By Tampa Bay 50-25-6 vs. Montreal 48-24-10.
After an up-and-down season, with more ups than downs, the Tampa Bay Lightning will play the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the NHL Playoffs.
After the Buffalo Sabers won in regulation in Chicago on Monday night, and the Lightning beat the Detroit Red Wings in OT, that scenario gave Buffalo the Atlantic Division title.
Philadelphia beat Montreal 5-1 on Tuesday night, locking up home ice advantage for the Lightning in round one of the playoffs.
The Lightning will wrap up their regular season against the New York Rangers. That game will feel more like a glorified preseason game with a playoff positioning already determined.
The Canadiens won the season series, going 2-1-1 against Tampa Bay.
But the Canadiens have beaten the Lightning in the last two games, winning 4-1 in Tampa on March 31, and winning a 2-1 game in Montreal last Thursday in a penalty-filled game.
Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki is looking forward to the matchup. “It was physical. A lot of emotion, a lot of scrums,” Suzuki said after Thursday’s win. “If we see them in the first round, I think there is a lot more of that to come, so it should be fun.”
This is the ninth consecutive year that the Lightning have made the playoffs, but they have struggled to win a series recently.
The last playoff series the Lightning won was the Eastern Conference Finals in 2022, when they beat the New York Rangers on their way to a Stanley Cup Final matchup with the Colorado Avalanche.
Montreal enters the playoffs for the second straight season.
The Habs lost to Washington in the first round last season, getting bounced in five games.
Montreal has been led this season by Nick Suzuki, who has a career high of 101 points.
Right behind Suzuki is Cole Caufield with 88 points, including a career-high 51 goals. Suzuki is the first Montreal player to reach the century mark in goals since Mats Naslund 40 years ago.
In goal, the Canadiens are led by Jakub Dobes, who is 29-9-4 this season, with a 2.74 GAA.
The Lightning have been led all season by MVP candidate Nikita Kucherov, who leads the team with 130 points. He is the ninth player in NHL history to have consecutive seasons of 130-plus points.
Jake Guentzal is second with 88 points, followed by Brandon Hagel with 74 points.
Andrie Vasileviskiy in goal is having another Vezina-type season with a 39-15-4 record, a 2.31 GAA, and a save percentage of .912.
These two teams have played each other four times in the playoffs, with the Lightning holding a 3-1 series advantage.
Most recently, these two teams met in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, in which the Lightning defeated the Canadiens four games to one to win their second consecutive Stanley Cup.
Tampa also swept Montreal in the 2004 conference semi-finals en route to winning the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
Montreal then swept Tampa Bay in the 2014 first round of the playoffs, but the Lightning got revenge in the 2015 post-season, eliminating Montreal in six games in the second round.
This matchup has the potential to be one of the more entertaining series in the opening round. It features the star power of Nikita Kucherov, a contrast in playing styles, and a great playoff storyline: a seasoned contender in the Tampa Bay Lightning, trying to hold off the rising Montreal Canadiens
If Tampa Bay executes its game plan and Vasilevskiy plays to his standard, the Lightning should advance. But if Tampa allows Montreal to dictate tempo and capitalize on its speed, this series could become much tighter and far more unpredictable than expected.
I’m taking the Lightning to win the series in six games.
