The Canadiens aren\u2019t living off those recent glories either, especially because they lost the two earlier games in the season series by a combined score of 10-5. But they also know there are lessons to be learned there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s good for us to go back and look over some of that,\u201d Montreal forward Alex Newhook<\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cGames that meant a lot and with the potential of knowing we could play them down the stretch. We know what to expect. We know we are a good team, and we have to do what makes us successful in order to win this series.\u201d<\/p>\n The Canadiens went 2-1-1 against the Lightning this season, with forward Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a> leading the way with seven points (four goals, three assists) in those four games. Goalie Jakub Dobes<\/a>\u00a0went 2-1-0 with a 2.15 goals-against average and .928 save percentage in three starts.<\/p>\n Tampa Bay went 2-2-0 against Montreal. Forward Nikita Kucherov<\/a> was the leading scorer with five points (three goals, two assists) in those four games. Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a>\u00a0was 0-2-0 with a 2.07 GAA and .905 save percentage, and Jonas Johansson<\/a> was 2-0-0 with a 2.40 GAA and .919 save percentage.<\/p>\n But this is a new equation, one the Lightning have solved more than the Canadiens in recent memory.<\/p>\n The two teams have faced each other four times in the playoffs, most recently in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, which Tampa Bay won in five games.\u00a0<\/p>\n But, Montreal has only been to the playoffs once in the past four seasons, a first-round loss to the Washington Capitals last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Lightning have reached the playoffs nine straight seasons, losing to the Florida Panthers in the first round in each of the past two seasons. But before that, they won the Stanley Cup twice, in 2020 and 2021, reached another Final in 2022 and an Eastern Conference Final in 2018. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEvery year, whether you win or not, regardless of how far you go, you learn a little bit,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cHopefully we are a bit wiser than we were last year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis, who won the Cup as a player with the Lightning in 2004, knows the challenge his team faces is stiff, but it is one they must overcome to go on a long run.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhenever you are a young team and you are trying to win your first playoff series, I usually feel that takes you to the next level,\u201d St. Louis said. \u201cWe are going to have to do it against a very good, experienced Tampa team. What a great opportunity that is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Lightning have been led once again by Kucherov, who had 130 points (44 goals, 86 assists) in 76 games, the second-highest season point total in his 12-year NHL career (144 points; 44 goals, 100 assists in 2023-24). Forward Jake Guentzel<\/a>\u00a0is second with an NHL career-high 88 points (38 goals, 50 assists) in 81 games, forward Brandon Hagel<\/a>\u00a0is third with 74 points (36 goals, 38 assists) in 71 games, and defenseman Darren Raddysh<\/a>\u00a0is fourth with an NHL career-high 70 points (22 goals, 48 assists) in 73 games.<\/p>\n Vasilevskiy is 39-15-4 with a 2.31 GAA, .912 save percentage and two shutouts in 58 games (all starts) this season. He leads the NHL in wins and among goaltenders who have played at least 25 games, he ranks second in GAA and is tied for third in save percentage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Canadiens aren\u2019t living off those recent glories either, especially because they lost the two earlier games in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-235256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-tampa","9":"tag-tampa-headlines","10":"tag-tampa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}