In my humble opinion, the most evenly matched first-round Stanley Cup playoff series is the Eastern Conference matchup featuring the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa Bay was upset in Game 1 at home, and that puts the Bolts squarely in something of a desperation spot on Tuesday. I always like to attack these scenarios in the postseason. It’s a 7 ET puck drop on ESPN2 for Game 2.
Canadiens vs. Lightning same-game parlay (-120)
- Lightning Money Line
- Alt Over 4.5
I expect Ducks-Oilers to be the highest-scoring series overall in the first round, but this should be No. 2. It lived up to that in the opener with Montreal winning a really entertaining back-and-forth 4-3 affair in overtime. There were a few lead changes, with the last coming via Juraj Slafkovsky’s third goal of the game at 1:22 of overtime. He’s now scored seven goals against the Lightning in five games this season.
That winner was on the power play; you won’t see too many power plays in playoff overtimes as referees let the skaters play as much as possible. But a high-sticking penalty was called on Tampa Bay’s Jake Guentzel late in the third period carried a power play into OT.
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Slafkovsky, from Slovakia, was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 draft but hadn’t lived up to that until this season when he finished with a career-high 30 goals and 73 points. He kept that form up in Game 1 with his hat trick. Slafkovsky became the first Montreal player to score three goals – including one in overtime – in a playoff game since Eric Desjardins in 1993 in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals. That was the first hat trick by a defenseman in a Finals. Slafkovsky is +7000 for another hat trick on Tuesday.
Montreal ranked 10th during the season on the power play at 23.1%, but Tampa Bay was third on the penalty kill at 82.6% and has one of the best goalies in NHL history in Andrei Vasilevskiy, so three power play goals was surprising. That’s before considering the Habs’ power play had been just 4-for-31 in the final eight regular-season games and went 0-for-7 the Lightning the previous time they met on April 9. The referees awarded five power plays to each side in Game 1. The Canadiens are 64-11 in playoff series in franchise history when they win Game 1.
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“That was a game that we just gave them an opportunity to win, and this is the Stanley Cup Playoffs,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper mentioned. “This isn’t game 62, so that is extremely disappointing in the way we conducted ourselves and the amount of penalties we took. You can’t let that happen, so that’s on us. There’s no excuses.”
Vasilevskiy should win the Vezina Trophy as best goaltender from the regular season and is a former Conn Smythe Trophy winner. The Russian hasn’t been as sharp the previous three postseasons, but I trust the future Hall of Famer to come up with a big effort Tuesday and avoid a 2-0 deficit heading to Montreal.
But what’s going on with the Lightning? They are 1-12 in their past 13 overtime playoff games with seven straight losses. That dates to the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals. They’re also 1-8 in their past nine home playoff games. Very strange.
There was a piece of history for Tampa Bay in the loss as Nikita Kucherov had two assists to become only 13th player in NHL history with 120 or more career postseason assists. The sole active player on that list is Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby. Kucherov also moved into the top 20 all-time in playoff points (173) to 19th, passing legends Peter Forsberg and Mario Lemieux. Kucherov is -370 for a point tonight and +115 for two.
Vasilevskiy was outplayed in Game 1 by 24-year-old Jakub Dobes of the Habs in just his third career playoff start. How much of a newbie is Dobes? To start OT, he accidentally skated toward the Tampa Bay net instead of his own. The Czech goalie mentioned he was so focused on the game that he didn’t realize.
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In Monday’s parlay in the SportsLine newsletter, we backed a semi-desperate home team down 1-0, and that cashed thanks to Dallas. In keeping with that theme, there are just too many strange trends going against the Lightning, really. They’re due for a home win and preferably in overtime so they can get that monkey off their backs and we get a seven-game series. These teams could easily finish regulation tied 4-4, so that’s why I’m choosing for alt Over 4.5. That way, we cash even if 2-2 after 60 minutes. Check out other expert picks in the SportsLine daily newsletter.
