Canadiens vs. Lightning: It’s The Final Countdown

For the seventh and final time in the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs first-round, fans of the Montreal Canadiens and the Tampa Bay Lightning are waking up with one thought on their minds: can their team prevail in what has been an incredible series? There can only be one winner, and there’s never been a better example that the NHL’s playoff system is flawed. These two teams should never have met in the first round.

Tonight’s tilt will be the 202nd Game 7 in NHL history, and 118 times the home team has claimed the win, while the visitors have been victorious only 83 times, which doesn’t necessarily bode well for the Canadiens. However, Martin St-Louis’ men have been the third-best road team in the league this season, claiming 24 of their 48 wins away from the Bell Centre and two of their three wins in this series away from home.

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75% of the time, the team that scored first in a Game 7 has won the game: 151 wins and only 50 losses for the team that took the lead. In this current series between the Habs and the Bolts, five times out of six, the team that scored first won the game. It has never been more important to be ready right from puck drop.

The Lightning has played 10 Game 7s in its history and has won seven times, for a .700 winning percentage. When the ultimate game has been played at home, their record is 4-1. Meanwhile, the Canadiens have featured in 24 Game 7s and have a 15-9 record, for a .625 winning percentage. On the road, their record stands at 7-6 for a .538 winning percentage. With a win, the Canadiens would tie the Boston Bruins for most Game 7 wins in league history with 16.

23 of the players involved in this series have played in at least one Game 7 before; 13 play for Tampa Bay and 10 for Montreal. Only two Canadiens’ players have featured in more than one Game 7: Brendan Gallagher and Phillip Danault.

Six Canadiens players featured in the team’s last Game 7 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2021: Josh Anderson, Cole Caufield, Danault, Gallagher, Nick Suzuki, and Jake Evans. However, the player who scored the game-winning goal then, Corey Perry, now plays for the opponent.

Jakub Dobes will become the sixth Habs rookie goaltender to play a Game 7, joining an elite group formed of Carey Price, Patrick Roy, Steve Penney, Ken Dryden and Jacques Plante.

Meanwhile, Andrei Vasilevskiy, who completely shut the door on the Canadiens in Game 6, has played four Game 7s in his career and has a 2-2 record and could become just the third active goaltender, after Sergei Bobrovsky and Jake Oettinger, to record at least three wins in this kind of winner-take-all game.

Behind the bench, Jon Cooper could become the first bench boss in league history to win five Game 7s with the same franchise. The Bolts’ coach has a 4-2 record in these circumstances and could therefore break the tie he’s in with Bob Hartley, Tommy Ivan, Claude Julien and Darryl Sutter. As for Martin St-Louis, he has never been at the helm of a team in a Game 7, but he has a 6-2 record as a player and therefore knows what they are like.

According to multiple sources, Noah Dobson will play his first game in this series tonight, which brings the question of who will come out of the lineup for the Canadiens. Although Arber Xhekaj has made a couple of mistakes in Game 6, the physicality he brings to the game might give him the edge over Jayden Struble, especially since the Lightning’s players are starting to feel the pain of the physical toll of this series.

Montreal will not hold a morning skate today, but will hold a media availability around 11:00 AM. The chances of getting any lineup updates then are slim to none. Wes McCauley and Chris Rooney are set to officiate, while Scott Cherrey and Matt MacPherson will be the linemen. The game is set for 6:00 PM, and you can catch it on The Spot, HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, and CBC. Should the Canadiens come out on top, they would take on the Buffalo Sabres in the second round, with the series kicking off on Wednesday at 7:00 PM at the KeyBank Center.

Buckle up, Habs fans, you should be in for quite a ride.

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