Max Pacioretty, Erik Cole rise to occasion as Montreal Canadiens dominate Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2
Montreal showed Tampa Bay what it feels like to be dominated as the Canadiens destroyed Lightning, 5-2, Wednesday night, April 4, 2012, at the sold-out Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Max Pacioretty and Erik Cole rose to the occasion to lead their team to victory, scoring two goals each while the Montreal defenseman kept Tampa Bay limited to only 16 shots on their veteran goalie, Peter Budaj.
Playing on the road has been terrible for Tampa Bay this 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season as the Lightning’s record is now at a disappointing 12-22-5.
"I can't put more emphasis on it than I did. I can't," Lightning coach, Guy Boucher, said. "The players have to be better. The game plan doesn't change home and away; what changes is how you perform. We haven't been very good on the road this year, but we
tied a franchise record with 25 home wins. So we certainly can do well, but we didn't do well on the road."
Alexei Emelin kicked off the scoring with his third of the regular season followed by Tampa Bay captain, Vincent Lecavalier, for the equaliser at 7:26.
Erik Cole dominated the second period with two goals straight nearly 13 minutes apart, bringing up his total for the regular season to 34 including one of the power play with Tim Wallace out for cross checking.
Bruno Gervais tried killing off the Montreal momentum and a comeback for his team but Max Pacioretty was not going to let that happen in any case as the young forward potted two of his own, widening the gap to 5-2 with 5:03 remaining in regulation.
Pacioretty’s goals were his first in 12 games.
"It was a lot of fun," said Pacioretty. "It's important for us to show our fans that we're not that far from being a contending team." "We have a good core group of players. We don't need to shake things up too much to be competitive."
Montreal will now be going on to Carolina to face Hurricanes on Thursday while Toronto Maple Leafs host Tampa Bay Lightning the same day.
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