{"id":238306,"date":"2026-04-19T23:37:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T23:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/238306\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T23:37:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T23:37:44","slug":"tampa-bay-lightning-host-montreal-canadiens-to-begin-their-2026-postseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/238306\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Lightning host Montreal Canadiens to begin their 2026 postseason"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The Tampa Bay Lightning have to beat one of the franchise\u2019s greatest players to get where they want to go.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Hall of Fame forward Martin St. Louis, whose No. 26 hangs in the rafters at Benchmark International Arena, leads the Montreal Canadiens against the Lightning in a <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/nhl-eastern-conference-playoffs-preview-c78caf2d3feb115edeb180da826bb2d7\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first-round series<\/a> that begins Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">St. Louis played 13 seasons for the Lightning and led the franchise to its first Stanley Cup title in 2004 when he won the Hart Trophy. He was the first player to have his number retired by the organization in 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">St. Louis took over as Montreal\u2019s head coach in 2022 so he\u2019s returned to Tampa Bay already as a visitor. But there\u2019s more at stake now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Canadiens are seeking their first Stanley Cup since 1993 and haven\u2019t won a playoff series since the Lightning beat them in the Cup Final in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tampa Bay has been eliminated in the first round three consecutive seasons since falling two wins shy of a three-peat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Both teams finished the regular season with 106 points. The Lightning earned the home-ice advantage in the series with 50 wins to Montreal\u2019s 48.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The Canadiens won two of the four regular-season meetings in regulation, including the last two by a combined score of 6-1.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WWSB. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 The Tampa Bay Lightning have to beat one of the franchise\u2019s greatest players to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238307,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[749,5526,5531,5529,5528,5530,5532,135,137,136,5527],"class_list":{"0":"post-238306","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breaking-news-video","10":"tag-live-speeches","11":"tag-live-updates","12":"tag-live-video","13":"tag-press-conference","14":"tag-real-time-coverage","15":"tag-tampa","16":"tag-tampa-headlines","17":"tag-tampa-news","18":"tag-video-updates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238306","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=238306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}