{"id":544295,"date":"2026-04-06T20:08:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/544295\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T20:08:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:08:21","slug":"florida-panthers-vs-montreal-canadiens-prediction-nhl-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/544295\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers vs. Montreal Canadiens Prediction, NHL Odds"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Canadiens are in the Stanley Cup playoffs and will look to improve their Eastern Conference seeding starting Tuesday when they host the two-time defending Cup champion Florida Panthers, who are long eliminated. Montreal is -225 on the NHL odds<\/a> with a total of 6.5 goals in their final meeting.<\/p>\n

Panthers vs. Canadiens NHL Betting Odds<\/p>\n

The NHL playoffs are an absolute grind, so maybe we should have not been surprised that the Florida Panthers collapsed this season. They had reached the Stanley Cup Final in each of the past three seasons and won the previous two. That\u2019s a ton of extra hockey games, and it often leads to injuries. The Panthers have been crushed by them this season, but I expect them to come roaring back next campaign after a fully rested off-season.<\/p>\n

Montreal clinched a playoff birth for the second straight year on Sunday when the Detroit Red Wings lost at home to Minnesota. It now seems all but certain that the Canadiens will avoid a wild-card spot and finish anywhere from first to third in the Atlantic Division. The Habs have a huge home game Thursday against Atlantic-leading Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens try for the three-game sweep of the Panthers, winning 3-2 in overtime in South Florida on Dec. 30 and 6-2 at Bell Centre on Jan. 8. Alexandre Texier had a hat trick in that one and is tied with several other Montreal players for the team lead with three points in the series. Sam Montembeault started both in net, but that won\u2019t be the case Tuesday. Sergei Bobrovsky and Daniil Tarasov each took a goaltending loss for Florida.<\/p>\n

Montreal is 7-3 in the past 10 regular-season meetings overall, and the over-under is 4-6.<\/p>\n

Florida Panthers<\/p>\n

Florida, which has shut down numerous injured guys for the season and may keep doing so, spent Saturday and Sunday in Pittsburgh and lost both by a combined score of 14-6. Not counting the COVID season, the Penguins became only the third team ever to play the reigning Stanley Cup champions on consecutive days at home.<\/p>\n

Mackey Samoskevich had his four-game goals streak snapped in Sunday\u2019s loss. The 23-year-old was trying to become the third-youngest player to record a five-game goal streak with the Panthers.<\/p>\n

Daniil Tarasov was in net Sunday so it should be back to No. 1 Sergei Bobrovsky, although the former Vezina winner is having a down season at 27-22-1 with a 3.05 GAA and .878 SV. He was pulled from Saturday\u2019s loss after allowing six goals in just 29:53. The 37-year-old is a pending free agent, but the Panthers have said they want him back. Florida has lost five straight road games.<\/p>\n

Montreal Canadiens<\/p>\n

Perhaps the Habs were distracted by what happened early Sunday when Detroit loss and clinched a playoff spot for Montreal as it then went out and played terrible in a 3-0 home loss to New Jersey to see an eight-game winning streak snapped \u2013 a night after winning 4-3 in a shootout at the Devils.<\/p>\n

Former Calgary Flame Jacob Markstrom made 18 saves Sunday for his first shutout of the season in New Jersey\u2019s 10th straight road win in the series. Alexandre Texier missed a sixth straight game and is day-to-day.<\/p>\n

Cole Caufield obviously didn\u2019t score and remains one goal shy of 50. Montreal hasn\u2019t had a 50-goal scorer since Stephane Richer scored 51 in 1989-90.<\/p>\n

With Jacob Fowler in net Sunday, it should be back to Jakub Dobes on Tuesday. He is on a personal five-game winning streak and is 15-5-0 with a 2.56 GAA on home ice this season. The under is 8-1 in Montreal\u2019s past nine overall.<\/p>\n

NHL Prediction: Who Will Win Panthers vs. Canadiens?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Canadiens are in the Stanley Cup playoffs and will look to improve their Eastern Conference seeding starting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5103],"tags":[265,5,264,21,5147,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-544295","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-montreal-canadiens","8":"tag-canadiens","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-montreal","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens","12":"tag-montrealcanadiens","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116359574546891176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544295","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=544295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}