Lightning -198
Canadiens vs. Lightning Game 1: Back Bolts In Stanley Cup Opener (Archive)
The Stanley Cup Finals open Monday night from Tampa as the Lightning look to repeat as NHL champions. They are heavy favorites for Game 1 vs. the Montreal Canadiens. Which way to lean at BMR’s top-rated sportsbooks?
Montreal Canadiens vs. Tampa Bay Lightning
Monday, June 28, 2021 – 08:00 PM EDT at Amalie Arena
The puck drops on the 2021 Stanley Cup Finals on Monday night with the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning hosting the Cinderella Montreal Canadiens. It’s the fourth time the franchises will meet in the playoffs but first in the Cup Finals. The last postseason meeting was in the second round in 2015 and Tampa Bay won in six games. That Bolts club also reached the Cup Finals but lost in six to Chicago.
In a normal season, Montreal and Tampa Bay couldn’t meet in the Stanley Cup Finals because both are in the Eastern Conference and in fact same Atlantic Division. Of course, the NHL realigned this year only for COVID reasons and there were no conferences. Thus, Tampa Bay and Montreal didn’t play. When they played in the 2019-20 regular season, the Lightning won all four games – three of them by multiple goals.
On the NHL odds at BMR’s top-rated sportsbooks, Tampa Bay is a -265 favorite and Montreal +225. The favored exact result is Lightning in five games at +325. I’d probably lean Tampa in six, which is +375. That it ends in six games is the +200 favorite with seven at +225, five at +250 and four at +475.
Canadiens Continue To Surprise
Montreal definitely isn’t supposed to be here as the Habs had the fewest points of any playoff team with 59 and the worst goal differential at minus-9. The Canadiens stunned the North Division champion Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round, rallying from down 3-1, swept the Winnipeg Jets in the second round and shocked the Vegas Golden Knights in the last round, 4-2.
Canadiens netminder Carey Price is a future Hall of Famer but this will be his first time playing in the Stanley Cup Finals – Montreal hadn’t been there since 1993 when it beat Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings in five games. That’s the last time a team from Canada won it all. No club from north of the U.S. border had been to the Cup Finals since Vancouver in 2011 when the Canucks lost in seven to the Boston Bruins. It’s thus fair to say the entire country of Canada will be Canadiens fans for the next week-plus.
Price is +175 on the Bovada (visit our Bovada Review) NHL odds to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. He’s second among all playoff goaltenders with a .934 save percentage and third with a 2.02 goals-against average. The Habs apparently will be without forward Joel Armia for at least Game 1 as he’s in the COVID protocols.
He didn’t practice with the team Sunday or fly to Tampa. Armia previously tested positive for COVID-19 in March and the Canadiens were shut down by the league for more than a week as a result. Armia has five goals and three assists in these playoffs and is an important part of the team’s penalty kill. Jake Evans, who has been out with a concussion suffered in Game 1 vs. the Jets, took Armia’s spot on the fourth line Sunday.
Tyler Toffoli leads Montreal with five goals and 14 points in the playoffs and is +3500 to win the Conn Smythe Trophy. The Habs have won a league-record 23 Stanley Cup titles overall since entering the NHL in 1917.
Lightning Could Join Elite Company
Tampa Bay is looking to join the 2017 Pittsburgh Penguins as the only teams this century to repeat as Stanley Cup champion. The Lightning are the seventh defending Stanley Cup champion in the last 30 years to advance to the Finals, joining Pittsburgh (1991-1992 & 2016-2017), Detroit (1997-1998 & 2008-2009), Dallas (1999-2000) and New Jersey (2000-2001).
How fortunate has veteran Lightning winger Pat Maroon been of late? He has been on the winning side of 11 straight playoff series wins: The past two years with Tampa Bay and in 2019 with the St. Louis Blues. He is looking to become the first player since 1983 to win at least three consecutive Stanley Cup championships.
Bolts goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy is the +125 favorite to win the Conn Smythe Trophy. He’s second in these playoffs with a 1.99 goals-against average and first with a .936 save percentage. In all three of Tampa Bay’s series-clinching wins, the Russian pitched a shutout and has four overall in these playoffs. The league record is seven by former New Jersey Devils legend Martin Brodeur in 2003. That record is probably safe.
Defenseman Victor Hedman is the reigning Conn Smythe winner and +2500 to repeat. No player has done that since Hall of Famer Mario Lemieux of the Penguins in 1992. Forward Nikita Kucherov leads the NHL with 27 points in these playoffs – he led the 2020 postseason with 34 points and certainly had a case for the Conn Smythe. He’s +250 to win it this time.
Brayden Point, who leads the playoffs with 14 goals, is +275. He had scored a goal in nine straight games, one shy of the NHL postseason record, before not finding the net in Tampa Bay’s 1-0 win over the New York Islanders in Game 7 of that series. Montreal is 0-6 on the NHL odds in its past six trips to Tampa, and we think that skid continues.
NHL Pick: Lightning at -198 with BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review) & buy a half-goal on the total and go under 5.5 (it’s set at 5)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.