Montreal Canadiens push Tampa Bay Lightning to brink of elimination with win in Game 3

Rene Bourque celebrates with teammate Brian Gionta after scoring during the first period.

MONTREAL — The other day St. Louis Blue coach Ken Hitchcock said “the order of the day is chaos,” and that is the NHL playoffs, right there. So often the playoffs are a frozen puck bouncing between 10 desperate men with sticks and two with masks and everyone’s trying to wrestle control out of the havoc. Whoever does it best, wins.

The Montreal Canadiens lead the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-0 in their first-round series, and maybe it could have been different. Maybe Tampa could have won Game 1, in overtime, even though Montreal deserved it. And maybe they should have won Game 3 in Montreal Sunday night.

But in the chaos Montreal was a little better and a little luckier and the Habs won 3-2, and the series is all but over. Though not without controversy.

“I was pissed then, and I’m pissed now,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “But that’s just my opinion.”

Cooper was upset because with four and a half minutes left in the second period of a 1-1 game — a game before which Ginette Reno sang one of the great renditions of ‘O Canada’ you will ever hear, and in which Montreal’s Rene Bourque opened the scoring 11 seconds in while the Bell Centre sounded like a jet engine and the Lightning looked like they couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening to them