The Montreal Canadiens will face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2026 NHL playoffs, a repeat of the 2021 Stanley Cup Finals.
Of course, a lot has changed between then and now, especially for hubs. They are the youngest team in the league, and will face a much older Lightning lineup that is loaded with playoff experience.
With that in mind, let's take a look at some important stats that will play a big role in deciding the winner of this first round series. We'll start with 5v5 numbers before moving on to special teams in the following analysis piece.
Canadiens and Lightning at 5v5
To get a better idea of which teams are expected to maintain the momentum, we can take a closer look at three specific team-driven statistics.
The first is shot share, which is the percentage of shots a team controls in a given period. This is often represented as 'Corsi For %', or 'CF%'. I prefer to use the term shot share, because it is straightforward.
For example: If there are 10 shots in a period, and a team controls eight of them, they will have an 80% shot share. If there were 100 shots in a game and a team generated 40 of them, their shot share would be 40%.
As you can see in the chart below, the Lightning did a great job at controlling shots throughout the season, and finished with the third-highest shot share in the NHL. The Canadiens are on the other end of the spectrum, controlling just 48.6% of their shots, good for 23rd in the league.
Expected goal share takes into account certain factors including shot quality, shot location and shot type. A deflected shot will have a better chance of scoring than an unblocked shot from the point, so it will have a higher expected goal value.
The Canadiens control the same expected goals percentage as their shot share, not to mention a similar ranking of 23rd in the league. The Lightning do a much better job in this regard, and they find themselves in the top-5 teams in the NHL when it comes to their expected goal share.
Once again the Lightning found themselves several times ahead of the Canadiens as far as high-danger shot share goes. The lack of high-danger scoring opportunities has been an ongoing issue for the Habs since the rebuild began nearly five years ago.
Goaltending and shooting
The Lightning goaltenders do a better job than their Canadiens counterparts, though it should be noted that the numbers include the results produced by Samuel Montembeault, a netminder who is unlikely to feature as a starter against Tampa Bay.
Despite this, it is clear that the Lightning have the goalscoring advantage at 5v5, especially when it comes to blocking high-danger shots.
As far as shooting efficiency goes, you'll notice that the Canadiens actually managed to edge out the Lightning, as they were the team with the highest shooting percentage at 5v5 in the entire league. I suggest this is not necessarily a good sign, as a low-volume, high-efficiency team runs the risk of being vulnerable in a short series, especially if some of the team's best snipers can't find their rhythm.
That being said, at the very least, you could argue that the Habs have slightly better accuracy, although the Lightning rank first in the NHL when it comes to their high-danger shooting percentage, which mitigates the Canadiens' advantage in the shooting department.
Target
The final numbers we'll evaluate are simple, and provide little consolation to Habs fans who are hoping to see an upset, with the emphasis on 'slightly'.
Both the Canadiens and Lightning are great at scoring goals, with the latter being better at preventing pucks from getting into their net.
Montreal Canadiens Brass Tacks
Of course, the numbers don't paint an encouraging picture for Canadians. For all intents and purposes, they are disenfranchised, and substantially disenfranchised.
John Cooper is likely to advocate his way through a speech that somehow portrays the Canadiens as favourites, but make no mistake, there is little in the numbers to suggest that the Lightning should be considered anything other than massive favorites to win the first-round series.
It's also important to remember that hockey isn't played on spreadsheets, and the Canadiens have a funny way of making the numbers appear irrelevant after the final whistle.
The playoffs are a different kind of beast, where passion can trump logic.
Apart from this, there are other statistics that paint a different picture of the upcoming match.
If we filter out the results of the four games in which the Canadiens and Bolts faced off, the numbers are more encouraging. Each team won two games, with the Habs victorious in the final two meetings of the season.
Canadiens vs Lightning Head to Head (5v5)
As you can see, the Montreal Canadiens actually held a pretty significant advantage in shot share across the four games against the Lightning. In fact, Tampa Bay controlled only 47.2% of its shots, one of the worst results of any opponent in a season series versus Montreal.
On the other side of the coin, as usual, the Canadians failed miserably when it came to controlling high-danger shots.
Interestingly, the Lightning received better goaltending and better shooting, including saves and goals on high-danger shots.
Simply put, they capitalized on their opportunities with a much greater frequency than the Habs, while outpacing a team that has struggled to generate many shots all season. This doesn't mean the Montreal Canadiens will sweep the Lightning every game, but it's certainly a situation worth keeping in mind as we await puck drop in Game One of the first-round series.
All Montreal Canadiens stats are 5v5, via Natural Stat Trick, unless otherwise noted.
