Lightning-Canadiens Game 7: Key players, final score picks

It’s all comes down to one game for the host Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens.

Three wins apiece, four of the six games needing overtime to decide a winner.

Which team will move on to face the Buffalo Sabres in the next round, and which one will spend the coming months wishing it could have had just one more chance to do so?

Our panel of hockey reporters and analysts is here to break down the key players to watch in Sunday’s Game 7 (6 p.m. ET, TNT), as well as make a prediction on the final score.

Who is the one key player you’ll be watching in Game 7?

Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter: Jakub Dobes. Much of the conversation around the Canadiens has been about how their young core would handle another playoff run. An argument can be made that Dobes has been one of, if not the most consistent performer of this series when it comes to how this club will operate in the future. He’s given the Canadiens a chance to win in every game throughout the series.

Doing the same in Game 7 is only going to raise his profile in a city in which being the No. 1 goalie already comes with quite a bit of attention.

Emily Kaplan, NHL reporter: Nikita Kucherov. He might win the Hart Trophy for league MVP this season, scoring a ridiculous 130 points in 76 games (44 goals, 86 assists, which is 42 points more than his closest teammate) but his postseason hasn’t been up to his same brilliant standards — yet.

In the Lightning’s worst team performance of the series, a Game 5 loss at home, Kucherov’s body language was noticeably poor. This is something the Tampa Bay staff says the star winger had cut down on this season. They always clarify: Kucherov is not complaining about teammates or coaches, he’s more frustrated with himself that the plays he expects to be there just aren’t materializing. Kucherov can erase all of that narrative with a signature performance in Game 7.

Victoria Matiash, NHL analyst: Cole Caufield. Enough is enough. As effective as Tampa Bay has been at stifling Montreal’s top line, Caufield remains well overdue after scoring more goals this season — 51, including 40 at even strength — than anyone not named Nathan MacKinnon. If Andrei Vasilevskiy hadn’t put forth his finest performance of this series, the league’s second-best scorer stood a good chance of scoring off four quality shots in Game 6 (0.65 ixG, according to Evolving Hockey).

If Caufield finally manages to add to his current measly total of one power-play goal this series, when it matters most, the Habs will stand a significantly better chance of moving on to face the Sabres.

Arda Öcal, NHL broadcaster: Andrei Vasilevskiy. Big Cat is one of the most clutch goaltenders in NHL history. He has eight career playoff shutouts and seven of them were either in a series-clinching or elimination game.

He stood tall with a shutout in Game 6, making 30 saves, which is his second most amount of saves in a playoff shutout. If Tampa Bay wins Game 7, it’s on the back of one of their most reliable members of their roster in over a decade.

Kristen Shilton, NHL reporter: Brayden Point. It’s wild that the biggest impact Point has had on this series is spawning heated debate over an (alleged?) missed high-sticking call in Game 6 that (potentially?) cost the Lighting a four-minute power play. Point has one goal against the Canadiens heading into Game 7, and that’s after he collected 50 points in 63 regular-season games. He has been a point-per-game producer in the playoffs before, and more than that, Point has been an offensive driver for Tampa Bay.

But to think he’s averaging nearly 20 minutes of ice time, and it still feels (only half-jokingly) like his face belongs on a missing persons’ report? That’s not the standard Point has set for himself over the years (he once scored 51 goals in a season!), and if Point has been holding something back or waiting for the spotlight to burn brightest to fully shine, well, this is the time to step forward. The Lightning need more from their star players and Point bears pressure to be a difference-maker in Game 7.

Greg Wyshynski, NHL reporter: Brandon Hagel. Coach Jon Cooper called him “the straw that’s been stirring us” in these playoffs, and for good reason. He’s scored. He’s fought. He’s antagonized the Canadiens. He’s gone from being a great two-way player to one with gravitas.

Look no further than the Game 6 overtime winner: How Hagel dekes around one Montreal player and then magnetically attracts two others to open up the deep part of the zone where Gage Goncalves eventually scored. He’s one of the main reasons they’re in a Game 7. Might as well be the reason they win it.

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Lightning force Game 7 on Gage Goncalves’ OT goal

Lightning force Game 7 on Gage Goncalves’ OT goal.

The final score will be _____.

Clark: 3-2 Canadiens in OT.

Kaplan: 2-1 Lightning in OT.

Matiash: 3-2 Lightning.

Öcal: 2-1 Habs in triple overtime. Because after the series they’ve had, why not?

Shilton: 2-1 Lightning in double OT.

Wyshynski: 4-2 Lightning, redeeming themselves in front of the home fans after an embarrassing Game 5 effort.