2021 NHL playoffs: Lightning vs. Canadian Stanley Cup finals schedule, breakdowns, predictions, odds

About nine months ago, the NHL awarded the Stanley Cup to the 2020 champion. Now, it’s time to distribute it again-although this time, it may not go too far.

In the 2021 Stanley Cup final, the defending champion will face the Canadians, the most legendary team in NHL history. One team is expected to be here, while the other team is not. But this is not important now, because the NHL playoffs have entered the last two games.

Montreal trailed the Maple Leafs 3-1 in the first round, but reversed the situation and defeated them in seven games. Then it swept the Jets and eliminated the Golden Cavaliers. The defending champions started their 2021 journey with a 4-2 series victory in the Battle of Florida against the Panthers, then defeated the top team in the Central Division, the Hurricanes in five games, and scored seven in the semifinals. A victory defeated the Jaguars. Islanders.

Semi-finals: Lightning win game 7 | The Canadians won the 6th game

Now, these Atlantic teams (under normal circumstances) will set foot on the iceberg and fight for the biggest and best awards in sports. Can the Chargers win it in back-to-back years? Or will the Canadians-the last Canadian team to win the Cup (1993), and the first Canadian team to reach the final since the Canadians in 2011-will win?

Sports news broke all this.

Tampa Bay Chargers vs. Montreal Canadiens: schedule, odds, breakdowns, predictions

Stanley Cup Final Schedule

(* if necessary)

In the United States, every game of the Lightning-Canadiens series can also be broadcast live online fuboTV provides a 7-day free trial.

Playoff statistics

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the two teams will not play against each other in 2021.The following are the accumulated statistics for the first three rounds of the playoffs (according to NHL.com and Natural Statistics Skills):

Odds

(FanDuel odds )

offense

When you check, these teams are stacked fairly evenly in 5v5 Analysis of Natural Stat Tricks, Such as number of shots (Lightning 750; Canadiens 748), expected goal percentage (Lightning 49.33; Canadiens 49.57), high-risk save percentage (Lightning .896; Canadiens .878) and save percentage (Lightning .939; Canadiens .934)).

Tampa Bay entered the final with the second in the playoffs (3.22) and the most goals (58) per game. They also have Nikita Kucherov (27 points) who leads the playoffs and Braden points (14 points) who leads the goal list. Kucherov did not participate in the entire regular season after recovering from hip surgery. After a cross-check by Scott Mayfield of the Islanders, he also missed most of the sixth game of the semifinals. He participated in the 7th game, but only slipped 16 minutes and 29 seconds. Point is a native of Calgary, Alta. In the first three rounds, he scored goals in all but four games. In the seventh game against the Islanders, he scored nine consecutive games. The game broke.

In addition to Kucherov and Poynter, the team also has a balanced offensive group, including captain Steven Stammkos (17 points), Alex Kiloun (17 points), defensive players Victor Hedman (16 points) and Anthony Cirelli-and these are just double-digit scoring players. Bench owner Jon Cooper (Jon Cooper) is in charge of all four lines, and the blue line players are also involved among them. Only one player who played at least one game did not score, and that was Matthew Joseph. He played the first two games against the Panthers and has not played since. However, the health of Stamkos and Kucherov is still in doubt.

The Canadians don’t have the big guns like Bolt, but they definitely have players who can lay cookies. Tyler Toffoli led the team with 14 points and tied with the team lead (5) in the number of goals, but did not score in four consecutive games. The team’s young players have recently led the way. Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Nick Suzuki also scored five goals each (Joel Armia has five goals, but he is 28 years old). Cole Caufield has four games and scored two consecutive games.

edge: even

defense

The Chargers have a senior crew on the blue line. In addition to the 2021 Norris Cup finalist Victor Hedman, there are Mikhail Sergachev, David Savard, Jan Ruta, Eric Sernak And Ryan McDonald. Everyone except Savard is in the 2020 Cup team, so this team knows what it takes to win all this. Montreal also has a solid defensive team composed of Shay Webber (his first career final in the 16th season), Jeff Petrie, Ben Chiarot and the 2019 Cup champion Joel Ed Monson leads.

Montreal does have a slight advantage in defensive forwards. Philip Darnot shut down Mickey Manner and Auston Matthew, then Blake Wheeler, then Mark Stone, and he attacked them.

But when it comes to defense in this series, all eyes will be on the people between the pipes: Andrei Vasilevksi and Carey Price. These hall-of-famer-level network administrators will spare no expense. It will come down to who made an extra save.

Vasilevskiy joined Vezina again for good reasons. He leads the league with 31 victories-the Chargers won a total of 36 games-and has a 0.925 successful save rate. That was in the regular season; as the importance of each game continues to increase, his game level is getting higher and higher. In the playoffs, his save rate was 0.936, only 0.002 ahead of Price. The Russian’s biggest advantage is his four outs-three of which are the key to the series. In 18 starts, he increased his 5v5 goal, which was above average, from 3.57 in the semifinals to 4.85 afterwards; however, his high-risk exemption rate dropped from 0.921 to 0.896 (Every natural statistics technique).

Based on natural statistical techniques, Price faced the most shots in 5v5 (441), but had an impressive 0.934 save rate (Vasilevskiy was 0.939 in 5v5). When there is a shortage of manpower, his save rate will jump to 0.952. The Canadian may be fresher than his opponent, as he has only started 25 games (12-7-5, 0.901 save rate) after missing time due to injury.

edge: even

Special team

This will be an all-out battle. Tampa Bay’s strong play has an efficiency of 37.7%, while Montreal’s penalty kick percentage is as high as 93.5% in the playoffs, which is eye-opening. What’s even more jaw-dropping is that they scored more shortman goals (4) than they scored against a storm (3). The Chargers have a total of 58 goals, 20 of which are goals; both lead the NHL.

edge: even

Key players to watch

Pat Maroon (TBL): Will Maroon score big goals? Probably not. But what he brings is old-school, under your skin behavior, let them achieve the best results in the game. People often see him cheering for the islanders, and he is always mixed when whistling. Every natural statistics technique, He has already made 6 penalty kicks, 3 of which were penalized. You have to know that Maroon will desire a championship-not because he didn’t win, but because this will be his third consecutive victory.

Cole Caulfield (MTL): Speaking of energy, Caulfield has injected a lot of energy into the Canadian lineup. He was a healthy player at the beginning of the playoffs, but since being inserted into the lineup in the third game, he has played a key role. He has set a number of big goals (Suzuki’s overtime goal against the Leafs in Game 5 and Tofori’s series finisher against the Jets), and the pure shooter has been burying these goals recently . The 2021 world youth gold medalist and Hobby Baker champion reached the semi-finals without scoring a goal, but now has four goals and one goal in each of the last two games.

more: Caulfield continued to score goals in the 6th game

The Chargers’ playoff history against the Canadians

The last five playoff appearances

Tampa Bay Lightning

Montreal Canadiens

Lightning vs. Canadian prediction

It’s hard not to think that the Canadians will withdraw from this-if Kyrie Price does Kyrie Price’s thing, they might do Kyrie Price’s thing, and the kids use their speed and Skill, Philip Dannott does his work stoppage, led by veteran Eric Starr (Stanley Cup 2006), Corey Perry (2007), Toffoli (2014), Edmundson (2019) and Weber, The team ignored the pressure on the shoulders of the entire country. But the Chargers are a nutty, more stacked team. This club has been to the Promised Land. It knows what it needs, and when everything is said, it should be back to back.

prophecy: Lightning in 6