It's the Tampa Bay Lightning vs. the Montreal Canadiens in the 2021 Stanley Cup Final. Just like we all expected, right?
I guess it has to be this way, with the Canadiens once again massive underdogs. If the New York Islanders had squeaked through against the Lightning, it wouldn't have looked like such a lopsided matchup.
And even though these two teams haven't played each other in a year, there's plenty of familiarity thanks to their roots in the Atlantic Division. In 105 all-time regular-season games, the Lightning are 51-38-6-10 and the Canadiens are 48-43-6-8.
I love how loser points allow both teams to have winning records! I guess the bottom line is that Tampa Bay has gotten 112 points off of Montreal, while the Habs have gotten 104 off the Bolts.
That's pretty even, all things considered. By comparison, Montreal is 93-28-13-7 in 141 games all-time against the Canucks, while Tampa Bay is 15-17-2-3 in 37 games.
Tampa Bay and Montreal have previously faced each other three times in the playoffs. The Lightning swept the Habs in the second round in 2004, on their way to the Cup. Then, they got swept in Round 1 in 2014, before the Habs beat the Bruins and lost to the Rangers in the Eastern Conference Final. One season later, when Carey Price swept the NHL Awards with Hart and Pearson wins as well as the Vezina and Jennings Trophies, the Lightning beat Montreal in six games in Round 2 on their way to the a loss to Chicago in the Stanley Cup Final.
If you look at the two teams' most recent matchups, the story is pretty clear. The Lightning went 4-0 against the Canadiens in the 2019-20 season, including a 4-0 shutout win a week before the season was shut down.
That's a contrast from Montreal's performances that year against their earlier playoff opponents: Toronto (3-0-0), Winnipeg (1-1-0) and Vegas (2-0-0). But this is also a very different Canadiens team from what Tampa Bay might remember.
The Lightning haven't made many changes to their roster since the Covid shutdown. Now, they've got David Savard and Ross Colton; when they last played Montreal on March 5, 2020, their lineup included now-departed Kevin Shattenkirk and Zach Bogosian as well as Mitchell Stephens, who saw seven games of playoff action last year but has been a Black Ace so far this season.
Meanwhile, Montreal's roster from that game on March 5, 2020 included Max Domi, Dale Weise, Karl Alzner, Christian Folin, Lukas Vejdemo, Jordan Weal, Charles Hudon, Xavier Ouellet, Brett Kulak and backup goalie Charlie Lindgren.
Vejdemo, Ouellet, Kulak and Lindgren are with the Canadiens as Black Aces during the playoffs, and Weal played with the Laval Rocket this season. Weise, Alzner, Folin and Hudon were all out of the NHL this season and Domi, of course, was traded for Josh Anderson.
As well as Anderson, the other new faces on Montreal's playoff roster this year are Eric Staal, Cole Caufield, Jon Merrill, Erik Gustafsson, Joel Edmundson, Tyler Toffoli, Corey Perry and Jake Allen. And the coaching staff, as well. Luke Richardson signed on as an assistant with Claude Julien in 2017 and Dominique Ducharme joined in 2018. But when he moved up to the head-coaching position in March, he also elevated Alex Burrows from Laval, particularly for help with the power play.
The Canadiens started the playoffs ice cold with the man advantage. It took till Game 6 against Toronto before they finally connected on the power play but since then, they've been solid. All told, they're 9-for-43 with the man advantage, for a 20.2% success rate. Take out those first five games, and the rate goes up to 9-for-29, or 31%.
Even more remarkably, Montreal hasn't given up a power-play goal since Game 4 against Toronto. Their penalty kill has been perfect for 13 straight games. And it's not just 43-for-46 in the playoffs, for a league-leading 93.5% kill rate. They've also scored four shorthanded goals, so their goal differential while shorthanded is actually plus-one!
The Lightning, of course, have a lethal power play that's gone 20-for-53 in the playoffs so far, for 37.7%. But they slowed down against the Islanders, going 5-for-17, and three of those goals came in the 8-0 blowout win. That's 29.4% in the last series, and Montreal wasn't far behind — 3-for-11 in six games against Vegas, for 27.3%.
The point of this lengthy preamble is that special teams could be the story in this series. And Burrows and the Canadiens do have a chance at winning that battle, especially if Nikita Kucherov isn't at 100%. Seventeen of his playoff-leading 27 points have come with the man advantage.
As for one-time Canuck Tyler Toffoli, he's still Montreal's leading scorer, with 14 points in 17 games. But his eight-game playoff point streak came to an end in Game 3 against Vegas, and Montreal's offense really has been coming by committee.
Toffoli's five goals tie him for the team lead with three other players — Nick Suzuki, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Joel Armia. And his two game-winning goals now tie him with two other Habs players — Paul Byron and Artturi Lehkonen.
Now's as good a time as any to also mention what longtime reader Charlene Fairchild reminded me about as the Montreal/Vegas series began — that Habs' mastermind Marc Bergevin was also once a member of the Canucks and, in fact, retired after his brief stint in Vancouver.
The well-travelled defenseman — and notorious practical joker, in his playing days — was acquired by then-GM Brian Burke from Pittsburgh in exchange for a seventh-round draft pick at the trade deadline on March 9, 2004 — the day after the notorious Todd Bertuzzi/Steve Moore incident.
It's incredible to think that, after everything that went on in that game against the Avalanche, Burke was still required to make deadline moves — before noon local time — to try to help a team that had the West Coast Express at the peak of their powers and was seen as a legitimate Stanley Cup Contender.
And give him credit — Burke was busy!
That day, in addition to Bergevin,
Burke also acquired forward Martin Rucinsky from the New York Rangers in exchange for the rights to holdout R.J. Umberger and depth defenseman Martin Grenier. He also picked up minor-league winger Sergei Varlamov from St. Louis, in exchange for minor-league winger Ryan Ready. And he re-acquired speedy winger Geoff Sanderson for his second stint in Vancouver, in exchange for a third-round draft pick.
Of course, it was basically all for naught. The Canucks finished as the third seed in the Western Conference, setting up a date with the sixth-seeded Calgary Flames. And after Brendan Morrison kept the Canucks alive in Calgary with his triple-overtime game-winner in Game 6 and Matt Cooke scored two third-period goals to keep the Canucks alive in Game 7, Martin Gelinas delivered the dagger for the Flames at 1:25 of overtime, launching his team on a run that ended in Game 7 against the Lightning in the 2004 Stanley Cup Final.
A lot of people thought the
Flames got jobbed in that series. Now, Bergevin and company have a chance to avenge that wrong as they try to become the first Canadian team in 28 years to hoist the Stanley Cup.
As for Burke — it turned out to be his last trade deadline with Vancouver. Two weeks after the Canucks lost to Calgary, he was replaced by Dave Nonis as general manager. By the time NHL got back to business after the 2004-05 lockout, the West Coast Express magic had faded.
Bergevin played nine regular-season and three playoff games for the Canucks before hanging up his skates for good after 1,191 career NHL games. He was also an original member of the Lightning, skating with the organization for its first three seasons before he was traded to Detroit during the summer of 1995.
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