Playoff Preview: Canadiens Vs. Lightning – Head-To-Head Statistics

Eric Bolte-Imagn Images The Montreal Canadiens will face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2026 NHL Playoffs, a repeat of the 2021 Stanley Cup Final. Of course, much has changed between then and now, particularly for the Habs. They’re the youngest team in the league, and they’ll be facing a much older Lightning lineup, one overflowing with playoff experience.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the important statistics that will play a big part in deciding the victor of this first-round series. We’ll start with the 5v5 numbers before moving onto special teams in a following analysis piece. Canadiens And Lightning At 5v5 To get a better idea of which team is expected to carry the momentum, we can take a closer look at three particular team-driven statistics.

The first is shot share, which is simply the percentage of shots a team controls in a certain period of time. It’s often represented as ‘Corsi For %’, or ‘CF%’. I prefer using the term shot share, since it’s straightforward.

For example: if there are 10 shots in a period, and one team controlled eight of them, they would have an 80% shot share. If there were 100 shots in a game, and a team generated 40 of them, their shot share would be 40%. As you can see in the chart below, the Lightning did a fantastic job controlling the shots throughout the season, finishing with the third-highest shot share in the NHL.