Canadiens draw Lightning in first round, and the road just got tougher

Buffalo's 5-1 win in Chicago on Monday night officially locked in the Atlantic Division standings, confirming that Martin St-Louis and the Canadiens will face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs.

That result cost Montreal the division title. The Sabres finish first with 108 points.

Tampa and Montreal both sit at 106, but the Lightning hold the tiebreaker and finish second in the Atlantic. That matters a lot.

It means the Canadiens head into this series as the road team.

Montreal's away record this season is a solid 24-8-8, so don't panic yet. But playing the opening games inside Amalie Arena, with Jon Cooper's group feeding off that crowd, is simply not how you'd draw it up.

Here's what this series really is: it's Nikita Kucherov against everybody else.

The Lightning winger posted 130 points in 75 games this season, 44 goals and 86 assists. He is the most dangerous player in this matchup by a wide margin, and the Canadiens' penalty kill will need to be ready, because Tampa's power play runs through him.

Brandon Hagel is listed day-to-day with a lower-body issue, expected to be out until at least April 15. He had 74 points and 36 goals in 70 games this year. That's a major question mark for the Lightning going in.

Brayden Point has played just 63 games and produced 50 points. If he's not fully healthy and Hagel misses time, Cooper's top six suddenly has some real gaps.

Montreal isn't walking into this thing unarmed.

Nick Suzuki had 101 points this season, Cole Caufield scored 51 goals, and Lane Hutson generated 78 points from the blue line at age 22. That's legitimate top-end talent.

The Canadiens split their four regular-season meetings with Tampa this year at 2-2. They won the last two, including a 4-1 road win March 31 and a 2-1 home result April 9.

That's not nothing. Momentum matters, and Montreal has it on its side right now with a 8-2-0 mark in their last 10 games.

Still, Tampa's goal differential tells the real story. The Lightning are plus-61 on the season. Montreal is plus-29. In a tight playoff series, that gap in depth and finishing can surface fast.

The Canadiens are a young team finding their identity. Getting tested against an experienced Jon Cooper-coached lineup is exactly the kind of crucible that either forges something real or exposes what's not ready yet.

This series will answer questions about this group nobody in Montreal is quite sure of yet.

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