TEAM COMPARISONS<\/p>\n
Montreal entered the holiday break with a 10-3-4 road record, earning three of a possible four points with an overtime loss in Pittsburgh followed by a regulation win in Boston. Sitting second in the Atlantic Division and just two points back of Detroit for first place, the Canadiens will aim to start their five-game road trip on a positive note.<\/p>\n
Tampa, meanwhile, has already resumed play following the holiday break, earning a 4\u20132 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday night. With the Lightning skating on the second half of a back-to-back, the Canadiens will look to take advantage of the opportunity and flip the script from their previous meeting on December 9, when Tampa prevailed. Montreal enters the matchup intent on setting the tone and delivering a different result this time around.<\/p>\n
SEASON SERIES<\/p>\n
Dec. 9 vs. TBL: 6-1 TBL<\/p>\n
Dec. 28 @ TBL:<\/p>\n
Mar. 31 @ TBL:<\/p>\n
Apr. 9 vs. TBL:<\/p>\n
PLAYERS TO WATCH FOR<\/p>\n
Lane Hutson has been a driving force for Montreal of late, recording seven assists and a plus-eight rating over the team\u2019s last three games. Need we say more?<\/p>\n
As always, Nikita Kucherov remains a key player to watch for Tampa. The Lightning forward has totaled 47 points in 33 games this season and registered a goal and an assist in Tampa\u2019s decisive win over Montreal earlier this month, making him a focal point once again on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
BY THE NUMBERS: HABS-BOLTS<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how the Canadiens and Lightning match up by the numbers:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEAM COMPARISONS Montreal entered the holiday break with a 10-3-4 road record, earning three of a possible four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-373712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}