The first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs features a rematch from the 2021 Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n
Odd as it might be to recall, a pandemic-impacted, 56-game season concluded with the defending-champion Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> downing the Montreal Canadiens<\/a> \u2014 the worst team, by record, to make the 2021 playoffs \u2014 in five games to claim a second straight title.\u00a0<\/p>\n The two teams took drastically different routes to this next encounter, with Tampa remaining on Excellence Street, while the Canadiens \u2014 who ostensibly lost Shea Weber and Carey Price forever after that trip to the final \u2014 executed a full-scale rebuild that\u2019s already producing a second straight playoff appearance.<\/p>\n As for Tampa, while the club has remained one of the league\u2019s best, the Bolts haven\u2019t won a playoff round since advancing to their third straight final in 2022. It\u2019s unfair to say we\u2019re at now-or-never time for this core, but some fingers and toes must be anxiously tapping in T-Bay as coach Jon Cooper and Co. try to find a way back to the top of the mountain.<\/p>\n Or, at least, to a much higher elevation than they\u2019ve been scaling the past three springs.<\/p>\n While these two teams have been in wildly different spots the past handful of years, they put together similarly impressive campaigns in 2025-26. In fact, this clash \u2014 the 2-3 battle in the Atlantic, with Tampa holding home-ice advantage \u2014 is a meeting of clubs with the fifth- and sixth-best records in the entire NHL.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, despite a wide gap in terms of playoff pedigree between the squads, the young Habs \u2014 coached by Bolts legend Martin St. Louis \u2014 and savvy Lightning could produce an extremely close first-round series.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tampa Bay: 2-2-0 Lighting X-factor: Health\u00a0<\/p>\n Are they finally healthy, at just the right time? Key Bolts like Anthony Cirelli<\/a>, Brayden Point<\/a>, Brandon Hagel<\/a> and Darren Raddysh all missed at least 10 games this year, while defenceman Ryan McDonagh missed close to half the schedule. Captain Victor Hemdan, who\u2019s been on personal leave since late March, played well under half the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if Hedman is unable to return for Game 1, Tampa\u2019s roster is in a much better spot than it has been for large chunks of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Canadiens X-factor: Depth of scoring\u00a0<\/p>\n How much offence can Montreal get from lines that aren\u2019t the top one? The second line, in particular, has struggled to produce when Juraj Slafkovsky joins Nick Suzuki<\/a> and 50-goal man Cole Caufield<\/a> on the top trio. Really, the only guy who\u2019s been on the second line all year is Ivan Demidov<\/a> and, good as he is, Demidov is a rookie who needs support. If Alex Newhook<\/a> \u2014 who missed a huge chunk of time with a fractured ankle \u2014 can continue his strong late-season play as a speedy 2C, maybe Montreal can hit on something that supports the big boys.<\/p>\n ADVANCED STATS Quick, which team led the league in penalty minutes this season? Certainly not the Lightning team which has built a winning legacy this century with skill and smarts, right?\u00a0<\/p>\n As you\u2019ve surely guessed by now, there\u2019s more backstreet brawler to the Bolts than you might initially imagine, with Tampa racking up more PIMs than any team in the league this year. Hey, when you face \u2014 and lose to \u2014 the notoriously unpleasant Florida Panthers as the Lighting have in each of the past two first rounds, eventually you develop some pugilistic tendencies of your own.\u00a0<\/p>\n If Tampa was already inclined to enter the post-season prepared to put their thumb in someone\u2019s eye, playing the Canadiens might stoke the instinct to make this a street fight. Montreal, of course, is nobody\u2019s idea of a mean team and the Lightning may think they can have their way with small stars like Caufield and Lane Hutson.<\/p>\n Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> is a slam-dunk Hall-of-Famer. That said, he\u2019s 4-12 in his past three series with an .882 save percentage. That\u2019s a long way from the Conn Smythe performance \u201cVasy\u201d threw down the year Tampa beat Montreal in the final, when he had a .937 SV% in 23 games. In fact, during the team\u2019s three consecutive runs to the final from \u201920 to \u201922, Vasilevskiy had a .928 in 71 post-season contests. He doesn\u2019t have to be\u00a0that\u00a0good, but the big Russian needs to improve on what we\u2019ve seen in each of the past three springs.\u00a0<\/p>\n This is a preview of a series between Tampa and Montreal, but we\u2019re going to bring up the Panthers one more time. It\u2019s hard to shake the feeling there\u2019s a lane here for Tampa to make a run with Florida \u2014 almost sure to return, rested and mean as ever next spring \u2014 not in the mix this year. Again, it\u2019s not as though the clock is about to strike midnight on this iteration of the Bolts, but they\u2019ve got a kick at it here with Nikita Kucherov<\/a> still at the sky-high top of his offensive game and a bunch of key players aged about 28 to 32. Put it this way; if the first-round exits at the hands of Florida the past two springs hurt, losing an opening-round series to a club that \u2014 good as it is \u2014 likely won\u2019t peak for a couple years would be a severe gut punch.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Canadiens rookie battery of Jakub Dobes<\/a> and Jacob Fowler<\/a> have roughly 145 minutes of career NHL playoff experience, with all of them belonging to Dobes from last year\u2019s five-game loss to the Washington Capitals. Goaltending became a big subplot for Montreal this season when incumbent starter Sam Montembeault completely lost his game and never got it back.<\/p>\n However, since play resumed after the Olympic break, Dobes\u2019 .916 save percentage is the third-best mark in the league among goalies with 15 appearances and he was especially stellar in March and early April, posting a .925 SV% in a dozen outings while the Canadiens solidified their playoff spot in a tough Eastern Conference fight. If Dobes, 24, falters, Fowler is the rare 21-year-old who might be able to handle the post-season heat. One of the top young goalies in hockey, Fowler has shown himself to be a capable, calm stopper when given the chance this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Coach Martin St. Louis has interesting decisions to make at forward and defence, albeit for different reasons. On the back end, the Canadiens were dealt a tough blow when Noah Dobson<\/a> \u2014 a vital, right-shot defenceman for the team \u2014 got injured blocking a shot with his hand in Game No. 80. While there could be some gamesmanship given it\u2019s playoff time, Montreal said last weekend that he\u2019d be re-evaluated after two weeks, which basically takes the team through four playoff contests. Assuming another righty, Alexandre Carrier<\/a>, can return for Game 1, that leaves St. Louis looking at the likes of Arber Xhekaj<\/a>, recent AHL callup David Reinbacher and maybe even Adam Engstrom for a final spot on the blue line. Everyone brings something different, so the coach will have to decide which way to play it.<\/p>\n Up front, a handful of guys \u2014 Brendan Gallagher<\/a>, Joe Veleno, Zach Bolduc and Alexandre Texier<\/a> \u2014 have all taken turns being scratched from the lineup. Maybe the series will tell St. Louis how to fill out his lineup card, but the coach has some tough calls to make and could throw different looks at Tampa as the battle wages on.\u00a0<\/p>\n 3. What constitutes progress for Montreal?<\/p>\n As noted, the Canadiens have now made the post-season in two straight years and that fact alone could be seen as a win for a squad that still seemed elbow-deep in a rebuild about 15 months ago. Does Montreal, in its second spring fling, need to win a series to show progress? Alternatively, maybe a tight six- or seven-game loss to a heavyweight like Tampa would suffice as a sign this club continues to move in the right direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n What it really might come down to for the Canadiens is evaluating if the team, as currently constructed, has what it takes to thrive when the physicality takes a leap. Win or lose, will management leave the series thinking the core has what it takes to eventually make it work at this time of year or will they be left contemplating debilitating holes in the blueprint?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs features a rematch from the 2021 Stanley Cup Final.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":{"0":"post-608515","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-montreal"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608515","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=608515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Montreal: 2-1-1<\/p>\n
(5-on-5 totals from Natural Stat Trick)<\/p>\n