by Michael Ham-Fan, Staff Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine
MONTREAL, QC – The Tampa Bay Lightning have swept the season series against the Montreal Canadiens, winning all five duels and dominating the Habs, 21-8, in the scoring department. Carey Price and Ben Bishop played in all five of the matchups. That said, I wouldn’t worry too much about that if I were the Montreal Canadiens. Here are a first few thoughts about this matchup.
Playoff experience
I strongly believe that the playoffs represent a new season, and playoff experience is the most important aspect, both on the coaching staff and on the players. An experienced coaching staff will be able to manage the clock and experienced players will be more stable under pressure. Montreal’s coaching staff and player personnel definitely have the edge over Tampa Bay in terms of experience. The veteran leaders of this Montreal team (like Andrei Markov, Tomas Plekanec) are not only experienced but are also key players for the Habs. On the Lightning side, their veterans are part of the support group with the likes of Brendan Morrow, Ryan Callahan and Brian Boyle. I think that experience is a very underrated factor in the playoffs and at the end of the day, this will matter the most. Detroit was outmatched in skill in every department, but still managed to bring the Lightning to Game 7. I personally attribute this accomplishment to their team experience.
The big Tampa Bay defense
Tampa Bay has a very big defense: Victor Hedman (6’6″, 230 lbs), Andrej Sustr (6’7″, 220 lbs), Jason Garrison (6’3, 222 lbs), Braydon Coburn (6″5, 220 lbs), Matthew Carle (6’0″, 200 lbs), Anton Stralman (5’11”, 190 lbs).
You can add to that their No. 1 goaltender Ben Bishop who is listed as 6-foot-7 and 209 pounds. That has been one of the biggest reasons that Tampa Bay has dominated the Canadiens in the regular season. They are simply too big on their back end for our forechecking forwards. That is the one aspect that Montreal has to figure out before the start of the series. I think that against a big defense like that, the Canadiens forwards are going to have to make more short passes and use their speed to confuse the big Tampa defense. Long passes are too dangerous against a team that is as fast as the Lightning, so the focus should be on short, tape to tape passes. The Habs are not going to win a lot of battles if they keep dumping in the puck down low against this Tampa Bay team. They will obviously need traffic in front of Bishop, but that is a tough task considering their towering defense and goaltender.
The Habs key offensive players will have to be a factor
Against the Senators, the bottom-6 players contributed most of the offense. Torrey Mitchell, Brian Flynn, Brandon Prust and Dale Weise combined for four goals and six assists. That is one more point than Tomas Plekanec, Alex Galchenyuk, Brendan Gallagher and Max Pacioretty combined in the first round. The Canadiens are going against a high-octane offense that can afford to leave a talent like Jonathan Drouin out of the lineup because they have enough offense spread throughout their lines.
The Habs’ top guns will have to show up or it will be very hard for the defense and Carey Price to hold the fort. Tomas Plekanec is the forward that had the most success against this Tampa Bay team with four points in the five losses this season. He had an average first round and I expect him to be contributing factor in this series.
Physicality on the Habs back-end
The Tampa Bay forwards are fast and skilled. Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov, Vladimir Namestnikov, to only name a few, were absolutely dominating the Habs in the five games they played against Montreal. The Habs defense is going to have to tighten up and clog up the slot area.
They will also have to be very physical with them in zone entries. One defenseman I look forward to see against the Lightning is Greg Pateryn. Pateryn played three games against the Senators, following Nathan Beaulieu’s injury, and has brought a physical aspect to the Habs defense. Pateryn even added two assists in those three games. In my opinion, he and his teammates will have to play the Lightning forwards as rough as they can.
I predict the Habs win this series in 6 games
Although both offenses are fast and a lot of goals were scored in the regular season, I expect tight contests with a low number of goals scored. I believe that the Canadiens are going to play a very defensive strategy. I think that if the forwards were to clash in a shootout-style game, the Lightning skaters are certainly going to come out on top. Therefore, I believe that the Canadiens are going to have to win this series with defense, patience and experience. I do think that the Canadiens are better in those areas, and should finish the series in six games.