Lightning Challenge Habs at Montreal’s Bell Centre

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Lightning Challenge Habs at Montreal’s Bell Centre

The Tampa Bay Lightning has chosen to the most inopportune time of the season to play their worst hockey of the year. After being right around the top of the Eastern Conference standings for much of the season Tampa Bay has dropped like a stone in recent weeks and are trying to hang on to 5th place. The 6th place Montreal Canadiens are trying to catch Tampa Bay and improve their own postseason position. This game from the Bell Centre will be televised on Canada’s French language sports network Réseau des sports.

In the opinion of some hockey experts, Tampa Bay has been living on ‘borrowed time’ for much of the season. Early on they were able to outscore their opponents and mask their serious defensive liabilities with uptempo play and a barrage of goals led by budding superstar Steven Stamkos and versatile veteran Martin St. Louis. As the season has reached the stretch run, the Lightning are finding goals harder to come by as playoff hungry opponents ratchet down on defense. At the same time, the Bolts’ #22 ranked scoring defense has become a bigger issue. Of the 16 teams currently in a playoff position in the NHL only one has a negative differential between goals scored and goals allowed—you guessed it, it’s the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In terms of their style of play, the Montreal Canadiens are a diametric opposite of Tampa Bay. The Habs’ biggest problem this season has been scoring goals—they’ve been in the bottom ten of scoring offense for the entire season. On the other hand, they’re a very solid team defensively ranking in the top ten of scoring defense and getting excellent goaltending from Carey Price who is currently tied with Detroit’s Jimmy Howard and Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo for most wins by a goaltender.

As the NHL season draws to an end the style of play puts a premium on what the Canadiens do best—defense and goaltending. Montreal has won 7 of their last 9 games heading into a Tuesday home matchup against Washington. Not surprisingly, they’ve only gone OVER the total in 3 of their last 11 games. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, has lost 9 of their last 14 games. They’ve split their totals in that stretch with 7 OV and 7 UN.

The Canadiens beat the Lightning in Tampa on March 5 by a 4-2 margin and in our view this is just a bad tactical matchup for the visitors. The Lightning’s problem down the stretch has been their inability to play at their preferred tempo on most nights and that will be a huge issue against the stingy Habs. We look for a Montreal victory in this matchup in a game that stays UNDER the total.