Game preview and how to watch

Game 36: Montreal Canadiens @ Tampa Bay Lightning

Start time: **5:00 PM EST / 2:00 PM PST**
In Canada: TSN2 (English), RDS (French)
In the Panthers region: FanDuel Sports Network Sun
Streaming: ESPN+, RDS, TSN+

Yesterday’s win over the Florida Panthers was merely a bonus for the Canadiens. They’ll gladly take the two points and celebrate Jakub Dobes’s first NHL victory and shutout, but today’s game was always the focus. If the Canadiens want to make an improbable playoff push, a match at Amalie Arena versus the Tampa Bay Lightning is as important a game as a team can have in the first half of the NHL season. The gap from Montreal to a Lightning team sitting in the first wild-card spot is currently nine points. If that extends to 11, it will be extremely difficult for the Habs to make that up, leaving one path to a post-season berth as the final qualifier. If it’s reduced to seven, that’s achievable over the final 46 games.

The Lightning were expected to fall off this season, continuing a gradual downward trend since making it to the Stanley Cup Final for a third straight season in 2021-22. An aging roster had lost in the first round of the playoffs the previous two seasons. Last season, they were outscored 190-171 at five-on-five, relying on the league’s best power play (28.8%) and Steven Stamkos’s 19 goals n the man advantage to earn a post-season place. Despite a very public breakup between Stamkos and the Lightning this summer, Tampa Bay still has a top-three power play, and they are currently outscoring opponents 83-58 at full strength.

Jake Guentzel, the player brought in in free agency to replace Stamkos, has eight goals on the power play through 33 contests. More importantly, he has a five-on-five expected-goals share of 50.2%; Stamkos dropped down to 48.0% last year in that category in a four-year downward trend, which has since extended to five in Nashville where his mark is 44.6%. It seems general manager Julien BriseBois correctly identified the decline of his longtime captain, and has a better team in 2024-25 as a result.

The club has also seen the next stage in Anthony Cirelli’s progression. He has impressed enough to be a top-five vote-getter for the Selke Trophy twice in his career and annually receives at least one nod. This year his offence has reached a new level as he ranks as a point-per-game player, just 13 points off his career high of 45 points set last season. He will likely return to the top five in Selke voting again this year, and perhaps walk away with the award for the first time.

Tampa Bay is also seeing a bounceback from goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy. His .914 mark isn’t quite in the ,920 range it was in his early 20s, but it’s a significant improvement after he just pulled his percentage up to .900 to end last season. Tested with 721 shots so far this year, that upward tick in his performance means 10 more goals saved so far compared to what he would have stopped last season, a critical difference for a team in a wild-card chase.

Montreal hopes Samuel Montembeault can go save-for-save with the 2019 Vezina Trophy-winner — Martin St-Louis saved him for this game after all. The starter is currently at the .900 mark Vasilevskiy finished with in 2023-24, but since the Canadiens finally begin to figure out their defensive tactics in mid-November (going back the 3-0 loss in Minnesota on November 14), his efficiency is a more competitive .907. The team-wide in-season adjustment has seen the Canadiens go from allowing a league-worst 4.13 goals before that game in St. Paul to having a current season average of 3.49.

When you also factor in the jump in offence Montreal is seeing in recent weeks, up to just under three per game on the season, the deficit in their play has dropped from almost one-and-a-half goals each game to now just about half a goal surrendered more than they score over the full 35-game slate so far. Dating back to the November 14 game marking the start of their turnaround, Montreal has outscored opponents 58-56. It’s that level of performance that provides at least a sliver of hope that the Canadiens can keep climbing in the standings (they would jump over the New York Rangers and New York Islanders with a win today), and yesterday’s shutout of the Florida Panthers only boosts the players’ belief that they can make it happen.