MONTREAL — Even in a hockey-mad city like Montreal, few fans would have known much about Max Crozier.

They do now.

The depth defenceman — in the lineup for the first time these playoffs — flattened Juraj Slafkovsky at centre ice Sunday, sparking the Tampa Bay Lightning in a wild 3-2 comeback over the Montreal Canadiens in Game 4 to tie the first-round series at two games apiece.

“Head down, going through the middle,” Crozier said, calling it the hit of his career. “Yeah, it was pretty easy to line it up.”

There was a little more than two minutes left in the second period. The Canadiens led 2-0 and had a commanding series lead in sight.

The Bell Centre had broken into its “Olé, Olé, Olé” chant and the wave. Then came a collective gasp.

“That’s a big-time hit,” Lightning forward Jake Guentzel said. “The bench got fired up, and sometimes something like that can change the game.”

It did on Sunday because of what followed 78 seconds later.

Guentzel cut into the Canadiens’ lead with 54 seconds remaining in the period, converting a perfectly timed cross-ice pass from J.J. Moser during 4-on-4 play.

Brandon Hagel then scored twice in the third. First, he capitalized on the power play 1:40 in — after an Oliver Kapanen high stick that will be debated — before adding the go-ahead goal with 4:43 remaining when Nikita Kucherov’s shot bounced off his chest and in.

“If the Crozier hit is a dagger, that really helped,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of Guentzel’s goal. “We score in the last minute of the second and the first minute of the third, and all of a sudden the game’s completely changed. You’ve kind of taken the crowd out of it a bit.

“If you’re watching the game, you know that hit probably had a big thing to do with it.”

Slafkovsky stood up on his own after the clean-but-devastating blow, labouring off the ice before heading straight down the tunnel. The Slovak winger and Game 1 hat-trick hero returned in the third period to “Slaf-kov-sky!” chants.

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said the goal that followed — rather than Crozier’s big hit — made more damage.

“Their goal at 4-on-4 hurt. We were in a good position,” St. Louis said. “There wasn’t much time left in the second, it would have been good to get out of there with a 2-0 lead. Goals at the end of periods like that often swing games.”

“I don’t think it really did (swing the momentum),” defenceman Kaiden Guhle added of the open-ice check. “It’s just big hits happening in these types of games. Gotta find a way to come back after that.”

Kucherov and Moser each had two assists, while Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 16 shots for the Lightning in a game that featured 17 minor penalties.

Cole Caufield and Zachary Bolduc replied for Montreal. Jakub Dobes made 17 saves in the first game of the series to end in regulation.

The previous three games required overtime. Lane Hutson scored the Game 3 winner in a 3-2 victory Friday to give the Canadiens a 2-1 series lead after the teams split the first two games in Tampa, Fla.

The series returns to the Sunshine State for Game 5 on Wednesday.

“It’s playoff hockey, stuff happens,” Guhle said. “Bounces, whatever you want to call it, it’s part of the game. It’s tight, there’s a reason that we had three games in a row go to overtime. It’s just, weird bounces, certain plays impact the game.”

The Canadiens also had their chances despite surrendering the two-goal lead — and committing three penalties in the third period alone.

Moments before Hagel’s winner, the home team had regained the momentum by killing a 71-second 5-on-3 disadvantage, as Kucherov tumbled into the boards from a Jake Evans cross-check with Mike Matheson already in the penalty box.

The Canadiens also jumped on the power play — and a 6-on-4 advantage with the net empty — at 17:27 with Kucherov off for slashing, but couldn’t produce the equalizer.

“We didn’t play a good enough third, I would say,” St. Louis said. “We take three penalties, it’s a veteran team, talented. They’re good at getting us to take penalties.”

Bolduc broke the deadlock at 10:06 in the second period after Guhle found him with a stretch pass. He drove to the net with Lightning defenceman Darren Raddysh draped all over him as Vasilevskiy’s poke check bounced off his chest and in.

Caufield doubled the lead on the power play with 6:31 remaining for his first of the playoffs after a 51-goal regular season.

Nick Suzuki found him alone in front to send the Bell Centre crowd — and the thousands gathered outside — into a frenzy as Caufield dropped to his knees in celebration. But the celebrations, on Sunday at least, stopped there.

The closely contested series comes after both teams totalled 106 points in the regular season, with Tampa Bay holding the regulation-wins tiebreaker.

It’s a clash between a longtime powerhouse in Tampa Bay — Stanley Cup champions in 2020 and ’21 — and a rising Montreal team trying to follow that blueprint.

Now it’s a best-of-three to decide whether youth or experience moves on.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 26, 2026.