About Last Night: Did Brandon Hagel have his Tom Wilson moment with Slafkovsky fight?

The Tampa Bay Lightning turned up the heat in a penalty-laden 3-2 overtime win over the Montreal Canadiens to take Game 2 and tie their best-of-seven first-round series on Tuesday.

The Canadiens will return to the Bell Centre for Game 3 on Friday having split Games 1 and 2 on the road at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa.

After being the hero in Game 1, Juraj Slafkovsky took a one-punch knockout in a fight with Lightning forward Brandon Hagel in Game 2. In the third period, Slafkovsky gave away the puck in his own zone, leading to Nikita Kucherov’s game-tying goal.

Like last spring when Tom Wilson of the Washington Capitals ran over the Habs physically and taunted them afterwards en route to a first-round win for the Caps, Hagel did what he could to get under Montreal’s skin by mocking them from the penalty box.

That wasn’t the only key physical moment of the night. Lightning coach Jon Cooper put bruising forward Scott Sabourin in the lineup to match up against Josh Anderson, who ran roughshod over the Bolts on Sunday.

While they didn’t drop the gloves, Sabourin did get his revenge late with a hit from behind on the Habs forward. The Habs didn’t score on the ensuing power play, and Anderson returned for overtime no worse for wear.

Both sides traded goals in a first period where 30 penalty minutes were doled out by officials. Hagel opened scoring with his third of the postseason. That was followed up by Lane Hutson’s first playoff goal in his NHL career.

Here’s the moment where all hell broke loose behind Jakub Dobes’s net. In all, 11 penalties were handed out from the sequence.

After the Hagel-Slafkovsky bout, the Habs took the lead with time winding down in the second period. Anderson continued to show he’s built for the playoffs by scoring a greasy goal in front of Bolts netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy.

The first line entered the postseason red hot from the Olympic Break, and after a big Game 1 on the power play, they struggled to provide offence in Game 2. The trio of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield and Slafkovsky finished the night a combined -6 and Caufield could only muster one shot on goal.

They were on the ice for Kucherov’s game-tying goal on a wraparound with 7:27 left in regulation, starting with Slafkovsky coughing up the puck on the clearing attempt.

For a second straight game, the winner needed to be settled in overtime. The home team dominated in the extra period, outshooting the Habs 9-0, with the defenceman Moser ending it following a faceoff draw at 12:48 of overtime.

Did the Lightning’s attempts at intimidating the Canadiens with rough play end up succeeding? It didn’t seem that way at first after Anderson gave the Habs a late second-period lead following the Hagel-Slafkovsky fight, but as the game progressed, the experienced Lightning took over and the young Canadiens had no response.

Surprisingly, the Game Score wasn’t hard on the top line. But Kirby Dach, who the liveblog commenters already wanted to see replaced by veteran Brendan Gallagher in the lineup, did himself no favours by icing the puck in overtime, which resulted in the winning goal for Moser.

If the Canadiens want to fight fire with fire, Gallagher or Joe Veleno can be thorns in Tampa’s sides when the teams take the series to the Bell Centre for Game 3 on Friday.

And respond they must, say the liveblog commenters on the Hockey Inside Out YouTube Livestream. After what happened last year when the Canadiens didn’t have an answer for Wilson hitting Alexandre Carrier and taunting them from the bench, the Habs could see déjà vu.

Here’s what the commenters had to say about the game.

The post About Last Night: Did Brandon Hagel have his Tom Wilson moment with Slafkovsky fight? appeared first on Montreal Gazette.