Dominic James scored for the Lightning, who were the No. 2 seed from the Atlantic. Vasilevskiy made seven saves.
The Lightning were eliminated in the first round for the fourth consecutive season.
“I’ve seen this movie before and it happened in Milan in February (in the Winter Olympics),” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “All you can ask of your team, whether it’s the Olympic tournament or best-of-7 playoff, is to get better as you go. And I thought we got better as we went and I thought tonight we played our best game of the series. Sometimes you win the game and not the score and it’s Game 7. There’s no moral victory in that.”
The game-winning goal came when Lane Hutson took a shot from the point that Vasilevskiy turned away with his blocker. The puck then went off the end boards, where Newhook batted it in off of Vasilevskiy’s back.
“It’s fun, it’s kind of what you dream of when you’re younger,” Newhook said. “Those big moments in Game 7.”
Suzuki gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead at 18:39 of the first period when his redirection of Kaiden Guhle’s shot at the hash marks deflected in off J.J. Moser’s shin.
“We knew we just needed to come in here tonight and anything can happen in a Game 7,” Suzuki said. “I think all seven games could’ve went either way for either team. It was definitely a chess match the whole time out there.”
James tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 13:27, scoring on a redirection from the slot of a slap shot by Charle-Edouard D’Astous from the point.
“From start to finish we stuck with our process and our plan,” Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “In the end it doesn’t matter because they had two and we had one, so it’s a loss. Credit to them. They grinded and found a way.”
