Tampa Bay and Montreal open the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Sunday at Benchmark International Arena, with the Canadiens starting their chase for the franchise’s 25th Stanley Cup. The matchup brings together a Montreal team that finished the regular season with momentum and a Lightning club that leaned on goaltending and enough scoring to survive a tight season series.
Montreal went 16-7-2 since the Olympic break and closed with an eight-game winning streak from March 21 to April 4. The Canadiens also traveled well, finishing 24-9-8 on the road and ranking second away from home with 3.50 goals per game while posting the NHL’s second-ranked road power play. Those numbers matter because Game 1 is away from home, where Montreal has been one of the league’s harder teams to handle.
The Canadiens also took the 2025-26 season series 2-1-1, even though Tampa Bay outscored them 12-11 across those four games. Juraj Slafkovsky was central to that edge. He had seven points in four games against the Lightning, with four goals and three assists, including a last-second equalizer in December and a late game-winner in April.
Tampa Bay enters with its own warning label. The Lightning were 13-12-2 since the February pause, a stretch that was steadier than dominant, and much of their outlook still runs through Andrei Vasilevskiy. He finished the season with a 2.31 goals-against average and a.912 save percentage, and his playoff resume is even stronger, with a 2.45 GAA and a.918 save percentage. If Montreal’s road pace and power play carry over, the series can tilt quickly. If Vasilevskiy settles in early, Game 1 could become the kind of tight playoff night Tampa Bay knows how to drag into the final minutes.
The one unresolved test is whether Montreal’s regular-season edge over Tampa Bay means anything once the puck drops and the margin shrinks. The Canadiens arrive with the better recent form and the better season series, but the Lightning have the goalie most capable of wiping that away in a single game.