Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Montreal Canadiens NHL Picks, Odds, Predictions 7/5/2021
Tampa Bay Lightning (51-20-6) vs. Montreal Canadiens (36-28-12)
July 5, 2021 8:00 pm EDT
The Line: Montreal Canadiens +130 / Tampa Bay Lightning -150; Over/Under: +5
(Get latest betting odds)
The Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens meet Monday in game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals at the Centre Bell. The Lightning look for back-to-back titles and their third in franchise history. The Canadiens need a win to save their season and force a game 5 on Wednesday.
The Tampa Bay Lightning are averaging 3.43 goals per game and are scoring on 36.7 percent of their power play opportunities. Brayden Point leads Tampa Bay with 14 goals, Nikita Kucherov has 24 assists and Victor Hedman has 48 shots on goal. Defensively, the Tampa Bay Lightning are allowing two goals per game and are killing 83.1 percent of their opponents power plays. Andrei Vasilevskiy has given up 41 goals on 656 shots faced.
The Montreal Canadiens are averaging 2.40 goals per game and are scoring on 20.4 percent of their power play opportunities. Nick Suzuki leads Montreal with seven goals, Tyler Toffoli has nine assists and Brendan Gallagher has 51 shots on goal. Defensively, the Montreal Canadiens are allowing 2.55 goals per game and are killing 90.6 percent of their opponents power plays. Carey Price has given up 48 goals on 609 shots faced.
The Lightning are 5-2 in their last 7 road games and 95-43 in their last 138 overall. The Canadiens are 5-2 in their last 7 home games and 11-5 in their last 16 overall. The under is 10-4-2 in Lightning last 16 overall. The under is 4-1-4 in Canadiens last 9 overall. The Lightning are 5-1 in the last 6 meetings in Montreal and 14-2 in the last 16 meetings. The home team is 7-3 in the last 10 meetings.
I’ve given the Canadiens chance after chance in this series because of how good they’ve been to us throughout these playoffs, but they’ve been badly outplayed in this series. At some point you have to throw your hands up and give the respect to the Lightning. The Habs have given us very little to go off of in terms of confidence they can get back in this series. You’d like to see a more competitive series, but the past three games indicate a sweep is coming for the Lightning.
