{"id":602610,"date":"2026-04-14T03:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/602610\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T03:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T03:39:07","slug":"montreal-canadiens-to-face-tampa-bay-lightning-in-first-round-of-nhl-playoffs-with-home-ice-still-in-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/602610\/","title":{"rendered":"Montreal Canadiens to face Tampa Bay Lightning in first round of NHL playoffs with home ice still in play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">MONTREAL \u2014 A first-round NHL playoff matchup between the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/montreal-canadiens\/8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/montreal-canadiens\/8\" target=\"_blank\">Montreal Canadiens<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/tampa-bay-lightning\/14\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/tampa-bay-lightning\/14\" target=\"_blank\">Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> is officially set after the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/buffalo-sabres\/7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/buffalo-sabres\/7\" target=\"_blank\">Buffalo Sabres<\/a> clinched first place in the Atlantic Division on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Home-ice advantage, however, remains undecided with one regular-season game left for both teams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Tampa Bay (50-25-6) leapt into second place in the Atlantic on Monday after a 4-3 overtime win over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/detroit-red-wings\/17\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/detroit-red-wings\/17\" target=\"_blank\">Detroit Red Wings<\/a>, moving ahead of Montreal (48-23-10) with both teams tied at 106 points. The Canadiens sit third, with the Lightning holding the regulation-wins tiebreaker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Montreal closes its regular season Tuesday in Philadelphia, while Tampa Bay hosts the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/new-york-rangers\/3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/new-york-rangers\/3\" target=\"_blank\">New York Rangers<\/a> in its finale Wednesday. The playoffs begin Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The matchup marks a fifth playoff series between the two teams \u2014 and a rematch of the 2021 Stanley Cup final, won by the Lightning in five games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Montreal went 2-1-1 in the head-to-head meetings this season, including a pair of heated wins over Tampa Bay in the past two weeks. The Canadiens won 4-1 in Tampa on March 31 before handing the Lightning a 2-1 loss last Thursday in a game that featured 126 penalty minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 A first-round NHL playoff matchup between the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning is officially&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602611,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-602610","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\/602610","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=602610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602610\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}