{"id":556838,"date":"2026-04-20T19:01:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/556838\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T19:01:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:01:03","slug":"canadiens-playoff-analysis-the-key-statistic-from-game-one-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/556838\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens Playoff Analysis: The Key Statistic From Game One Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Montreal Canadiens<\/a> emerged victorious from their Game One matchup versus the Tampa Bay Lightning, on the back of a hat-trick effort<\/a> by forward Juraj Slafkovsky<\/a>. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to ignore the fact that all three of his goals came on the powerplay, a situation that will be rather difficult to replicate going forward.<\/p>\n

Canadiens vs. Lightning At 5v5<\/p>\n

The Lightning have an excellent penalty kill, having shut down 82.6% of their opponents\u2019 man advantages during the regular season, the third-best in the NHL.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, it\u2019s important to evaluate how the teams performed at 5v5 to better understand how the series will unfold. While special teams will play a crucial role in some games, hockey is mostly played at even strength.<\/p>\n

In that vein, the Lightning controlled 54.8% of the shots (34-28) on Sunday night, which isn\u2019t particularly surprising given that they tend to do a better job controlling shots than the Canadiens, however, when we filter the results further, it becomes clear the Habs were far and away the better in high-danger shots.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens held an 8-1 advantage in high-danger shots at 5v5, a flat-out dominant share of one of the most critical statistical categories in hockey.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As we all know, not all shots are created equal. While the team that outshoots its opponents generally has a better chance of winning, that advantage is mitigated when the opponent does a better job generating high-quality shooting opportunities.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens took many of their shots from the slot, while the Lightning were largely kept to the perimeter.<\/p>\n

To put a fine point on their excellence in high-danger chances, Slafkovsky created three times as many high-quality shots as the entire Lightning lineup combined.<\/p>\n

In an ideal world, you want your team to control both the quantity and the quality of shots. However, in a short series, focusing on quality alone can be enough to secure four wins.<\/p>\n

All Montreal Canadiens statistics are 5v5 unless otherwise noted, via Natural Stat Trick<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\t\t\"avatar\"<\/p>\n

\t\tMarc has been covering the Habs for over a decade. He previously worked for Journal Metro, The Athletic, The … More about Marc Dumont<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Montreal Canadiens emerged victorious from their Game One matchup versus the Tampa Bay Lightning, on the back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5105],"tags":[5,189,21,4,540,92,5168,5167],"class_list":{"0":"post-556838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-lightning","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-lightning","10":"tag-montreal-canadiens","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-tampa-bay","13":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","14":"tag-tampabay","15":"tag-tampabaylightning"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116438583906726884","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556838","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=556838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}