The Tampa Bay Lightning will look to rebound from a 2-1 loss to the Boston Bruins in their last outing. Boston opened the scoring with less than a minute to go in the opening period and the Bruins would follow that up with a 2nd goal just after the midway point of the 2nd period. Mitchell Stephens would pull a goal back for Tampa Bay with 2:32 to go in the 2nd period, but that’s as close as the Bolts would get as Boston carried the lead through the 3rd period and to the finish line, sending Tampa Bay back empty-handed. Andrei Vasilevskiy got the loss, falling to 33-13-8 on the year after allowing both goals on 35 shots faced in the losing effort.

Montreal is 7-3 in their last 10 road games and 5-2 in their last 7 divisional games while the over is 4-0 in their last 4 games overall. Tampa Bay is 43-9 in their last 52 divisional games and 40-11 in their last 51 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 7-2-1 in their last 10 games against the Eastern Conference. Montreal is 1-8 in the last 9 meetings between these two teams and 0-5 in the last 5 meetings between these two teams in Tampa Bay.

I get the Lightning being favored at home, but this game means a whole heck of a lot more to Montreal who need to keep winning games down the stretch if they want any sliver of hope for their playoff push down the stretch. Tampa Bay is also extremely banged up defensively, and I think the loss of Steven Stamkos will continue to hurt the Lightning here. I’ll take a shot with Montreal and the plus money here.