The Stanley Cup Playoffs continue all week long after an excellent start over the weekend.
The playoffs have already delivered some chaos: the Buffalo Sabres stormed back late to stun the Boston Bruins, the Montreal Canadiens won Game 1 against the Tampa Bay Lightning in overtime thanks to a hat trick from Juraj Slafkovsky, and the Minnesota Wild crushed the Dallas Stars early just to remind everyone brackets aren’t set in stone. Meanwhile, the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights ...
There were a couple of unwelcome regular season trends that carried over to the postseason in the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Game One loss to the Montreal Canadiens. The Lightning were behind early. They came back to tie the Habs late, only to give up the go-ahead, and in this case, game-winning goal. The most unwelcome continuing trend was a Lightning player leaving the game early due to an injury.
Last night it was defenseman Charle-Edouar D’Astous who only played 9:35, leaving the game in t...
The Tampa Bay Lightning played in three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals in 2020-2022. The Florida Panthers followed that up with three appearances of their own in 2023-25 and the Edmonton Oilers’ quest for a third consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearance begins tonight against a young, fast, and inexperienced Anaheim Ducks club. The 82-game regular season…
The underdog Montreal Canadiens were in Florida on Sunday night to start their playoff series with the Tampa Bay Lightning. The game had all of the intensity that their final regular season meeting suggested the series would eventually have, culminating in an overtime thriller. The Habs’ mission in going to Tampa was clear; try to take at least one of the two games and get a split before going back to Montreal. Not only did they accomplish that mission in game one, they have a chance to make i...
It’s not easy to sit down and answer questions fifteen minutes after losing a Stanley Cup playoff game. Heck, it’s not easy doing it after a win. Luckily, Coach Jon Cooper has a quite a bit of experience of doing both. Following the Lightning’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens, here is what he had to say to the media:
When asked if had a problem with the penalties and the way the Lightning approached the game, he chuckled and replied,
“No, I had a problem with us....
The Lightning deserve to lose this game just for picking that singer for O Canada.
First period
With the arena about as loud as when the Canadiens introduce their training camp in the home-opener, the puck drops in Game 1.
A collision between Arber Xhekaj and Dominic James sends the Lightning forward to the ice writhing in pain. It looks like Tampa Bay is down to 11 forwards early.
The Canadiens leave the slot completely abandoned and left Erik Cernak step up to the has...
2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs – Eastern Conference QFs
Game 1: Montreal Canadiens (A3) @ Tampa Bay Lightning (A2)
Start time: **5:45 PM EDT / 2:45 PM PDT** In Canada: CBC, Sportsnet (English), TVA Sports (French) In the United States: TNT, truTV In the Lightning region: The Spot Streaming: HBO Max , Sportsnet+
After 82 games, the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning each had 106 points, ranking fifth and sixth in the overall NHL standings. Their reward for such impressiv...
Matt Drake, Jared Book, and Patrik Bexell join the podcast for a round table ahead of the upcoming Stanley Cup Playoffs series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Montreal Canadiens. The first thing that is being discussed is the physicality of the series and the fact that Montreal looks to be in a better position to handle it this season compared to last season’s series against the Washington Capitals.
One of the key themes early in the podcast was the uncertainty around Victor Hedma...
Game One: Montreal Canadiens (0-0) at Tampa Bay Lightning (0-0)
Time: 5:45 PM EST
Location: Benchmark International Arena, Tampa, Florida
TV/Stream/Radio: The Spot, TNT, HBOMax, TruTV, ESPN+, 102.5 FM, Lightning App
Odds: Lightning -185
Know the Opponents: Habs Eyes on the Prize
The previews are done . We’ve talked all we can on how we think this series is going to go, and now it’s time for the action on the ice. After a long, fairly successful season that had a f...
COLORADO AVALANCHE vs. LOS ANGELES KINGS
WHEN: 3 p.m. ET
WHERE: Ball Arena – Denver, CO
SEASON SERIES: Colorado won 3-0
ON THE TUBE: TNT
PROJECTED STARTERS: Avalanche: Wedgewood (31-6-6 .921 / 2.02 4SO) Kings: Forsberg (16-12-5 .910 / 2.57 3SO)
PLAYER STATS: Colorado / Los Angeles
TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING vs. MONTREAL CANADIENS
WHEN: 5:45 p.m. ET
WHERE: Benchmark International Arena – Tampa, FL...
2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs – Eastern Conference QFs
Game 1: Montreal Canadiens (A3) @ Tampa Bay Lightning (A2)
Start time: **5:45 PM EDT / 2:45 PM PDT** In Canada: CBC, Sportsnet (English), TVA Sports (French) In the United States: TNT, truTV In the Lightning region: The Spot Streaming: HBO Max , Sportsnet+
After a rough start to the 2024-25 season, the Canadiens had to exhaust their energy reserves over the final third of the season just to make the playoffs. It took winni...
On Friday, the Tampa Bay Lightning did something they haven’t done for almost an entire month – had a long, almost fully attended practice. Due to the compressed nature of the schedule at the end of the season, the deluge of injuries both major and minor, and a coach that favors rest for his veterans over ice time, the Lightning really haven’t had a full fledged practice session since shortly after the Olympic Break.
The most encouraging part of the day was that everybody was on the ice. ...
With the final regular season games concluding late Thursday night (and having a bearing on the final Western Conference seedings) the NHL’s first round schedule took a little while to complete. In the wee early hours of Friday morning, it finally dropped. Along with the other fourteen teams left competing, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens finally learned exactly when they’ll be competing against each other over the next two weeks.
For those of you in the Tampa area who feel...
After the Buffalo Sabres clinched the Atlantic Division on Monday night, the only thing left to determine was where the first-round series between the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning would start. With Montreal’s loss on Tuesday night in Philadelphia, Tampa Bay secured the second seed in the division, and gets to play the opening two games, and Game 7 if it reaches that point, at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Florida.
The NHL released the full schedule for the series, ...
Despite the match-ups not being entirely set as the Western Conference is coming down to their final game for seedings, the NHL has released the dates (but not all of the times) for the opening games of the first-round playoff series.
The 2026 #StanleyCup Playoffs begin Saturday!
The one guarantee this year: There will be a new champion.
Tune in on /ESPN, /NHL_On_TNT, /Sportsnet and /TVASports. Full schedule to be announced after all First Round matchups are set later tonight.
Details...
The Rangers won their final game, moved to fourth in draft lottery odds, and gave us one last reminder of why this year was so hard to watch.
We could spend the next 1,000 words breaking down the action of the Tampa Bay Lightning’s 4-2 loss to the New York Rangers in the final game of the regular season. However, nothing structurally or strategically from tonight’s defeat will carry forward into the playoffs. Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, J.J. Moser, Ryan McDonagh, and Andrei Vasilevskiy were high-priced fans for the night. The loss didn’t hurt the Lightning and the win didn’t help the Rangers. So, it was meaningles...
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Game Eighty-Two : New York Rangers (33-39-9) at Tampa Bay Lightning (50-25-6)
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Benchmark International Arena, Tampa – The site of Wayne Gretzky’s final All-Star Game (he had a goal and an assist). Question – who was the Lightning’s All-Star that season?
TV/Stream/Radio: The Spot, MSG, TVAS2, ESPN+, 102.5 FM, Lightning App
Odds: Lightning -115
Know the Opponents: Blue Shirt Banter
Look at that. We’ve made it to the end of the season. It t...
With the Montreal Canadiens losing (in regulation) their final game of the regular season, the Tampa Bay Lightning have secured home ice in their first-round match-up that starts this weekend. Is that a good thing? After all, this is a team that is 1-7 at home during their last three playoff series. In case you were wondering, yes, they lost all three of those series.
What’s been even more frustrating is that the Lightning had been very, very good at home during the regular season. Over t...
The NHL's unrestricted free agent market this summer will be.. well, pretty restricted . With so many of the big-name extensions being signed by notable pending UFAs already this season, that leaves only a couple of high-end names to have the market all to themselves. At forward, it's Alex Tuch of the Buffalo Sabres. And on defense, it's all coming up Darren Raddysh. The Tampa Bay Lightning 's surprising breakout 30-year-old had a year that no one would have dreamed of coming into the se...
It took 81 games to find an opponent this year, but after the Tampa Bay Lightning’s overtime win against the Detroit Red Wings, and the Buffalo Sabres’ regulation win against the Chicago Blackhawks, the playoff match-ups are set. Well, at least for the Lightning. Since Buffalo won in regulation, they hold the tiebreaker over Tampa Bay and clinched the Atlantic Division. So that means the Lightning and Montreal Canadiens will face-off in the playoffs for the fifth time in history.
While th...
It’s the next to last game of the season and that can mean only one thing – haiku recap time.
Like moss clings to stone
So do hopes for a title
Bolts in overtime win
The Goals
David Perron [13] (JT Compher, Ben Chiarot) 1-0 Red Wings
Conor Geekie [1] (Oliver Bjorkstrand) 1-1
Erik Cernak [3] (Ryan McDonagh, Zemgus Girgensons) 2-1 Lightning
Jake Guentzel [38] (Nikita Kucherov, J.J. Moser) 3-1 Lightning
Marco Ka...
Well, this sucks.
The margins in this league are tight. I wrote a post over the weekend fantasizing over the idea that the Islanders could ride their late-season New Coach Bump to a win over Ottawa. Had that happened, and had the Red Wings held on to one of their many one-goal leads over the Devils, we’d be in business right now. Ottawa lost to New Jersey last night, so had the hockey gods felt differently, we could be looking at a two-point gap, with a game in a hand, and some control ov...
Game Eighty-One: Detroit Red Wings (41-30-9) at Tampa Bay Lightning (49-25-6)
Time: 7:00 PM EST
Location: Benchmark International Arena, Tampa – Where the arena DJ once played “Don’t Stop Believing” after the Lightning beat the Red Wings in a playoff game and some folks got really mad about it.
TV/Stream/Radio: The Spot, FDSNDET, ESPN+, 102.5 FM, Lightning App
Odds: Lightning -200
Know the Opponents: Winging it in Motown
For the first time in what seems like forev...