Tampa Bay Lightning, Montreal Canadiens to meet in Round 1 of 2025-26 playoffs

Let’s get ready to rumble.

With the Buffalo Sabres clinching the top spot in the Atlantic Division on Monday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens will officially become dance partners in the first round of the 2025-26 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

This is going to be a very entertaining series. On one side, you have the Lightning coming up with a surprising resurgence. After seemingly being on a downward trend for the past couple of years, the wily group of veterans turned things around, looking like the team that made it to three straight Stanley Cup Finals earlier in the decade. Forward Nikita Kucherov has had a Hart Trophy-caliber season, sitting second in the league in scoring with 130 points, only trailing some guy named Connor McDavid. He, Jake Guentzel and (checks notes) Darren Raddysh have been producing throughout the year.

Tampa’s success has come with the absence of captain Victor Hedman. The Swedish defenseman has missed most of the year due to injury, but unsung players such as Charle-Edouard D’Astous and J.J. Moser have been picking up the slack.

The Canadiens are in the playoffs for the second year in a row, for the first time since 2013. While last year’s postseason appearance was eye-opening, this year’s squad in Montreal proved it belonged among the upper echelon of the Eastern Conference, despite falling out of contention for the division title throughout the second half of the season. Captain Nick Suzuki became the first Hab to reach the century mark since Mats Naslund 40 years ago, and is fifth in the NHL in scoring. Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky continued to be impressive, while Lane Hutson and Ivan Demidov are budding superstars.

The only question mark for Montreal in this series is goaltending. The team is going to have its hands full going up against Andrei Vasilevskiy, especially since no one knows who can truly match him. Rookie Jacob Fowler has been solid in his time this season, but he certainly doesn’t have the experience at this level. Then again, neither does Jakub Dobes, who, along with Fowler, has pushed Samuel Montembeault out of the picture.

The Canadiens won the season series against the Lightning, going 2-1-1 against Tampa.

Montreal and Tampa are no strangers to playoff hockey. This will be the fifth all-time meeting in the postseason. The Lightning have beaten the Habs three times, most recently in a gentlemen’s sweep in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final.