Canadiens’ Slafkovsky Wins Game 1 with Record-Tying Hat Trick – The Hockey Writers –

The records keep on coming for the Montreal Canadiens, with forward Juraj Slafkovsky getting in on the action this time. He ended Game 1 in overtime with his third goal to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 on Sunday in Tampa. It was also his third power-play goal of the game, making him the first Hab in history to accomplish the feat in the playoffs.

Slafkovsky Makes Lightning Pay for Indiscipline

On the record-tying tally, Slafkovsky wristed it past Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy from the faceoff dot, on assists from Lane Hutson and Nick Suzuki, at 1:22 of the extra frame. Lightning forward Jake Guentzel had taken a high-sticking penalty on defenseman Kaiden Guhle in the dying seconds of regulation to put the Canadiens on the power play.

Slafkovsky had also tied the game 2-2 late in the second period off a one timer from Ivan Demidov (Cole Caufield getting the secondary assist)… and given the Canadiens a 3-2 lead five minutes and change into the third, when Caufield fed him for a separate one timer deep in the slot (Suzuki earning the secondary assist). Conor Geekie had high-sticked Hutson to put the Canadiens on the power play for the 2-2 goal. Anthony Cirelli had interfered with Slafkovsky to set up the man advantage for the 3-2 go-ahead marker.

Lightning forward Brandon Hagel tied it up 3-3 three minutes later, with his second of the game, also coming on the power play. He had initially given the Bolts their first lead of the game on a turnover 29 seconds after Darren Raddysh had tied it at one apiece. Josh Anderson opened the scoring for the Canadiens in the first.

A Historic 2025-26 Canadiens Season Becomes Even More So

The first to score one in overtime, Slafkovsky joins 12 other players to have scored three power-play goals in a playoff game, with Jonathan Toews being the most recent in 2010 in a second-round Game 4 victory over the Vancouver Canucks, en route to an eventual Stanley Cup. The first player to accomplish the feat was Detroit Red Wings forward Syd Howe in Game 2 of their first-round series against the Canadiens in 1939. The Wings would win the game and the best-of-three series (in three games), before losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs in Round 2.

The regular-season record in one game is four power-play goals, a record co-held by eight players, including Canadiens forward Bernie Geoffrion, who scored five total against the New York Rangers on Feb. 19, 1955, in a 10-2 Habs victory. That was the season in which Geoffrion passed teammate Maurice Richard to win the Art Ross Trophy, with the latter suspended late in the season, leading to the Richard Riot.

Slafkovsky’s hat trick is the first Canadiens playoff hat trick since Rene Bourque scored three (of his surprising eight goals that postseason) in Game 5 against the New York Rangers in the third round of 2014. The last Canadiens player to score a playoff hat trick that included an overtime goal was defenseman Eric Desjardins in 1993 in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, which marked the last time the Canadiens won the Cup.

Already this season, the Habs have seen Cole Caufield become the team’s first 50-goal scorer since 1990, Nick Suzuki become the team’s first 100-point scorer since 1986 and Lane Hutson tie Larry Robinson’s single-season record for points by a defenseman (66, in 1976-66). Slafkovsky meanwhile set personal highs with 30 goals, 43 assists and 73 points, dwarfing the previous-career-high 51 he had scored last season. Of note, he already has more than the two playoff goals he scored in five games last spring. The Canadiens and Lightning play Game 2 on Tuesday night, also in Tampa.