The Tampa Bay Lightning will try to spark their struggling offense when they visit the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday.
The Lightning dropped their fourth straight game on Monday night with a 2-0 setback to the host Toronto Maple Leafs,. Tampa Bay has been shut out in its past two games and totaled four goals in the four-game skid.
Montreal will look to bounce back from a 4-3 home loss to the St. Louis Blues on Sunday that followed consecutive shootout wins. The Canadiens are not lighting the lamp at a rapid pace either, scoring just 10 goals while going 2-3-0 in their past five games.
Against the Maple Leafs, Lightning goalie Jonas Johansson stopped 22 of 23 shots before Toronto clinched it with an empty-net goal. Tampa Bay could not connect on any of its 29 shots and has now gone more than 128 minutes since its last goal.
“It was one of those ones where it looked like whoever scored first was going to win, and that’s pretty much how it ended,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of the Monday contest. “A little unfortunate for us because we’ve been playing pretty well and unfortunately losing, and tonight I thought we took a step back honestly.”
It was the first time the Lightning took consecutive shutout losses since November 2023.
Tampa Bay center Brayden Point played 18:48 and had four shots on goal in his return after missing seven games with an undisclosed injury. Winger Nikita Kucherov, who had missed one game due to an undisclosed ailment, played a team-high 24:38 and had two shots on goal.
Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy (undisclosed injury) was placed on injured reserve ahead of the Monday game, so Brandon Halverson could make his first appearance of the season, and the third of his NHL career, on Tuesday.
Halverson got in a game off the bench for the New York Rangers on Feb. 17, 2018, then took a 6-4 loss while starting for the Lightning against the Utah Mammoth on March 22, 2025.
The Canadiens had a day off following their stumble against the Blues. Noah Dobson had a goal and an assist while Cole Caufield and Lane Hutson also scored for Montreal. With goalie Sam Montembeault a late scratch due to an illness, Jakub Dobes started for the second straight day and made 14 saves.
“I felt good,” Dobes said. “The legs were fine, the mind is probably the one part that gets overused the most. But I felt pretty decent. I felt like I made pretty good reads, maybe one mistake on the third goal, but everyone makes mistakes, so it happens.”
The Canadiens led 2-1 after the first period, but the Blues scored two goals in 39 seconds early in the second period to take the lead for good.
“It’s not rocket science, really,” Canadiens defenseman Mike Matheson said. “It’s two breakdowns that led to two quick goals, and that was the difference.”
Caufield brings a career-high-tying 11-game point streak (four goals, nine assists) into the Tuesday game. Hutson, a defenseman who had six goals in 82 games last season, already has five goals through 17 games this season.
Meanwhile, Montreal rookie Oliver Kapanen has one goal in his past nine games after opening the season with seven in his first 19.
The teams are meeting for the first time this season. Montreal took two of three from Tampa Bay in 2024-25.
–Field Level Media
