The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Montreal Canadiens have been going neck to neck in the Eastern Conference Round 1. The series was tied 2-2 going into Game 5, but the Canadiens managed to get the edge after a close encounter.
Montreal won the game 3-2 thanks to goals from Alexandre Texier and Brendan Gallagher. With this setback, the Bolts are on the verge of elimination from the playoffs, making Game 6 critical for them. As a result, there is a lot of buzz for the next match between the two teams.
Along with the lead, the Canadiens will also enjoy home-ice advantage, as the game will begin at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, May 1. Fans who are looking to watch the game from home can tune in to the following channels:
- In Canada: CBC, Sportsnet (English), TVA Sports (French)
- In the United States: TNT, truTV
- In the Lightning region: The Spot
- Streaming: HBO Max, Sportsnet+
Both teams were in excellent form throughout the 2025-26 season, and they finished second and third in the Atlantic Division. So far, the Canadiens’ back line has been able to dominate games and turn things around for the team. Their goalie, Jakub Dobes, has been the backbone to their defense, with 2.60 goals against per game and a.903 save percentage.
Despite the Canadiens’ strong back line, the forward line continues to struggle. This is something the Lightning can look forward to if they want to keep the series alive after Game 6 and possibly force a tiebreaker in Game 7.
The Lightning HC points out the exact stretch from where the game went away
In the postgame press conference, Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper discussed the team’s Game 5 loss to the Montreal Canadiens. There, he stated that he is not proud of everything that has happened and refuses to accept a defeat like this. According to the Big Lead, Cooper underlined that
“We just lost a Game 5, so there’s lots going on in my head right now. Did I think we had our best game? We clearly did not. Is it really disappointing to come home and lose? It is. This is something we should take a ton of pride in and dig our heels in and not accept.”
Along with this, HC Cooper mentioned a moment in the third period when Darren Raddysh hit the post on an open net. He said that the game had slipped away from him. He explains,
“Raddysh hits the post, an open net, the puck just bounces over Kuch’s stick, and like 40 seconds later, in the same basically end back end, it’s in our net. And so you just feel like it was a little deflating at that point, you know, at the start of the period for that to happen. But I thought we gave ourselves chances to score. We just didn’t. Can we do some things better? There’s no question. But it’s just the fact that we kept going down, we had to keep chasing the game. That’s not a recipe for success.”
The Lightning have cleared their objectives for Game 6, which will undoubtedly be a tough match against the Canadiens at Centre Bell.
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