I’m expecting this to be a fantastic first round series in the Atlantic Division between the 2 seed Tampa Bay Lightning and the 3 seed Montreal Canadiens, who finished the season tied with 106 points and were both electric to watch this year.
These teams split their season series in the regular season this year. The Lightning dominated the first game on the road on December 9th, blowing out the Habs 6-1. In the second game in Tampa on December 28th, the Lightning got out to a 3-0 lead and blew that, with the Habs coming back with four goals in the third period to take it to a shootout before the Bolts won it 5-4 at home. Montreal answered back on the road on March 31st, stifling Tampa’s offense in a 4-1 win on the road, that was also tight, with the Habs scoring two empty netters to win it in a game they were outshot 37-23. In the last game between them on April 9th in Montreal, the Habs got a crazy tight win late. After shutting out Tampa until the last 1:51 of the game when Darren Raddysh tied it up, Juraj Slafkovsky answered back 47 seconds later to win it 2-1 at home.
The Lightning had a really good season without their state rival Panthers to really compete with this year, going 50-26-9, finishing with the tiebreaker for home ice over the Habs in the first round, three points back from my Sabres to win the Atlantic Division. They were a big team of runs this year, with multiple huge winning streaks and a handful of slumps. They’re my pick to win the East, but the price isn’t worth betting at +250.
Tampa very good this year on both ends of the ice. Offensively, they were fourth in scoring, trailing just the Avs, Canes, and Penguins, scoring an average of 3.49 goals per game on an average of 28.1 shots per game. They’ve generated the third-most expected goals per 60 minutes (3.43) in the NHL, only behind Colorado and Carolina and the fourth-most high danger shots in the league. The Bolts were pretty much average on the power play, ranking 17th, scoring at a 20.7% clip. Nikita Kucherov had a phenomenal season, leading the Lightning with 130 points, 44 goals, and 86 assists. Jake Guentzel (88 points, 38 goals, 50 assists), Brandon Hagel (74 points, 36 goals, 38 assists in 71 games), and Darren Raddysh (70 points, 22 goals, 48 assists playing defense in 73 games) also had great years for them.
Defensively the Lightning were very good as well, allowing an average of just 2.79 goals per game, the third-fewest in the NHL behind the Avs and Stars, on an average of 26.7 shots allowed per game. They’ve given up the ninth-fewest expected goals per 60 minutes (2.91) and the eighth-fewest high danger shots. The Stars had the third-best penalty kill unit in the NHL, killing them off at an 82.6% rate. Andrei Vasilevskiy’s one of the best goaltenders in the world and had a solid year again this season, going a league-leading 39-15-4, with a second-best 2.31 GAAA, a third-best .912 save percentage, and two shutouts.
The Habs were very good this year and a ton of fun to watch, with a lot of high-energy fun games. They finished the regular season tied with the Lightning in points with a 48-24-10 record, led by electric play by their young stars.
The Montreal offense was very good this season, scoring an average of 3.4 goals per game, the seventh-most in the NHL, on an average of 26.3 shots per game. They’ve generated the ninth-most expected goals per 60 minutes (3.21) and the 15th-most high danger shots in the league. On the power play the Habs were pretty good at 23.1%, ranking tenth in the league. The line of Nick Suzuki (101 points, 29 goals, 72 assists), Cole Caufield (88 points, 51 goals, 37 assists), and Juraj Slafkovsky (73 points, 30 goals, 43 assists) was the best in hockey this season and young star defenseman Lane Hutson added in 78 points and 66 assists from the blue line.
The Canadiens struggled on the back end this season. They allowed the an average of 3.06 goals per game, ranking 16th in the league on an average of 27.8 shots per game. They gave up the seventh-most expected goals (3.27) in the NHL per game and they gave up the third-most high danger shots. The goaltending was a struggle for them. Young goalie Jakub Dobes went 29-10-4 with a 2.78 GAA and .901 save percentage while Sam Montembeault went 10-8-4 in his back up role with a lousy 3.43 GAA, and .872 save percentage.
Like I said earlier in this, I like the Lightning to win the East, so of course I like them to win the series, but the price on this series feels insane to me at -250. I don’t think this is an easy series in the slightest for Tampa and that it’ll be hard to control that electric offense, especially with guys banged up for the Bolts. I just think Tampa’s offense will just overwhelm that bad back end play for Montreal and the Lightning have the best goalie in the playoffs, who has a ton of experience getting them two straight Cups. The price is just nuts though, giving value on Montreal. I like this series to go at least six games and I was going to take the over 5.5 games prop, but at -200, that’s too expensive. I’ll lay of any series plays in this one.
I like the overs in this series quite a bit. Both of these teams have great offenses that can score in bunches and with the Habs struggling on the back end and playing that run and gun style of offense, I expect high scoring games here. Both teams trended over this year, with the over going 40-37-5 in Lightning games and 45-34-3 in Canadiens games. The over did go 2-2 in the regular season between these teams though.
The player props for these teams have been pretty good and I’ll be looking at Nikita Kucherov, Jake Guentzel, Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, and Juraj Slafkovsky point props.
I like the Bolts to win Game 1 here at home and I’ll take them for a unit. I also like the over, which I’ll take for a unit as well. On the player props, I’ll parlay Nikita Kucherov, Jake Guentzel, Cole Caufield, and Nick Suzuki to each get a point for half a unit, along with a half unit each on Kucherov over 1.5 points and Slafkovsky over 0.5 point.
Game 1 Bets
1u Lightning ML (-185)
1u Lightning/Canadiens over 6.5 (-110)
.5u parlay: Nikita Kucherov/Jake Guentzel/Cole Caufield/Nick Suzuki point each (+174)
.5u Nikita Kucherov over 1.5 points (+120)
.5u Juraj Slafkovsky over 0.5 point (-140)
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