{"id":532652,"date":"2026-03-31T11:09:36","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/532652\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T11:09:36","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:09:36","slug":"nhl-game-preview-montreal-canadiens-at-tampa-bay-lightning-with-line-combinations-03-31-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/532652\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL Game Preview: Montreal Canadiens at Tampa Bay Lightning with Line Combinations 03\/31\/2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>          <img width=\"1200\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Untitled-design-2-20.png\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>AP Photo\/Chris O\/Meara<\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens (42-21-10, 94 pts) at Tampa Bay Lightning (46-21-6, 98 pts)<\/p>\n<p>Venue: Benchmark International Arena<br \/>Date: Tuesday, March 26<br \/>Time: 7:00 pm EST<br \/>How To Watch:\u00a0ESPN+\/TSN2\/RDS\/The Spot<br \/>Radio: TSN 690\/102.5 FM The Bone<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ticketmaster.evyy.net\/c\/5142595\/264167\/4272?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ticketmaster.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Purchase tickets via Ticketmaster<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens News &amp; Notes:<\/p>\n<p>The Canadiens picked up their sixth straight win on Sunday with a 3-1 victory over the Hurricanes. During their winning streak, they\u2019re averaging 3.5 goals per game while allowing 1.3 goals per game. <\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay Lightning News &amp; Notes:<\/p>\n<p>The Lightning picked up their second straight win with a 3-2 victory over the Predators on Sunday. They\u2019re on an eight-game point streak, averaging 4.5 goals per game while allowing 2.6 goals per game. <\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens Projected Lines<\/p>\n<p>Caufield-Suzuki-Slafkovsky<br \/>Newhook-Kapanen-Demidov<br \/>Bolduc-Danault-Evans<br \/>Xhekaj-Veleno-Gallagher<\/p>\n<p>Matheson-Dobson<br \/>Struble-Hutson<br \/>Guhle-Carrier<\/p>\n<p>Dobes<br \/>Fowler<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.insidetherink.com\/search?q=Montreal&amp;options%5Bprefix%5D=last\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Get your Montreal Hockey Merchandise Here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay Lightning Projected Lines:<\/p>\n<p>Perry-Point-Guentzel <br \/>Hagel-Cirelli-Goncalves <br \/>Girgensons-Gourde-Holmberg<br \/>Njorkstrand-Paul-Sabourin<\/p>\n<p>Raddysh-Moser <br \/>McDonagh-Cernak <br \/>D\u2019Astous-Lilleberg<\/p>\n<p>Vasilevskiy<br \/>Johansson<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/shop.insidetherink.com\/search?q=Tampa+Bay&amp;options%5Bprefix%5D=last\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Get your Tampa Bay Hockey Merchandise Here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Players To Watch:<\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens<\/p>\n<p>Juraj Slafkovsky had two goals and an assist in the Canadiens loss to Tampa Bay back on December 28th.<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay Lightning<\/p>\n<p>Pontus Holmberg has a goal in each game against Montreal this season.<\/p>\n<p>Injury Report:<\/p>\n<p>Montreal Canadiens<\/p>\n<p>F Patrik Laine \u2013 IR<br \/>D David Reinbacher \u2013 Out<br \/>F Kirby Dach \u2013 Out<br \/>F Josh Anderson \u2013 DTD<\/p>\n<p>Tampa Bay Lightning<\/p>\n<p>F Dominic James \u2013 IR<br \/>D Maxwell Crozier \u2013 IR<br \/>F Declan Carlile \u2013 IR<br \/>D Victor Hedman \u2013 DTD<br \/>F Nikita Kucherov  \u2013 DTD<\/p>\n<p>Next Game:<\/p>\n<p>\tDiscover more from Inside The Rink<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"margin-top:10px;margin-bottom:10px;font-size:15px\">Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AP Photo\/Chris O\/Meara Montreal Canadiens (42-21-10, 94 pts) at Tampa Bay Lightning (46-21-6, 98 pts) Venue: Benchmark International&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[2216,5,5236,976,189,21,4,5573,3727,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-532652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-atlantic-division","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-injury-report","11":"tag-juraj-slafkovsky","12":"tag-lightning","13":"tag-montreal-canadiens","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-nhl-game-preview","16":"tag-pontus-holmberg","17":"tag-tampa-bay","18":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","19":"tag-tampabay","20":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116323482497637266","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}