It's so much more than a regular match between Montreal and Tampa Bay.

It's the United States against Canada.

It is the most deserving NHL team against the reigning champions.

It is above all the final in the Stanley Cup.

Montreal, on the other hand, has not played a final in 28 years, but is the club that has won the Stanley Cup the most times.

Tampa Bay, on the other hand, played the final less than a year ago, winning the pandemic-hit edition of this year.

The fact that an American team is up against a Canadian in the NHL final - for the first time since Boston defeated Vancouver in 2011 - has not gone unnoticed, not even in the absolute top tier.

The Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau challenged the US Joe Biden in a friendly bet on the match via Twitter, which the US President gladly accepted.

Tampa took the lead

Unlike last year's audience-free bubble final, Tampa had to play in front of jubilant home fans this time.

And maybe that the home crowd gave energy.

A quick attack orchestrated by Brandon Point and Ondrej Palat led to a great performance by Palat until Erik Cernak, who stepped forward the club and beautifully controlled the 1-0 goal, just over six minutes into the match.

Quite just a period later, Tampa Bay extended the lead via Yanni Gourde, the result of another quick attack.

With just over three minutes left in the second period, Montreal's Ben Chiarot gave the visitors hope, when he reduced with a hard shot.

However, the shot changed direction twice via defending players before reaching the net.

Tampa's Ryan McDonagh looked confused when he realized the puck had gone in goal via his club shaft.

But the guests did not come any closer than that.

Instead, Nikita Kucherov dampened Canadian hope through two goals in the third period.

After that, it was completely extinguished by Steven Stamkos who fixed the final result to 5-1, played by Kutjerov.

- We just tried to stick to our game plan, and execute it for 60 minutes, Kutjerov says after the match.

What it is in the game plan that works so well, he did not want to go into more detail.

- We place the pucks deep and ride on them, he says.

"Learned by mistake"

Steven Stamkos gave a few more clues, where he mentioned, among other things, that Tampa went in aggressively in the third period, despite having the lead.

- That is the key, we have learned from previous mistakes where we leaned back a little.

- So let's attack, let's keep the press, and I felt we did a great job with it.

We were rewarded with goals, which always helps, but it was a good third period to end the match with.

Emotions swelled at times during the match and several players smoked together in different contexts.

It looked most disgusting when Montreal's Brendan Gallagher got into a fight with Blake Coleman and in the tumult fell helmetless with his head into the ice, and was helped bleeding - but consciously - by the ice.