When Montreal hosts the Tampa Bay Lightning Tuesday night for the final time, the Canadiens will try to keep improving after making progress at the end of their two-game road swing through Florida last week.

In Thursday’s middle outing of a three-game road trip, the Canadiens (27-37-6, 60 points) were blasted 9-5 by the Florida Panthers after surrendering seven goals in the first period. The loss occurred after beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-4 in the trip’s Tuesday opener.

Despite scoring five times in the lopsided loss in Sunrise — Florida netted all nine in the match’s first 27:33 — Montreal was in poor spirits as it headed up the Gulf Coast to Tampa.

The last-place Atlantic Division squad rebounded with a strong showing and led 3-2 after 40 minutes in Tampa Saturday night. However, a three-goal third and Brandon Hagel’s second career hat trick doomed the Habs.

One situation worth watching on the Montreal bench Tuesday will be the reaction of forward Jonathan Drouin, who dressed for Saturday’s loss in Tampa but did not play a single shift.

Drouin, 27, missed a team meeting Friday, but with the absence of injured Kaiden Guhle, Montreal was forced to dress Drouin in order to field a full roster as mandated by league rules.

He became the first player since former Buffalo Sabres center Sam Reinhart on March 28, 2017, to sit on the bench the entire game for disciplinary reasons and log 0:00 of ice time.

“People are really watching your response, and you have to be calculated and firm but also fair,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “And I think tonight was a fair thing, and I think (Jonathan) handled it tremendously well.”

The 27-year-old Drouin is in the final year of a six-year, $33 million contract with the Quebec club and has scored once in 46 contests.

“Being late is unacceptable,” team captain Nick Suzuki said. “There are things that happen sometimes you can’t control, but if you’re late, you’re late. Just a thing that’s been preached ever since Marty’s been here.”

The third-place Lightning (42-23-6, 90 points) are chasing Toronto for the division’s second spot, which would give coach Jon Cooper’s club home-ice advantage over the Maple Leafs in the opening round of the playoffs.

But Tampa Bay trails the Leafs by three points. Toronto also holds two games in hand over the three-time defending Eastern Conference champions, who have 11 games remaining.

The Lightning beat the New Jersey Devils in the first two meetings last week in Newark, N.J., but their two-goal lead at home Sunday night in the season-series finale wasted away as the Devils potted five unanswered in a 5-2 win.

“We had the game under control,” Cooper said of the 2-0 lead that became a one-goal lead nine seconds later. “… A little inexcusable to give up a goal on a faceoff right away. That should’ve never happened. That just triggered their momentum, and they rolled.

“Then it was just senseless turnovers and managing the puck. We couldn’t get through the neutral zone. … It was horrendous.”

Nikita Kucherov scored his 28th goal, making him the sixth active player to record three seasons of 100 points.

He joined Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Leon Draisaitl, Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin in reaching the century mark three times.

–Field Level Media

The Washington Capitals will look to keep their fading playoff hopes alive when they host the road-weary Columbus Blue Jackets Tuesday night.

The Capitals (33-31-7, 73 points) have just five wins in their last 17 games and currently sit on the outside, looking in at the New York Islanders and Pittsburgh Penguins, the two teams in wild-card position in the Eastern Conference.

The Capitals are coming off a 5-3 defeat on the road to the Minnesota Wild on Sunday, their fourth straight game allowing at least four goals. In three of those contests, they’ve yielded five.

Lately, slow starts have doomed the Capitals, who have fallen behind in each of their last four games. They overcame deficits of 2-0, 3-1 and 4-2 to defeat the Buffalo Sabres 5-4 in a shootout on March 15, marking Washington’s sixth multi-goal comeback of the season and its third multi-goal comeback in the third period.

Against St. Louis and Minnesota, they were not as fortunate.

“We don’t give up, try to battle back,” star forward Alex Ovechkin said. “We try our best to win the hockey game. We don’t stop playing. We battle.”

“It’s frustrating we just haven’t started good,” added Washington center Dylan Strome. “I think like our last 40 minutes of the last five or six games have been pretty good. We’ve been hanging in there with everyone we played against.

“Obviously, our starts aren’t good. I’m not sure of the exact reason. We got to have a better start next game. Time’s quickly running out. You take away the first five minutes of the last five games, I feel like we’ve got more goals than the other team.”

In Sunday’s loss, Ovechkin had two goals — both on the power play — and is now just one goal from passing Wayne Gretzky for the most 40-goal seasons in NHL history (13).

Dylan Strome had a goal and an assist while Charlie Lindgren made 35 saves for the Capitals, who have just 11 games remaining to make a playoff push.

The Blue Jackets (21-41-7, 49 points) will head into Tuesday’s game finishing up a five-game road trip that had them winning in overtime in San Jose at the start but losing their next three. In their last two games, they’ve given up seven goals each time, losing to Anaheim and Vegas.

Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen missed Sunday’s game in Las Vegas due to a death in the family. His status for Tuesday in Washington is unknown. Associate coach Pascal Vincent took over behind the bench but couldn’t do much to help his team as Vegas pounced on their opportunities early in a 7-2 rout.

“They took advantage of their chances. Their goalie was pretty good,” Vincent said. “That’s the difference between a good team and a team in our position. We need to sustain that pace for 60 minutes. We’re going to get there. Just right now, that’s not the case. We had our moments, but we need to sustain it for 60 minutes.”

Kirill Marchenko and Liam Foudy scored for Columbus, but goalie Daniil Tarasov allowed five goals on just 29 shots before being replaced in the second period by Michael Hutchinson.

The Blue Jackets have allowed 266 goals, the second-highest total in the league behind only Anaheim. Columbus has allowed at least four goals in eight straight games, including five or more six times in that stretch.

–Field Level Media

The host Buffalo Sabres and Nashville Predators each will look to end a three-game losing streak and rebound from their most lopsided shutout defeats of the season when they meet Tuesday night.

The Sabres and Predators both were blanked 7-0 in their most recent games Sunday, with Buffalo dominated at home by the league-leading Boston Bruins and Nashville pummeled on the road by the New York Rangers.

Buffalo (33-30-6, 72 points) is six points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins in the race for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.

Nashville (34-26-8, 76 points) trails Winnipeg by five points for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference after also falling at home to the Jets 3-2 in overtime on Saturday.

The Sabres trailed the Bruins on Sunday 1-0 after just 15 seconds and 3-0 at the 11:40 mark of the first period.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (15-11-4, 3.67 goals-against average) made 18 saves for Buffalo, which has lost three straight and nine of its past 11 games (2-7-2).

“We believe we’re still in it, but we’ve got to actually go out and play,” Sabres forward Dylan Cozens said. “It’s not going to be easy games. Everyone wants to win at this time of the year. It’s just unacceptable for us this last stretch.”

Buffalo is led by Tage Thompson, who is sixth in the league with 42 goals in addition to 45 assists for a team-high 87 points. The latter ranks 10th in the league.

Teammate Jeff Skinner has 29 goals and 38 assists for 67 points, while Alex Tuch (30 goals, 34 assists) and defender Rasmus Dahlin (14 goals, team-high 49 assists) also are having strong seasons.

While the Bruins gradually pulled away from the Sabres, Nashville was dominated by the Rangers from the outset.

New York scored on six of its first eight shots during a six-goal first period, causing Nashville goalie Kevin Lankinen (8-6-1, 2.70 GAA) to be pulled after allowing four goals on just five shots. He was replaced by Juuse Saros (26-19-7, 2.75 GAA), who allowed three goals the rest of the way.

“It’s humbling to get beat 7-0,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “It’s something we can learn from, and we will. Tonight wasn’t good enough.”

The Predators were without captain and leading scorer Roman Josi (18 goals, team-high 41 assists), who was injured against Winnipeg on Saturday. They also are without defenseman Ryan McDonagh, Filip Forsberg (19 goals, 23 assists) and center Ryan Johansen (12 goals, 16 assists), who are sidelined with injuries.

Matt Duchene, with 19 goals and 32 assists, is second on the team in points with 51.

In the first regular-season meeting this season between Buffalo and Nashville, the visiting Sabres jumped to a 3-1 lead en route to a 5-3 win on Jan. 14.

Jack Quinn had a goal and an assist, while Kyle Okposo, Victor Olofsson, Jeff Skinner and Cozens also scored for the Sabres.

Johansen had a goal and an assist for the Predators, who also received goals from Josi and Jeremy Lauzon.

–Field Level Media

With first place in their respective divisions in play, the New Jersey Devils and Minnesota Wild will look to build on their latest victories.

The Wild also will aim to continue their recent success over the Devils when the teams meet in Newark, N.J., on Tuesday night.

New Jersey (45-18-7, 97 points) is one point behind Metropolitan Division-leading Carolina and halted an 0-2-1 skid with Sunday’s comeback 5-2 victory at Tampa Bay. On Tuesday the Devils will return home, where they’re in a 1-2-1 rut.

“We have to move on,” New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff said. “We just talked about what it’s going to take to keep winning hockey games. We know that this is a time of year where teams are really desperate. Our desperation was greater than (Tampa Bay’s on Sunday).

“Hopefully we can build off that.”

The Devils, though, are 0-2-2 in their past four games against the Wild and have just one victory in the past seven meetings during the series. Tomas Tatar scored twice, but New Jersey fell 3-2 in a shootout at Minnesota on Feb. 11.

Amid an 8-1-2 stretch, the Wild (40-22-8, 88 points) are one point behind first-place Dallas in the Central Division. Minnesota’s lone regulation loss during its run came 5-2 against NHL-leading Boston on Saturday, but the Wild rebounded for a 5-3 home victory over Washington on Sunday.

The Wild are 3-1-1 since superstar Kirill Kaprizov went down with a lower-body injury that’s likely to keep him out at least two more weeks. While Matt Boldy recorded his second career hat trick Sunday, eight other Minnesota players posted at least one point.

“The team has stepped up,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “Not just a few guys. Everybody.

“They’ve always tried to score, but with (Kaprizov’s) absence, they all know that there’s a little extra push that’s needed to be had because, literally, he’s playing half the game. So there’s opportunities for people, and people have been able to step up.”

Boldy certainly has, with five goals and four assists in the past five games. Marcus Johansson, acquired from the Capitals in late February, has two goals and five assists over the same stretch.

Meanwhile, the Wild’s Marc-Andre Fleury has a 2.13 goals-against average and .936 save percentage during his current seven-game winning streak. However, backup Filip Gustavsson has yielded nine goals in losing his past two starts after posting back-to-back shutouts. Gustavsson did make 27 saves against the Devils on Feb. 11.

New Jersey’s Jesper Bratt and Nico Hischier were held without a point at Minnesota. Bratt, though, posted his first career hat trick Sunday vs. Tampa Bay. Hischier reached the 30-goal mark for the first time Sunday and has two goals and three assists in the past three contests for the Devils.

New Jersey’s Vitek Vanecek (2.51 goals-against average) stopped 22 shots for the win Sunday. Teammate Akira Schmid (2.05 GAA) has allowed six goals in his past two starts.

–Field Level Media

The Pittsburgh Penguins placed defenseman Marcus Pettersson on long-term injured reserve as he deals with an unspecified injury.

The move is retroactive to Saturday when he sustained the injury during the second period of a 6-0 loss to the New York Rangers. He had been teamed with Kris Letang on the squad’s top pairing.

The Penguins recalled defenseman Taylor Fedun from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins on an emergency basis.

Pettersson, 26, has 24 points (one goal, 23 assists) in 67 games this season, his fifth in Pittsburgh.

In 361 career games with the Anaheim Ducks (2017-18) and Penguins, he has 103 points (10 goals, 93 assists).

The Penguins have qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs for 16 consecutive seasons, but have no margin for error if the streak is to continue. Pittsburgh (34-25-10, 78 points) currently is sitting in the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, just ahead of the Florida Panthers (35-27-7, 77 points).

The Penguins host the Ottawa Senators on Monday night.

–Field Level Media