{"id":636953,"date":"2026-04-29T19:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/636953\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T19:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:26:08","slug":"3-things-to-watch-canadiens-at-lightning-game-5-of-eastern-conference-1st-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/636953\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Things to Watch: Canadiens at Lightning, Game 5 of Eastern Conference 1st Round"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA — Brendan Gallagher<\/a>\u00a0could make his 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs debut for the Montreal Canadiens in a crucial Game 5 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Benchmark International Arena, but Victor Hedman will still be out for the Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n

Gallagher, who has yet to play through the first four games of the best-of-7 series, was not on the ice with the scratches on Wednesday morning like he\u2019s been previously in the serious. Forward Oliver Kapanen<\/a> was, however, a sign that he could be replaced by Gallagher, who is expected to bring energy and sandpaper to the Montreal lineup.<\/p>\n

Should Gallagher see his first action in these playoffs, expect him to spend plenty of time creating havoc on the doorstep of Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a>. The Canadiens have not done a good job of creating traffic in front of the Tampa Bay goaltender, who Wednesday was\u00a0named as a finalist<\/a> for the Vezina Trophy as the NHL\u2019s top goaltender along with Ilya Sorokin<\/a> of the New York Islanders and Jeremy Swayman<\/a> of the Boston Bruins.<\/p>\n

Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis wasn\u2019t about to tip his hand regarding any possible lineup changes but did compliment Gallagher for what he brings to the table every time he does dress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt that, if he plays, he\u2019s going to give you everything he has,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cI think he does that every game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forward\u00a0Zachary Bolduc<\/a> said Gallagher brings a spark to the team, whether he\u2019s in the lineup or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been in the League and a Montreal\u00a0Canadien for so many years so it\u2019s fun to have him around,\u201d Bolduc said. \u201cHe\u2019s been good, even though he hasn\u2019t had the opportunity to play yet. He\u2019s been talking a lot with us, the younger guys and asking us \u201cWhat did you see out there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been great. We\u2019ll have to see if he\u2019s in the lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hedman, who has not played since March 19 and took a leave of absence from the team on March 25, was in the morning skate for Tampa Bay, but he remains out, coach Jon Cooper said.<\/p>\n

Gallagher is one of the few\u00a0Canadiens who have vast postseason experience, having played 76 playoff games. The Lightning do hold the edge in that category, with forward Nikita Kucherov<\/a>\u00a0(156) and Vasilevskiy (124) having extensive experience, but they also have players just getting their first taste of the postseason.<\/p>\n

“You talk about experience and yeah we have a core group that’s been around, but we’ve got a huge group…I can go through a list of guys that have never been in this environment,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cSo it’s hard to say we’re extremely experienced. Yeah we have\u00a0Corey Perry<\/a>, OK, super experienced. Ryan McDonagh<\/a>, super experienced. But you look down the line, (Emil) Lilleberg, (Max) Crozier and (Declan) Carlile and (Charle-Edouard) D’Astous and you can go through the list of guys that are just getting their feet wet in the league, let alone the playoffs.<\/p>\n

“But I do think that the core has had an ability to calm our guys down when we needed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a best-of-7 playoff round is tied 2-2, the Game 5 victor goes on to win the series nearly 80 percent of the time (239-62; .79.4 percent). That includes a 150-36 record for the home team and an 89-26 mark for the road team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA — Brendan Gallagher\u00a0could make his 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs debut for the Montreal Canadiens in a crucial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":636954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-636953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636953","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=636953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/636953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=636953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=636953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=636953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}