Bolts-Habs Series preview.

 2A Tampa Bay vs Montreal 3A

We are back with another Playoff preview here on the ETEH Blog in 2026, so today we are looking at the 2nd Series that was locked in the Eastern Conference playoff picture, as we're going to be looking at the 2nd and 3rd teams in the Atlantic as Tampa who after a rocky first 5-10 games went on a rampage especially in the middle of the year to skyrocket and wind up for the 2nd year in a row 2nd in the Atlantic take on the Habs who snuck into a WC spot last but showed this year that it Wasn't a fluke as they went toe to toe with Tampa and Buffalo this year but similar to Minnesota because of the good division they have will start on the road here to Tampa.

History of Rivalry Between teams in playoffs:

Now if you look at the history of these two teams playing in the playoffs, they have actually play a decent amount of times as this is the 5th all time playoff meeting between the Habs and Bolts as they have meet 4 other times in NHL history, the first time they meet was back in 2004 when en route to the Cup Final Tampa would take down the Habs in their first ever match, then 10 years later they got their 2nd ever matchup between the two as the Habs would win and then the following year en route to another Cup final Tampa would take down the Habs to own the all time series lead and the most recent matchup in the postseason was surprisingly during the 2021 Stanley Cup Final as in the realigned divisions the Habs who represented the West fell at the Lightning’s hands in 5 games to lose the Cup Final in what was Price and Weber’s last NHL game, so will Montreal avenge their Cup final loss from 5 years ago and get their 2nd all time win against Tampa or will Tampa beat Montreal for the 4th time in 5 playoff meetings.

Season Series Record: 

Tampa Bay 2-2-0 13-11+2

Montreal 2-1-1 11-13-2

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Each teams X-Factors: Raddysh vs Dobes

Next we go over to the two teams X-Factors in my opinion for this series and the two X-Factors in my eyes are breakout Bolts defender Darren Raddysh against young Habs goalie Jakub Dobes. Now for the Lightning they have run through quite a few defdners this year with guys like Hedman and McDonagh missing a big chunk of time, but in those players absence 3rd pair defender Darren Raddysh wound up having a breakout season putting up 22 goals (A Bolts record) and 70 points in 73 games which may be the most shocking breakout of the season and is now a solid top 4 D for Tampa, so if he continues to play like that in the playoffs I do think he will help the Bolts to a series win. On the flip the Habs have had subpar goaltending all year long as the start of the season was not good for Dobes or Montembault and lead Fowler to be recalled, but since the deadline Dobes has found his game and ran with the starting job as he has a .924 SV% and a 2.27 GAA in 14 games since the deadline and has 10 wins in that time frame and has become a behemoth in net, now if he reverts to early season Dobes in the playoffs I don't think they have much chance, but if he plays like he has the last few weeks then I think the Habs will have a strong chance of winning, but those are my X-Factors for these 2 teams.

Which teams are best at 3 Positions:

Offense: now when it comes to which of these two teams has the better offense, I think they stack up pretty well against each other as the Habs have stars like Demidov, Suzuki and Caufield and the Bolts have Kucherov, Point and Guentzel and I would say both teams have pretty decent bottom sixes but I think I would give the edge offensively to Montreal as I feel like even though the top end firepower might be slightly in favor of Tampa, Montreal in my eyes has a slightly better bottom six and better depth and I think they have the better all around forward group, so I will say the Habs have the advantage offensively.

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Defence: on the defensive side of the puck I feel both teams are once again close as they both have pretty good defenders and can run some pretty decent defensive pairs but I will give the slight defensive edge to Tampa as they have in my opinion a bit more blueline experience then the Habs and especially if Hedman and McDonagh are good to go I definitely think the advantage goes to Tampa.

Goaltending: while in net I feel it's obvious that the Bolts have the advantage as they have Andrei Vasilevskiy who is a top 3 goalie in the world and can still Tampa a series and no offense to Dobes who has had a great last few weeks but at this point in his career he is no Vasilevskiy, so I don't believe it is close and I  would give the advantage to Tampa in net.

Biggest on Ice Matchup: Bolts Defense vs Habs Offence 

So when it comes to the biggest matchup in my eyes in this series for the Habs and Bolts, I would have to go over to the big time Matchup in this series between the Bolts defensive core against the potent Habs Offense, now all season long even through their injuries the Bolts have been a pretty good defensive team as they were able to rank top 3 in the goals against stat but they are going to have a tall task as they go up against the 6th best offense in Montreal who has a 50 goal scorer in Caufield, a 100 point player in Suzuki and some really good depth pieces who can put the puck in the net, so I think this is going to be the biggest and best matchup in this series on the ice and I feel the winner of this matchup will wind up winning the series.

Predictions:

Now when it comes to my predictions for this series, I feel this one is extremely difficult to pick cause I can see a scenario where either the Bolts or the Habs win as both are great teams and I could see this sort of series go in either direction, I think the Bolts experience and having one of the best goalies in the world make a compelling case for them but the Habs youth and speed plus their experience from last year makes a compelling case for them but at the end of the day I am going with my gut feeling and that is Tampa in 7, now I could see this one go the Habs way and I am very worried it will be like last year when I picked the Bolts to beat Florida and they lost, so I could easily see Montreal win and they are the team I am rooting for but I will pick in this series Bolts in 7.