Maxwell Crozier delivers one of the biggest hits of the year on Juraj Slafkovský and it sparks controversy

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Vincent Carbonneau
April 26, 2026  (9:01 PM)

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Photo credit: Screenshot

Juraj Slafkovsky gave Martin St. Louis a real scare when a crushing Crozier hit knocked him hard and changed the feel of Game 4.

That was one of the biggest collisions of the series, and it landed at a brutal time for Montreal. Slafkovsky got rocked in open ice and looked badly shaken right away.

The clip shows him going down hard after the contact, and the aftermath is what stood out most. He did not pop up looking fine or ready to brush it off.

Instead, he seemed in rough shape and headed down the tunnel. In a playoff game at the Bell Centre, that kind of scene hits the building all at once.

It is a tough break for Montreal because Slafkovsky has been one of the most dangerous pieces in this series. When a top-six forward gets hit like that, the bench feels it immediately.

And the timing made it worse. Less than 2 or 3 minutes after the hit, Tampa Bay scored.

That is where the whole sequence started to feel heavier for the Canadiens. A huge hit, a shaken player leaving, and then the puck ending up in Montreal's net.

Here is the full clip :

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That is the real story here. This was not only a violent playoff moment for the highlight loop. It swung the mood of the game.

The score moved to 2-1 Canadiens, but the energy around that lead no longer felt clean. Montreal was still in front, yet the game suddenly felt much more fragile.

That is what big hits do in the playoffs. They do not always change the scoreboard by themselves, but they can tilt the ice emotionally for the next few shifts.

For Tampa Bay, the sequence looked like a spark. For Montreal, it looked like a warning.

The biggest concern now is Slafkovsky himself. A player can try to shake off a heavy hit, but when he looks that rattled and heads to the room, the worry goes well beyond one missed shift.

That puts more pressure on St. Louis too. If Slafkovsky cannot return or is limited, Montreal loses size, skill, and one of the forwards capable of changing a game with one touch.

So even with the Canadiens still holding a 2-1 lead in the moment, this did not feel like a positive stretch for them. It felt like one of the biggest hits of the series creating a problem they may still be dealing with long after this period ends.

Previously

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