Time: 07:30 P.M. EST Venue: Bell Centre
The Tampa Bay Lightning have dominated Montreal this season but currently trail the Canadiens by three points in the Atlantic Division. The Lightning look to narrow that gap by recording their first season sweep of one of the league's most storied franchises Monday night. Tampa Bay (46-23-7) has outscored Montreal 16-5 in four matchups in 2014-15 and built an early three-goal cushion in a 4-2 home win March 16. Ben Bishop stopped 32 shots while outdueling the Canadiens' Carey Price for the fourth straight time, but has allowed six goals on 33 shots in the Lightning's back-to-back losses. Even letting up one goal would have been too many Saturday, when Detroit scored three times over a 3:54 span in the second period before later adding an empty netter in a 4-0 win. Tampa Bay was shut out for the first time all season and went 0 for 6 on the power play. The Lightning also suffered a pair of injuries. Defenseman Jason Garrison left with an upper-body in the first period and Cedric Paquette appeared to injure his left leg in the third. The status of both players is uncertain as Tampa Bay tries to avoid a season-high third consecutive defeat." It's frustrating that we've dropped a couple of late," coach Jon Cooper said. "It's 82 games. It's going to happen sometimes. Do you want to see it happening now? No. Do you want to see our guys going down the way they are? No. We've just got to weather through it." Montreal (47-21-8) clinched a playoff berth and avoided a third consecutive defeat Saturday with a 3-2 overtime victory against Florida. Max Pacioretty provided the winning goal, and Price kept the Panthers off the scoreboard in the final 29:48 in the Canadiens' third straight home victory. Montreal came close to getting swept by Tampa Bay last season, taking one shootout win in four matchups. The Canadiens then eliminated the Lightning in four games in the opening round of the playoffs while Bishop sat out due to an upper-body injury. The Lightning bring in the league's most prolific offense at 3.18 goals per game while Price leads a Montreal club that allows an NHL-low average of 2.18 goals. Tampa Bay, though, has scored 12 on Price, owner of the NHL's best goals-against average at 1.88 and a career-best 41 wins. His 3.29 GAA against the Lightning this season is his second-worst versus any opponent behind his 4.54 in two games versus Chicago." You always want to play the best. We feel that at this point of the year, this is the type of game we want to be in," Canadiens defenseman Nathan Beaulieu said. "It's going to be a playoff-style game. They're playing good hockey and so are we. It should be a fun one. We're excited for it." Lightning star Steven Stamkos has five goals and one assist in this season's series, but the 40-goal scorer is mired in his longest drought at four games.
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