 2.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discuss the Canadiens’ Game 7 victory over the Lightning and whether the hockey gods smiled favorably on the city of Montreal.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Jon Cooper after the game said, “Sometimes you win the game but not the score,” and that’s really what this was. The Lightning were all over Montreal, but Jakub Dobes stopped 28 of 29. As for Andrei Vasilevskiy, I don’t even want to point the finger at him too much, because that game-winning goal was pretty much from behind the net.

It was just one of those nights where, I don’t know, I guess you could say the hockey gods wanted the Habs to move on to Round 2.

Carter Hutton: It’s one of those ones where you could look at a box score or the game, and the score doesn’t indicate how well the Lightning played. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, it’s about winning hockey games and getting it done, and that’s what the Montreal Canadiens did. They hung around and hung around, they bent but didn’t break.

For me, it’s one of those things that are a product of the game where you don’t have any shots through the game, it’s so slow, and the Canadiens were able to hang around and find a way to win this hockey game.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…