Lightning are better than Canadiens on paper – but hockey isn’t played on paper
With just a couple days left in the NHL’s regular season, the matchups for the first round of the 2026 Stanley Cup playoffs are almost completely set. The Eastern Conference in particular will be providing some juicy offerings, including the Pittsburgh Penguins against the Philadelphia Flyers and the Buffalo Sabres against the Boston Bruins. Perhaps most intriguing, though, will be the Atlantic Division showdown between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Montreal Canadiens.
Tampa Bay comes in with all the experience you could ask for, as their core of Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, Victor Hedman (when he returns), and goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy boast Stanley Cup championship pedigree. Montreal, on the other hand, are the upstarts, as their young core of Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Ivan Demidov, Juraj Slafkovsky, and Lane Hutson hope to be kickstarting a prosperous era of Canadiens hockey. This series will either be a reassertion of the old guard, or a metaphorical passing of the torch.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Steve Peters joined hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Colby Cohen to break down the first-round matchup between the Lightning and Canadiens.
Colby Cohen: I think that Montreal-Tampa series has all the keys to being an electric series. These teams, while they can both go offensively, there are some pretty big, stark differences in playoff experience, maybe sandpaper. Everybody’s probably picking Tampa, and rightfully so. What would it take for Montreal to get through Tampa and take that next step in the rebuild of not just being the team that has to learn to win by losing early in the playoffs?
Steve Peters: The concern for me about Montreal right now is their depth. When both teams are fully healthy, which is a huge problem for Tampa right now, Tampa is deeper, they have just as much high-powered skill as we talk about with Montreal and their speed and pace. Tampa has that, but with experience. I think if both teams are healthy, on paper, this is a Tampa team that should be able to get past Montreal. The problem is, they don’t play it on paper, they play it on ice. Without Hedman in the lineup, and who knows if he will return, I think Tampa’s going into this year’s playoffs like they did last year. This is a team that was better than Florida throughout the regular season a year ago, they get into the playoffs injured, played through those injuries and they couldn’t get over the Florida Panthers. I think that’s what you’re seeing in Tampa right now. I think injuries have been a big problem.
They’re third in goals against for the regular season, but since the Olympic break, they’re 23rd in goals against. That’s the bottom third of the league. When you look at Montreal’s goals against since the Olympic break, it’s eighth. They’re opposites in terms of how they’re protecting and defending in front of the net, something that you think Tampa is so much better at than Montreal, but that’s not the case. For Montreal to win this, they’re better off in a track meet. Let’s get the speed going, let’s create turnovers through the neutral zone, let’s get our speedy defensemen getting the puck up to out speedy forwards in our top six, and let’s make this a shootout race.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Wednesday’s episode here…