The FourCheck: Four numbers to consider ahead of Game 4

That’s a lot of fours.

The Tampa Bay Lightning acknowledged repeatedly during Friday’s postgame media availability that their most recent performance, a 3-2 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens in Game 3, wasn’t good enough.

With the Lightning looking to improve that effort and even the series in Game 4, set for 7 p.m. on Sunday at the Bell Centre, here are a few numbers to consider:

Aiming for 2-2

A Lightning win to wrap up the weekend would reset the series, making it a best-of-three when action shifts back to Benchmark International Arena in Game 5, set for Wednesday.

The past doesn’t guarantee the future, but Tampa Bay has historically found success in this situation.

Tampa Bay carries a 14-7 record all-time when playing Game 4 on the road, their best winning percentage of any playoff situation when playing away from home.

Tampa Bay is 23-16 overall in playoff Game 4s. The team last overcame a 2-1 series deficit in the 2022 Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Rangers.

Four goals for Hagel

What a start for Brandon Hagel.

Hagel had a dynamite regular season for Tampa Bay, scoring a career-high 36 goals and surpassing the 70-point mark for a third straight season.

He is an Olympian—an all-word player. Fitting, considering all-world would be a good way to describe Hagel’s start in the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The 27-year-old forward has been Tampa Bay’s best skater so far and co-leads the team in scoring with five points through the first three games against the Canadiens.

Hagel’s four goals are tied with Dallas forward Jason Robertson and Carolina forward Logan Stankoven for the most of any NHL player this postseason, and the Bolts forward has already set a new career high for postseason goals.

Hagel is the fourth player in team history to score in the first three games of a postseason, and he mixed in a Gordie Howe hat trick (goal, assist, fight in one game) for good measure. Another goal from Hagel on Sunday would tie the franchise record for longest goal streak to start a postseason (Steven Stamkos 4 GP in 2024, Vincent Lecavalier 4 GP in 2007).

His next playoff point will tie the career-high six points he posted over 23 games for the Lightning in their 2022 trip to the Stanley Cup Final.

“I got traded here, and I went to the Stanley Cup Finals and haven't been back since. It’s a hard place to get,” Hagel said before Game 1. “Long summers aren't that fun. Everyone wants to play. Everyone dreams of this moment, and at the end of the day, there was a message that was sent at the start of the year, and it seems that all 25 guys have bought into that. We're gonna go into these playoffs…we do have a really good team that we're up against, and it's gonna be a good test for us.”

So far, Hagel has passed that test. He’ll aim to keep doing so in the latest chapter at the Bell Centre on Sunday.

Stop it at three

Andrei Vasilevskiy was the main reason Tampa Bay was able to push Game 3 to overtime.

Vasilevskiy finished with 26 saves in the effort, but three of them stand out—Vasilevskiy stopped a trio of breakaway chances from some of the Canadiens’ most involved players so far this series in Cole Caufield, Josh Anderson and Ivan Demidov.

The Lightning will need to tighten up those rush chances in Game 4, and the team knows it.

Vasilevskiy has already made 20 high-danger saves through three games, tied for fifth-most this postseason. He’s only allowed three of those chances to turn into goals.

"We weren't as sharp as we needed to be, for sure,” defenseman Ryan McDonagh said after Game 3. “Gave them breakaways and odd-mans, we haven't done a lot of that in this series, but tonight it certainly got away from us defensively. And hats off to Vasy, he gave us a chance there in overtime, but ultimately, I think the right team won tonight, and that's on us.”

100% on the PK

After allowing four power-play goals through the first two games of the series, Tampa Bay defenseman JJ Moser said the penalty kill units gained confidence by killing a key penalty with just over two minutes remaining in regulation in an even Game 2 that the Bolts went on to win with a Moser goal in overtime.

“We knew that it wasn't good in in the first game, and then we got scored on that first penalty kill. We knew it was going to be big, and we knew that we’d have to make adjustments. It's just about the trust in our group as a whole, and in our PK group too, that we know that we have to come up with that one, and we did, and that builds a lot of confidence going forward.”

That confidence showed in Game 3, when the Lightning erased all four of Montreal’s power-play opportunities in Game 3 on Thursday.

Tampa Bay’s penalty kill was the third-best of any team in the regular season, and that unit has been busy this postseason with the team averaging just shy of eight penalty minutes per game.

"That's tough,” Guentzel said of penalties. “It’s been all series, myself included. We've got to make sure we clean that up. That's one of the best power plays in the league for a reason, and they have a lot of skill.”