It was a back-and-forth series that went the distance – and the Montreal Canadiens got the final word.
The Habs edged the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 7 on Sunday, securing a second-round matchup against the Buffalo Sabres.
It marks the first time the Canadiens have advanced past the opening round since their Stanley Cup final run in 2021. Montreal now the only Canadian team remaining in the NHL playoffs.
Sportsnet and Hockey Night in Canada analyst Luke Gazdic spoke to CityNews to break down the Lightning series, and preview what’s to come in round two.
What did you like the most about Montreal in that series against Tampa?
First of all, the resiliency. They had their backs against the wall a couple of times… I look at that Tampa team, extremely veteran, a couple of players who have won there and been in that position before. This is a new position for a lot of Canadians players and talk about the rebuild and the process that they’ve been through. These are experiences that some guys are learning and getting for the first time, and I thought they just didn’t look out of place at all.
I mentioned before that first series that the teams didn’t like each other very much. Montreal is not the biggest team in the league, and I just thought they had no fear. I thought they went out there and just played. They looked like they loved the game.
Rookie goaltender Jakub Dobeš played like a seasoned veteran. Is he the real deal?
Oh my, like at 24 years old to be doing what he’s doing is extremely impressive for me. He goes head-to-head against Andrei Vasilevskiy, who is maybe one of if not the best playoff goaltender in the history of the game, or at least the last little bit. You talk about having a smile on your face and loving the game. That’s the guy I think of first and foremost. He’s in the mix. He kind of drags his team into the fight a little bit and I thought he was a leader even at a young age. Very cool to see a guy for the first time doing this and he has played exceptionally.
How is Buffalo a different team than Tampa?
Different systems, different size, different mentality, how they approach the game. Less veteran for sure; it’s a lot of younger guys. It reminds me of Montreal a lot with maybe not as much of the high-end talent. I think when I look at Buffalo past their first line, you almost don’t know what’s line two, three and four. It’s a team that plays all four. It’s a team with a young mobile blue line. I think that’s a huge difference that Montreal is going to face in terms of having Bowen Byram and Rasmus Dahlin back there moving the puck up.
At the end of the day, it’s a team that hasn’t been here in 15 years. They haven’t done this in a very long time, and they have the whole city behind them. They have a ton of belief and faith in their group right now. And I mentioned that the two teams not like each other in the first round – and I don’t know if that anger is here – but Buffalo likes to push people around as well. They like to play very physical and I think that’s what Montreal can expect for this one, is another very physical series.
How does Montreal contend with the size of Buffalo’s forwards like Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch?
That’s a huge thing for them that they’re going to have to go after is that first line for Buffalo. Peyton Krebs isn’t a big guy, but Tage Thompson in the middle, Alex Tuch on the right. These guys are both six-foot-four and above. Tage Thompson scored 40 goals this year. He is an elite goal scorer in the National Hockey League, especially on the power play.
Start right there: discipline. And I think Montreal has been really good with that all year in terms of not taking retaliatory penalties and not being the first guy in the scrap or the scrum to try to drag you into it. Maybe let Buffalo make the first move physicality-wise, engage it out a little bit and see what kind of temperature they bring to the game. But those two players in particular, Tuch and Thompson, will be circled, underlined, written in bold letters on the dry erase board for the Habs players because they are two huge, huge keys for the Sabres team.
What changes – if any – does Martin St. Louis need to make?
Well, I can’t tell Marty to make any changes. I can take some guesses, but everything he does seems to continue to work. The one game he continually kept changing the line combinations and it was kind of driving us nuts at the studio and me watching at home as well. When he does these things that I’m not sure why he’s doing them in the moment, and they just seem to work. He knows how to push his guys’ buttons. He knows which guys to throw out in which situations. He knows how to motivate his guys. So other than a couple of roster and lineup changes that I’m sure he’ll take care of getting guys in and out. The series that (Alexandre) Texier had, I don’t even know if anybody thought he would be in that position with the points that he had. Marty just seems to have a really good feel for his group and that’s a skill as a head coach to be able to stand behind the bench before the game, during the game, after the game and have a really good pulse of your team. And there’s a reason he does that is because he played for a long time and he gets it. So I’m not going to tell Marty anything to do or any changes to make because I think he’s got it locked down.
Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, just one goal apiece in the Tampa series. What will it take to get those guys going?
I’m glass half full here. I was kind of thinking about that before I came on. Lane Hutson led their team in points. So, him and Suzuki were tied with six. And to have a very young defenceman at the top of your leaderboard after seven games to me, it’s a little shocking, but I look at that as a good thing. That means your offence was spread out throughout the entire team. And I feel like Cole is just scratching the surface. I feel like he is ready to pop off. I don’t know if it is in this second round, I don’t know what game it is, but it’s coming at some point. I think a really big moment is coming for Caufield. Nick Suzuki, to me, is consistently there, whether he scores or not. I know he had the huge goal, the tip in in Game 7, but whether he’s there or not offensively, he’s there for his team for all 200 feet of the ice. He’ll play that defensive game. And Slafkovsky too. I know he had a couple of goals, but he continues to impress me with his consistency and the attitude he brings to every game.
But you know, you asked me a question before the first round about guys that might step up or might have a big series that you might not necessarily think of. And they got that from a number of guys. I thought the Bolduc-Dach-Texier line was fantastic. And they’re going to need some more efforts like that, maybe even from a veteran like Brendan Gallagher to continue to go here.
Buffalo getting a couple of days more rest. Is that a big deal?
Yes and no. I look at the other series in the East as an example, with Carolina playing Philadelphia. Philadelphia came right off a seven-game series. I think they had less than two days off. They flew in at midnight, the day before the game. They were a mess in Game 1. Carolina skated and walked all over them. But I was actually down there in Carolina interviewing some of those Hurricanes players for Sportsnet and they didn’t love the time off. So I think it’s a bit of in between. I think teams like to have a couple days to at least rest and regroup and take a look at the next round ahead, but not too long because then they get a little stir crazy. And at the end of the day, they just want to play. They want to keep this thing rolling. And I think momentum is a huge thing in sport. So coming off a big Game 7 win, heal some injuries, get some ice bags on, go see your family for a couple days and get right back at it.
What is the most likely path to victory for Montreal?
Honestly, this might be another seven-gamer. And I think it deserves it. I really do. These are two teams that they’re very evenly matched and they play different styles of hockey. They’re just different from the top of their roster all the way to the bottom. I just see two teams in different places, but similarities as well. Like similarities in the sense that this has been brewing for a while now. And I think it’s going to take six or seven games. So I think it’s one game at a time, like I said, for the first round, but this Buffalo team is not going to give you anything. And I’ll tell you, it’s a hard building to play in the Bell Centre, but Buffalo as well. It’s not going to be easy. Those fans are going to be raucous. It’s going to be loud in there. I’m here for it. I can’t wait for this series. This is the two teams that I wanted to see play each other. And I think it will end up going the distance.
You can watch Game 1 of the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs between the Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres live on Sportsnet Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET.
