Ranking The NHL Playoff Series’ #15 – TBL vs MON

It will go down in history as one of the most exciting seasons in the history of the NHL Playoffs. It had everything – drama, skill, action, comebacks, great goatending, bad goaltending – and when it was all said and done, 15 teams ended up losing their last game with only the Los Angeles Kings being thoroughly satisfied with the result.

We rank the 15 playoff series with a countdown beginning with #15 and ending up naming the best playoff series of the spring in just a few days.

Today is #15 – Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning

This matchup of the second place Lightning and 3rd place Habs lacked a lot of the drama that you found in a lot of the other series.

A pre-playoff injury to Vezina Trophy finalist goaltender Ben Bishop forced the Lightning to go with Anders Lindback and eventually Kristers Gudlevskis.

Apr 22, 2014; Montreal, Quebec, CAN; Ginette Reno sings the canadian national anthem prior to the game four of Montreal Canadiens against Tampa Bay Lightning of the first round of the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Bell Centre. Mandatory Credit: Jean-Yves Ahern-USA TODAY Sports

The most dramatic moments in the series were the pre-game ceremonies in Montreal and Ginette Reno’s stirring renditions of O Canada.

Rene Bourque was the story of the series, as the player who had just 9 regular season goals and was an occasional healthy scratch had 3 goals and an assist in the series.  Rambunctious Brendan Gallagher led all players in points with 5.

This series was really over before it began because of the absence of Bishop, and it was the lone series in the entire postseason that ended in a sweep.

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The drama for the Habs would come later on, but there wasn’t much in the way of animosity aside from a game 1 hit by Andrei Markov that knocked Lightning leading scorer Ondrej Palat out of the game and forced him to miss game 2 as well.

For these reasons, the Montreal Canadiens sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning gets ranked #15 of the 15 NHL Playoff series’ of 2014.