KEYS TO THE GAME<\/p>\n
Weather the storm<\/p>\n
Down a game on home ice, expect Tampa to come out flying in Game 2. For Montreal, the key will be surviving that early push: get through the opening minutes, hit the first TV timeout, and settle in. Scoring first has been a winning formula all season for the Habs, who posted 32 wins when opening the scoring, good for seventh in the NHL.<\/p>\n
Discipline, discipline, discipline<\/p>\n
Neither side had much of it in Game 1. Montreal capitalized\u2014thanks in large part to Juraj Slafkovsky\u2019s hat trick\u2014but they also saw how quickly things can swing the other way. Handing a power play like Tampa\u2019s five opportunities is playing with fire. If the Canadiens want to stay in control, this area needs to be cleaned up.<\/p>\n
Rinse, repeat<\/p>\n
There isn\u2019t much Montreal needs to overhaul from Game 1. More five-on-five offense? Sure. Fewer penalties? Absolutely. But overall, the foundation was strong. The Habs controlled 69% of MoneyPuck\u2019s deserve-to-win metric and generated eight high-danger chances at even strength, compared to just one for Tampa. Stay the course, with a few tweaks.<\/p>\n
HEAD-TO-HEAD<\/p>\n
Regular season<\/p>\n
Dec. 9 vs. TBL: 6-1 TBL<\/p>\n
Dec. 28 @ TBL: 5-4 TBL (SO)<\/p>\n
Mar. 31 @ TBL: 4-1 MTL<\/p>\n
Apr. 9 vs. TBL: 2-1 MTL<\/p>\n
Playoffs<\/p>\n
Game 1 | Apr. 19 @ TBL: 4-3 MTL (OT)\u00a0<\/p>\n
PLAYERS TO WATCH FOR<\/p>\n
To know playoff Josh Anderson is to love playoff Josh Anderson. He set the tone in Game 1, opening Montreal\u2019s postseason scoring and nearly adding another before it was waved off for a high stick.<\/p>\n
At the other end, Brandon Hagel drove the Lightning\u2019s attack. Skating alongside Jake Guentzel and Anthony Cirelli, he struck twice in over 25 minutes of ice time and was a noticeable presence throughout the contest.<\/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":"KEYS TO THE GAME Weather the storm Down a game on home ice, expect Tampa to come out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618854,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":{"0":"post-618853","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\/618853","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=618853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}