In many respects, no matchup better exemplifies the NHL’s impending changing of the guard than this one: A duel between the best of the Atlantic Division’s past and future.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are two-time Stanley Cup champions, have two other finals appearances and have consistently gone deep over the last decade. If everything goes according to plan, it’s exactly what the Montreal Canadiens hope their next decade looks like.
In order to begin that transition to an annual powerhouse, though, they first have to prove it. There’s no better measuring stick, past or present, in the East to do so than the Lightning.
The odds
It’s going to be a steep climb for the Canadiens to prove their bona fides as a contender. The Lightning have a ton of playoff pedigree and are arguably one of the league’s most complete teams. They start off with a massive edge in this series and roughly half the time, this series ends quickly in Tampa Bay’s favor.
Of course, this is Montreal we’re talking about. No team in the salary cap era has come close to replicating their upset magic. Whether it’s the 2010 version or the 2021 version that each knocked off two powerhouse teams, the Canadiens have an innate knack for defying the odds. That 2021 version lost to this very team in the Stanley Cup Final with similarly long odds stacked against them.
A 1-in-5 chance for the Canadiens is simply a measurement of how steep the hill in front of them is; no franchise better understands that it does not mean the team has no chance. Can the Canadiens defy the odds once again?
The numbers
The Lightning were going to be a tough opponent for any team to measure up to. But a plus-86 Net Rating is more than three times Montreal’s.
Roster strength is a big reason why. While the Canadiens are growing into a real contender, the Lightning’s roster is still star-studded, and that’s really tough to compete with.
Differences at five-on-five add some separation, too. The Lightning are fourth in the league with a 54.4 percent xG rate, and rank top-five in both expected goal creation and suppression, along with scoring rate. Tampa Bay’s goals against average is only seventh-best in the league, though that’s mostly a result of Jonas Johansson starts.
The Canadiens, on the other hand, are a bottom-10 team in xG rate this year and sit below break-even. Team defense has a lot to do with that, and it’s only become more pronounced since the Olympic break. Improved goaltending has helped cover that up, and the fact that this team does a lot with a little offensively. The Canadiens convert on a high rate of their chances, and a strong forecheck plus some dynamic puck-moving help support that.
Montreal’s power play scoring helps prop them up even higher. Tampa Bay’s, on paper, should be a threat, but hasn’t been consistent enough this year despite all of its firepower.
On the other end of the ice, the Lightning hold a short-handed edge from the regular season; pushing through that will be a test for Montreal. The Canadiens’ penalty kill is leakier in terms of chances against, but the goaltending has stood tall down the stretch, and that could help even the special teams battle.
The big question
Can Montreal’s elevated core hang with the Lightning?
The single biggest reason to believe in the Canadiens, whether in this series or over the next five years, is that they’ve got the top of their lineup figured out. We saw plenty of signs of it last spring, when they lost to the Washington Capitals in one of the more competitive five-game series you’ll ever see. This season, though, four of their foundational players — Cole Caufield, Lane Hutson, Juraj Slafkovský and Nick Suzuki — have all leveled up in one way or another.
(Obviously, Ivan Demidov is part of that foundation, and one day soon could lead the way. We’re leaving him out of this particular discussion only because he hasn’t yet hit the steepest part of his upward trajectory.)
Most conversations about Caufield start with his goal-scoring ability, and that’s for good reason. His Rocket Richard push fell short, but he still led the league (among players with at least 500 minutes played) in goals per 60 with 2.06. No real surprise there. He’s gotten there, though, by improving dramatically as a playmaker (he’s generating scoring chance assists at an elite level) and putting up some genuinely impactful defensive numbers: His 2.9 Defensive rating is in line with valuable all-defense bottom-sixers Nic Dowd and Beck Malenstyn.
That defensive number, in particular, is floated by Suzuki, who leads all forwards in Defensive Rating. Suzuki also hit the 100-point mark for the first time in his career. Having an elite finisher like Caufield on one wing helps, but it’s time to treat Montreal’s captain as a truly elite two-way center. He’s the odds-on favorite to win the Selke Trophy.
On Suzuki’s other wing is Slafkovský, a 30-goal scorer in his own right. He spent his second NHL season in 2024-25 adding two-way substance to his game. Now, placed in a more offensive environment, he’s producing at a first-line level. With those three on the ice together, Montreal controls 53 percent of the expected goal share and outscored opponents 33-14.
As for Hutson, he went from “future Norris Trophy finalist” to “should-be Norris Trophy finalist” in 12 months. His overall offensive impact is immense (he’s second in Offensive Rating to Evan Bouchard among defensemen league-wide), his defensive play is more than solid enough, and his closest comp at the moment is the 22-year-old version of Cale Makar. Hutson finished the season with the highest Net Rating among defensemen.
Their issue in this series, though, is twofold; the Lightning offer three even more impactful players at the top of their forward group in Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel and Jake Guentzel — and down the line, even if you believe Demidov vs. Brayden Point is a coin flip, Zack Bolduc vs. Anthony Cirelli is not. Beyond that, the Lightning’s best players haven’t just acquitted themselves well in a single short postseason series. They’ve dominated. Promising as the Canadiens may be, we can’t say they’ve done it until they’ve done it.
The X-factor
Can Andrei Vasilevskiy shake off a series of playoff failures?
When it came time last spring to pick our Stanley Cup champions, plenty of folks had the same idea: The Lightning were rolling and Vasilevskiy was, too. Here’s what we wrote ahead of the Lightning-Panthers series: “He leads the league’s starters in save percentage (.929) since the 4 Nations break and is sixth with more than 12 goals saved above expected. His play, maybe more than anything else about the Lightning, should concern the rest of the league.”
Vasilevskiy promptly put up an .873 save percentage and a negative GSAx in Tampa Bay’s five-game loss to Florida. Whoops. It was, in fact, the third consecutive playoff flameout for the future Hall of Famer: He went .875 in 2023 and .897 in 2024, and across all three years, he’s at .882 overall with a GSAx of negative-6.5. In that span, only Connor Hellebuyck and Stuart Skinner — two goalies who’ve taken their rightful share of postseason heat — have been worse.
The reason to believe in Vasilevskiy hasn’t changed. This is the same guy who, from 2020-22, won the Stanley Cup twice while putting up an incredible 52.1 GSAx over 71 games, 30 more than second place. He’s still only 31 and was one of the best goalies in the NHL in the regular season. Wondering whether he’s still capable of playoff dominance, though, is an increasingly fair question. For now.
The rosters
On paper, the Canadiens look overmatched across the board.
Their top forwards have grown incredibly over the last year to the point that Montreal’s top four guys are quickly starting to look Cup-caliber. The problem is that across the ice, the Lightning are in another stratosphere with one of the best top ends in the league led by MVP hopeful Nikita Kucherov. The difference in projected value: 30 goals.
Basically, all things might be equal here if Kucherov didn’t exist. He does, and that’s the difference after yet another marvelous season where he paced at 142 points. Not only that, he was the most dominant he’s ever been at five-on-five, outscoring opponents 86-47 with a 57 percent xG to boot. That will be a very difficult matchup for Montreal.
Just as big an issue, though, are the other ones. Forward depth is also massively in Tampa Bay’s favor, where the Lightning have a 25-goal edge. As fantastic as Montreal’s top line has been, the next three haven’t been nearly as effective, where Alex Texier is the only regular with an xG north of 50 percent … and he’s at 50.1 percent. Their only other forward with a points-per-game rate above 0.5 is Alex Newhook, one of the team’s weakest possession players.
That’s a significant pressure point for the Canadiens as currently constructed. They’re starting to build a championship core, but they’re not close to establishing a championship-caliber supporting cast.
That’s not the case with the Lightning, who are bringing their deepest team since winning the Cup five years ago. While it doesn’t necessarily show on the scoresheet, aside from Anthony Cirelli’s 52 points in 71 games, it does show up as a focal point of Tampa Bay’s defensive structure and possession game. Almost every other forward outside the team’s top four has won their minutes, and a majority of the depth have been incredibly stingy. Tampa Bay’s bottom six is tough to play against because they’re tough to score against.
The highlight of that is Tampa Bay’s shutdown line: Yanni Gourde centering Pontus Holmberg and Zemgus Girgensons. It’s that trio taking on tough minutes this season for Tampa Bay, and they’ve crushed that assignment, allowing just 1.96 xGA/60 and 1.94 GA/60. Among shutdown lines, only Ottawa and Dallas have a more effective trio. It’s a callback to Tampa Bay’s vaunted shutdown unit from the team’s back-to-back championships five years ago. While the wingers around Gourde have changed, the trio’s defensive aptitude remains with a similar effect on limiting chances.
That affords Tampa Bay’s top weapons a ton of offensive freedom, a luxury Montreal’s forwards don’t really have. Only Suzuki and Caufield can be reasonably depended on in that realm, whereas the Lightning have just one forward with a negative Defensive Rating. Montreal’s top line has to do it all, and while they do it well, they’ll have their hands full here in a way the Lightning’s top guys won’t have to worry about. It leaves Montreal feeling a little exposed when Suzuki isn’t on the ice.
That extends to the back end, where Tampa Bay’s depth advantage continues. Every defenseman on the Lightning has played like a true top-four option; it’s how the Lightning have been able to survive so many injuries. The way Moser and Raddysh have stepped up in matchup minutes has been massive, and Charle-Edouard D’Astous has been a revelation down the depth chart. If Victor Hedman is out any amount of time, the Lightning can handle the loss.
That’s probably not the case for Montreal. The Candiens have Hutson, the best defenseman in the series and a Norris hopeful, but beyond that it’s mostly middling — especially if Noah Dobson is out for the whole series. Montreal’s shutdown pair has been much improved with his addition and it’s scary to imagine whether Mike Matheson and whoever takes Hutson’s spot can handle Tampa Bay’s heat.
The loss of Dobson also means the Canadiens will have two liabilities in their lineup in Jayden Struble and Arber Xhekaj. Struble has been a fairly significant drag on Hutson’s on-ice numbers this season (just a 51 percent xG together), while Xhekaj’s 44.5 percent xG rate is among the worst on the team. Maybe David Reinbacher steps in and proves himself as a top-four option out of the gate, but that’s a tough ask for a rookie with two pro games under his belt. The loss of Dobson leaves a few too many holes on Montreal’s blue line.
That means asking a lot out of goaltender Jakub Dobes. He’s been lights-out since the Olympic break, saving 15.7 goals above expected in 15 games to rank third-best in the league. But he’s still fairly green and facing a goaltending legend on the other side whose track record speaks for itself — even if Vasilevskiy has been iffy in recent playoffs.
What it all boils down to is Montreal needing a large number of players to step up across the lineup. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but Tampa Bay’s combination of star power and depth are a tough matchup for a Montreal team whose stars don’t shine quite as bright and whose depth is a legitimate vulnerability.
The key matchup
Nikita Kucherov vs. Ivan Demidov
If the Canadiens are trying to follow Tampa Bay’s footsteps, the hope is Demidov can become the next Kucherov.
Demidov is a ways away from becoming a true MVP-caliber winger. Kucherov sets a high bar only a handful of forwards can match — it’s a best-case scenario. But the common thread is their cerebral style and elite playmaking.
Kucherov doesn’t play with explosive pace, but is still one of the best primary passers thanks to his methodical game. He’s in the upper echelon of scoring chance assists, with 11.2 per 60 at five-on-five, per AllThreeZones’ tracking. And his 3.49 high-danger assists per 60 are in a league of their own with Nathan MacKinnon this season.
Demidov’s passing already adds another level of danger to his teammates’ shots, which helps add some sustainability to a high on-ice shooting percentage. His 5.6 scoring chance assists per 60 is more than a promising start; he already stacks up well league-wide.
Demidov obviously isn’t there yet, but this first-hand look at Kucherov in Round 1 could be a preview of what’s to come.
The bottom line
There’s plenty to love, in the short and long term, about the Canadiens, but the Lightning are a tough draw. They’ve got Montreal beat in terms of both star power and depth, and should be viewed as a real threat to make a long, long run.
References
How these projections work
Understanding projection uncertainty
Resources
Evolving-Hockey
Natural Stat Trick
Hockey-Reference
NHL
All Three Zones Tracking by Corey Sznajder
