Brendan Gallagher Scores at 3:00, Canadiens De Montréal Lead Game 5

canadiens de montréal struck first in Game 5, with Brendan Gallagher scoring at 3:00 of the opening period to put them ahead 1-0 over the Lightning de Tampa Bay. The goal gave Montreal the early edge in a tied series.

Gallagher Opens Game 5

Gallagher finished the play by depositing a loose puck into an empty net after Alex Newhook drove toward Andrei Vasilevskiy. Montreal needed only three minutes to break through, and the early lead changed the first period immediately.

After one period, the Canadiens were still up 1-0. The score line matched the opening burst, but the period also showed how tight the game had become after that first chance.

Montreal Works Through Pressure

At 7:30, Nick Suzuki took a double minor from Ryan McDonagh, putting more pressure on Montreal while it tried to protect the lead. Before that, the Canadiens had already been struggling to generate dangerous shots on Vasilevskiy, and the Lightning had been blocking passing and shooting lanes on a poor Montreal power play.

Jakub Dobes faced his own test at 6:01 when Erik Cernak got to him, and the goaltender also had to deal with a dangerous sequence at 13:06 when Oliver Bjorkstrand hit the crossbar behind him. Montreal could not afford to waste the early goal while those chances kept coming at the other end.

Dobes, Vasilevskiy, and the Gap

The game kept tightening late in the period. At 17:52, Yanni Gourde and Kaiden Guhle were penalized, sending the teams to four-on-four play, and at 18:30 Juraj Slafkovsky made a strong individual effort to the left of Vasilevskiy.

That left Montreal with a 1-0 cushion after 20 minutes and a narrow margin to defend in a game that began level. The opening goal from Gallagher gave the Canadiens the only score on the board, and the period that followed showed how little space either side had to work with on TVA Sports.