Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 16: Canadiens stymie Lightning, Avalanche get Wild
The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, which means that for the next two months, we’ll get non-stop action as we witness 16 teams get whittled down to the one that will be crowned as the 2026 Stanley Cup champions. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’ll be keeping you in the loop on everything that happens in the playoffs, every day until the Stanley Cup is hoisted in June.
The Sunday night slate was a hybrid of sorts. We saw a thrilling end of the first round, with arguably one of the more anticipated matchups in Round 2 getting underway in the Mile High City.
Canadiens get outplayed, still eliminate Lightning
Game 7. The most exciting words in sports. We only had one series go the distance in the opening round, and it was the thrilling back-and-forth battle between the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning. While the Canadiens looked like they didn’t belong in the same arena at times, they managed to get the job done, clinching the series with a 2-1 win.
The Lightning rode the energy from the home crowd in the early stage of the game, swarming Canadiens goaltender Jakub Dobes. However, the young netminder made several big saves to keep his team from falling behind. His teammates in front of him paid him back late in the first period, with Nick Suzuki finally scoring his first goal of the series, tipping in a long-range shot from Kaiden Guhle, to put Montreal out in front.
While one might expect the Habs to carry that momentum into the second period, they did not. Tampa kept on the attack, and Montreal had nothing to show for itself on the offensive end. After posting a measly four shots in the opening frame, the Canadiens mustered up…no shots on goal in the second. It marked the first time in the team’s history it failed to put a puck on net in the playoffs.
Tampa received a couple of power plays in the period, with Dominic James deflecting a Charle D’Astous shot for his second of the series, tying the game with several minutes to go in the middle stanza.
Despite the lopsided metrics, it was a tense third period. Neither side wanted to make the mistake that led to the go-ahead goal.
Even while they were continuing to get shelled, the Habs stuck with it, and got a fortunate break later in the frame. Just past the halfway mark, Alex Newhook batted the puck out of the air from behind the goal line, off Andrei Vasilevskiy, and into the net to give his team the lead again.
The Lightning tried to rally and tie the game, but Jakub Dobes and company held firm to knock out their division rivals.
The Canadiens ended up with just nine shots on goal, the fewest for the team in a winning effort in the postseason, ever. The true hero, as he was a number of times during the series, was Dobes. The young netminder managed to outplay one of the best goaltenders in the world in Vasilevskiy, multiple times in the series, capping things off with a 28-save performance on Sunday night.
Vasilevskiy was credited with just seven saves in the loss.
For the Canadiens, it’s their first playoff series win since 2021, and their first in a “normal” postseason since 2015. The Lightning have now been knocked out in the opening round in each of the past four years. Tampa hasn’t won a series since making it to three straight Stanley Cup Finals.
The Habs will now face the Buffalo Sabres, who vanquished the Boston Bruins in Round 1, in the Atlantic Division Final.
Avalanche win Wild game in Denver.
If you were disappointed in the lack of offense in the first game of the night, the Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche more than made up for it, as the Avalanche pulled out an unfathomable 9-6 win in Game 1 of the Central Division Final.
The foiree began a little past the halfway mark of the opening period, with Sam Malinski giving the Avalanche a 1-0 lead with his first NHL postseason goal.
The damn burst, as Jack Drury snuck a shot by Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt 52 seconds later to make it 2-0. The Avalanche didn’t slow down, as Artturi Lehkonen scored on the power play to put the home side up by three.
It looked like the Avalanche were going to run the Wild out of town, but that quickly changed as Minnesota turned the tide later in the frame. First, Marcus Johansson put the Wild on the board with just under five minutes to go in the opening period. Then, only 62 seconds afterward, Ryan Hartman added his second goal of the postseason to make it a one-goal game heading into the intermission.
There was a little bit of concern for Avs fans in the opening period. After taking a hard hit from Marcus Foligno, Colorado defenseman Cale Makar seemed worse for wear, not playing much of the first. However, he returned in the second period and made a significant impact later in the game.
The offense was far from slowing down in the middle stanza. First, Nick Blankenburg potted his first playoff goal to restore a two-goal lead for the home side. Once again, it seemed as if Colorado was going to take control, but Minnesota didn’t go away. It all started with Vladimir Tarasenko pulling the Forsberg on Scott Wedgewood to make it a 4-3 game.
Then, just a few minutes later, Quinn Hughes tied the game with a shot through traffic for his third of the postseason to level the score at four. With just over three to play in the period, Marcus Foligno scored a shorthanded marker to give Minnesota the lead.
However, it was time for the Avs to show some resilience. 69 seconds after Foligno gave the Wild the lead, Devon Toews potted his second of the postseason to tie the game, with the team squads heading into the third deadlocked at five.
Makar stepped back into the spotlight just over three minutes into the final frame, scoring his third of the postseason to give Colorado its second lead of the game. The quick strike Avs added another a little over two minutes later, with Nazem Kadri scoring his first of these playoffs.
The Wild tried to show they had some life with a goal from Mats Zuccarello with a little just under four to play in regulation, but the Avalanche put the game on ice with another goal from Makar and an empty-netter from Nathan MacKinnon.
The game ended up having 14 different goal scorers, something that hasn’t happened since 1993. It was also the 10th playoff game in NHL history in which 15 goals were scored in a game. Makar posted three points, while Devon Toews led all skaters with four points. In all, six players on Colorado’s roster had multi-point efforts in Game 1.
Hughes led the Wild with three points.
The Avs outshot the Wild 43-36. Despite the immense scoring, both Wallstedt and Wedgewood were in net for the whole thing. Wedgewood made 30 saves in his fifth win of the playoffs, while Wallstedt was credited with 34 stops.