MONTREAL — Three games, three overtimes. A series so close it smells like seven all the way.

Lane Hutson scored the game-winner in overtime in Game 3 on Friday at the Bell Centre, giving the Montreal Canadiens a 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning and a 2-1 series lead.

It was the third straight overtime game in the tightly contested series, only the eighth time in NHL history a playoff series’ first three games went to overtime, according to Sportsnet.

“I think we’ve been the better team in the series,” said Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki, a 101-point scorer this season who still does not have a point at five-on-five in the playoffs, and yet his team leads the series. “It’s great to have a 2-1 lead right now, especially with another home game coming up. We just want to take care of the opportunities at home. Getting the depth scoring, with us not scoring five-on-five yet, has helped us for sure.”

The Canadiens also got goals from Kirby Dach and Alexandre Texier, while Brandon Hagel scored in a third straight game — his fourth of the series — and Brayden Point also scored for the Lightning.

Hutson scored at 2:09 of overtime when, with a crowd gathered in front, he let go of a slap shot from the blue line that got through all the traffic and beat Andrei Vasilevskiy, who made breakaway saves on Ivan Demidov in the second period and Josh Anderson in the third period to keep the game tied 2-2.

“That honestly might have been my first slap shot all year,” Hutson said. “I saw some space, lots of bodies and just tried to shoot it as hard as I could. Luckily, it went in.”

It was not, for the record, Hutson’s first slap shot all year. But it was easily his most impactful.

Nick Suzuki’s top line for Montreal was held pointless at five-on-five for a third straight game.

The Lightning were able to keep their nerve after an incredible pregame introduction, the chants of “Ole, Ole, Ole” cascading down from the rafters, delaying the anthems pregame. It was a spectacular scene both inside the arena and outside, where massive crowds cheered on at a watch party.

And that crowd exploded again when Hutson ended it in overtime.

The Lightning are down in a series that’s featured three overtime games, but felt Friday night was their worst game. Still, they feel far from out of it.

“We’ve got to control what we can here, and that’s our effort and our execution,’’ said Ryan McDonagh. “As poorly as I think everybody is going to feel tonight in how we played, when we break this down, we still had a chance there in overtime, where anything can happen.

“We’ve really got to dig deep here and understand what’s at stake,’’ he added. “We’ve worked too hard all season to set ourselves up here in the playoffs. It’s on us to control what we can and give ourselves a better percentage of trying to win a game.’’

A playoff redemption story

They are the best kind of redemption stories, but especially with the level of vitriol Canadiens fans had for Dach after how Game 2 ended in overtime.

But it began in warmups, when Dach was shown on the scoreboard, and fans in the building began chanting his name.

“I didn’t really expect it,” Dach said. “The fans have been unbelievable for us all year, and for me they’ve stuck by my side through a lot. It definitely meant a lot.”

Those fans had no idea at that time just how much it would mean.

Just to recap, Dach had the puck in overtime in the neutral zone but failed to gain the red line before flipping the puck down the ice to get a change, being forced to stay on the ice when that puck crossed the Lightning goal line for an icing. On the ensuing faceoff, Dach lost Lightning defenseman J.J. Moser in coverage, and Moser proceeded to walk into a dangerous area and score the winning goal.

Dach was already being criticized by many in Montreal for his play since returning from an injury with five games left in the regular season. There were many questioning why he was even in the lineup. But when the overtime ended the way it did in Game 2, Dach had to deactivate his Instagram account because of how vicious the reactions were from some Canadiens fans.

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis defended Dach the morning after Game 2, and rather than take him out of the lineup in Game 3, St. Louis basically promoted him.

“I never give up on someone who hasn’t given up on himself,” St. Louis said.

Dach moved to center on a line with Alexandre Texier and Zack Bolduc, with Oliver Kapanen moving up to center a line with Ivan Demidov and Alex Newhook.

St. Louis’ new line produced all three Montreal goals, with Dach earning a secondary assist on Texier’s game-opening goal, Dach scoring himself through a Bolduc screen in the second period to tie the score 2-2, and with all three of them providing the traffic for Hutson’s winner in overtime.

“I think you take that night (of Game 2), Tuesday night, and you kind of sit in it, dwell in it, understand what you could have done better,” Dach said. “But come Wednesday morning, you’ve got to be able to move on and get ready for tonight’s game. That’s kind of where my mindset was. I think as a competitor and as anybody, you want to be able to bounce back and put your best foot forward.”

The matchup game gets more serious

Without last change in Tampa in the opening two games, Martin St. Louis didn’t chase the matchups; he mostly allowed Tampa to get the line matchups it wanted.

But the matchup game got more serious in Game 3 in Montreal. St. Louis definitely tried as much as he could to get Suzuki’s top unit away from the Anthony Cirelli line, with the Cirelli line having totally shut down Montreal’s most dangerous line in Games 1 and 2.

But Lightning coach Jon Cooper, unlike St. Louis, decided to aggressively chase it Friday night, even without last change, getting Cirelli’s line back on the ice on the fly as soon as they could to match up with Suzuki. That got more difficult in the second period with the long change to the bench, so Montreal was able to get Suzuki away from Cirelli more effectively. St. Louis tried as much as he could to get Phillip Danault’s checking line on Cirelli.

The danger for Montreal in too aggressively getting Suzuki’s line with Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovský off the ice every time Cirelli is on is that you run the risk of getting that line out of rhythm, but St. Louis did a good job making sure that line still got its minutes. The result was that Suzuki’s line got more of a matchup with the Yanni Gourde line, which is a luxury for Tampa to have two Selke Trophy caliber centers in Cirelli and Gourde; it really helps on the road without last change. Suzuki’s line went a third game without a point at five-on-five.

So, the cat-and-mouse game was in full gear in Game 3 between Cooper and his former player, St. Louis. They know each other very, very well.

“He made it really hard (to get matchups), Coop on the other side, because he kept pulling guys off the ice,” St. Louis said. “I felt our team had more rhythm because of it, because I wasn’t pulling guys off the ice. I think rhythm is important.”

A penalty parade … without the scrums

The scrums and after-whistle activity that defined the first period of Game 2 and much of Game 1 simply were not there in Game 3, with the Lightning seemingly content to play between the whistles in an effort to avoid handing the Canadiens power plays in bunches.

The intimidation factor the Lightning were hoping to achieve with the scrums wasn’t working, and they were wise to get away from it.

But that didn’t mean referees Chris Rooney and Peter MacDougall had a quiet night. The rhythm of the first 40 minutes of the game was almost entirely dictated by special teams, with four power plays a side.

So while the matchups were a factor in the game, their impact was lessened by all the penalties.

The Lightning were the only ones to take advantage of all the power plays, with Point scoring his first of the series to tie the game 1-1 in the first period and quiet the raucous Bell Centre crowd, at least temporarily, allowing Tampa Bay to settle into the game.

The Lightning finished 1-for-5 on the power play, while the Canadiens went 0-for-4. The nine combined power plays did not quite match the 10 there were in Game 1, they just came in a very different way.

“There was a lot (of power plays), they had three really quick ones in a row and then we did. It definitely got us out of a little flow,” Suzuki said. “But we’re not shying away from the scrums, we’ll stick in there for each other. They can bring that all night, and we’ll be fine.”

Canadiens 0-for-3 on breakaways

One would imagine that if someone had told St. Louis before the game that Demidov, Caufield and Josh Anderson would all get clear-cut breakaways Friday night, he would have banked on at least one or two goals.

Try zero. Demidov was stoned by Andrei Vasilevskiy on a clear breakaway from center ice in the second period. Demidov’s wrist shot met with a pad save. Caufield was in alone early in the third period but whiffed completely on his shot and didn’t even get the puck on Vasilevskiy. Then Anderson came out of the penalty box later in the third period and tried a forehand deke, but ran out of real estate as No. 88 gave him nothing to shoot at.

Sneaky Jon Cooper

The Bolts showed their normal forward lines in pregame warmups, but then had other ideas once the puck dropped Friday night.

Nikita Kucherov, who normally is on Point’s line, was with Cirelli and Hagel, where in fact he finished Game 2.

That left Point between Gage Goncalves and Dominic James.

Meanwhile, Jake Guentzel joined Gourde’s line with Zemgus Girgensons.

While Point scored a power-play goal Friday night for his first point of the series, he’s been quiet five-on-five, and it’s clear Cooper wants to get more out of Kucherov. So the assignment with Cirelli and Hagel makes for a potent line, and that line connected again when Hagel made it 2-1 at 4:47 into the second period.

But there’s also an imbalance created with loading up that Cirelli line, which is that Point’s unit is far less dangerous.

Yvan Cournoyer carried the torch into the Bell Centre for Game 3. (Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)

Springtime in Montreal

There is nothing quite like Montreal in the playoffs.

Three hours before Game 3, the Fan Fest in the Bell Centre plaza was buzzing with people. Thousands secured tickets to watch the game on a big screen just outside the building.

And inside the building, it was a sea of red jerseys and a wall of noise.

Former Canadiens captain Yvan Cournoyer entered the Bell Centre from that plaza holding a torch, walked it into the building and the arena bowl, setting off the Canadiens’ traditional playoff ritual of the ice catching fire, and the building roared.

It was electric. As Montreal often is this time of year.