The Montreal Canadiens are heading to the Eastern Conference final after a dramatic Game 7 overtime win over the Buffalo Sabres, continuing a playoff run that’s reignited excitement across the city.
Now the young Habs face their toughest test yet against a Carolina Hurricanes team that’s undefeated this postseason and coming in well-rested ahead of Thursday’s Game 1.
Sportsnet and Hockey Night in Canada analyst Luke Gazdic spoke to CityNews about what Montreal needs to do to keep the run alive.
How did the Montreal Canadiens get the better of the Buffalo Sabres?
I will say first and foremost, it was a great series. I’m glad it went seven games. I think it deserved seven games. It was two young teams, the number two and number three youngest teams in the NHL. I just think at the end of the day, it’s about outlasting your opponent. And what Montreal did was they had a number of unsung heroes step up for them in times and places and games. One of those was Alex Newhook. I’m sure we’ll get to him at some point, but also Jakub Dobes. Like here’s a rookie goaltender in his first experience playing in the National Hockey League playoffs and he goes into a Game 7 twice now on the road and wins in Game 7. So they are doing things not necessarily by the book, but they’re getting the job done.
The Habs were coming off an embarrassing Game 6 loss. What does their Game 7 performance say about their mindset? How is such a young team showing such resiliency?
I think that’s it right there. It’s resilience for a young team to be able to go in on the road in a pretty hostile atmosphere, a pretty hostile environment – like any road building in the National Hockey League playoffs is not an easy environment to play in – and they’re just able to kind of calm the noise. It’s intriguing to watch for me because the road team has done way better in these playoffs. And I think for the youth that they have, for them to be able to go in there and just tune out the noise and tune out everything and basically just be able to go out there and play, that’s a skill in and of itself. So if they can figure some things out at home – I don’t know if it’s being overwhelmed by the craziness at the Bell Centre – but if they can start to figure things at home a little bit, I think the series is going to go better for them.
Next up are the Carolina Hurricanes, coming off back-to-back sweeps. They have yet to even trail a game in these playoffs. Are they miles ahead of the Lightning and Sabres?
I don’t know about miles ahead, but I will say that I got to go down to Raleigh with Sportsnet to sit down with a couple of their players, their head coach, Rod Brind’Amour, and they just do things a little differently down there. They have a very consistent culture that has been in place for years and years. Rod, their head coach, has been there for 14 years. They bring in guys for long-term deals and they do things the right way. Like it’s a bunch of really good pros that play a good system. And I wouldn’t say they’re miles ahead, but they are certainly a well-oiled machine. From top to bottom, they do things the right way. They get scoring, they get skill, they get goaltending. They have it all. And it’s going to be, yet again, another team that’s hard to beat in a seven-game series.
The ‘Canes will be on 11 days of full rest. The Habs get two. Who benefits in that scenario?
Well, history shows, and I wish I had the exact stat for you, but I think it’s seven out of the last eight teams that went seven games versus the team which finished before have actually won. So history favours the team that went the distance in the series before rather than having the rest. But I don’t know, 11 days off for any team in the playoffs, I think is good. I actually asked a couple of veteran guys around the league, guys who had made long, deep runs and asking if it’s too much rest, and basically I was just laughed at. I think it’s any amount of time for guys to be able to take a breather and get some injuries healed is always a good thing. But in saying that, you look at the other side of the column with Montreal, and they can just continue that momentum and they can carry this right into Raleigh and right into Game 1. I think if anything, maybe a little bit of rust early for the Hurricanes, but I don’t think it’s going to take them very long to get going. This thing’s going to be fast. And I think it’s going to happen right away. I think these are two teams that are going to come absolutely flying out of the gate.
Round 2 was the Alex Newhook show. Can he keep it up against Carolina?
I hope so, because one of my favourite things, not just in hockey, but in sports, is good stories and good narratives and guys that kind of just come out of nowhere. And is Alex Newhook out of nowhere? No, not exactly; he’s been a fixture for the Habs for a bit now. But I don’t think anyone expected him to score at the clip and the rate that he has, and in the clutch fashion that he has. I said before Game 7 on the desk at Sportsnet, I love in Game 7s, how there’s always somebody unexpected that comes out and has a performance. And once again, it was St. John’s, Newfoundland. By the way, shoutout St. John’s, shoutout the province of Newfoundland. It’s one of my favourite places in Canada to travel and to live, some of the coolest people out there. So I’m sure that entire place is going nuts. And I’m sure they’re hoping Alex can keep it going as well. Hey, if Montreal is going to have any chance in this series, which I’m not trying to make it sound like they don’t – I think they have a great chance in this series – but they’re going to need every single guy. Carolina rolls all four lines. They play every single guy on their roster that’s dressed. So to combat that, they’re going to need everybody going.
If Suzuki, Caufield and Slafkovsky don’t return to their regular-season form, could this be the end of the road for Montreal?
I’ll say it honestly, because your top guys power your team: I don’t think they’ve played their best hockey. I think Suzuki’s been the best on that line. But going back to Carolina, they’re going to have to go power for power. And we’re going to have to see that first line that played so well and so dominantly throughout portions of the regular season and the playoffs. And Caufield is the guy that I’m really zoning in on. Because he led the Habs this season with 12 game-winning goals. So he had been their clutch scorer throughout the whole year. It’s coming at some point. There’s going to be a moment where Cole scores a really big goal in this series. And because I don’t really want to look at the other side of the coin, that if he doesn’t, this really might be the end for them.
Jakub Dobes was not as dominant against Buffalo as he was against Tampa. Is that a concern going into this Eastern Conference final?
I always think it’s a bit of a concern with young players and young goaltenders, but he just seems different to me. He has this ability to bounce back and fight through adversity. Like after they lost Game 6 at home, I really didn’t know what to think. And going into to Buffalo for Game 7, I just remember thinking that it could go anywhere. And for him to step up and have the performance that he did on the road, it showed a lot to me. And the adversity that he showed time and time again, whether it’s the micro sense in game to game and after a loss, or whether it’s the macro sense from series to series and from regular season to playoffs, he’s just continued to impress me. And the thing I love about him is you can tell how much he cares. I think we’ve gotten into the emotion side a little bit of it on TV where he gets pretty fired up in that crease sometimes. Like especially at home, he’s taken some swings and taken some jabs at guys. And I love that. I think it’s just about reigning that in a little bit. And he was able to do that time and time again. So I think he’s only going to gain more mental strength and more confidence the longer they go.
At the other end of the ice is Carolina goaltender Frederik Andersen, whose playoff statistics are out of this world so far. How does Montreal get the better of him?
You set me right up because this is kind of one of my keys going into this series is that I don’t think Ottawa or Philadelphia have made it hard enough on Andersen. And I don’t think that necessarily means going in and running them over and Game 1, shift one, sending him through the end wall. But they got to make it hard on him. They got to get bodies to the net and traffic and tons of shots. And yeah, if there’s a bump here or there, if you’re going to get a little physical with him, maybe that’s the route you go. I just think in and around the crease is a very tough area to own, especially later on in the playoffs. And Carolina does a very good job of winning their one-on-one battles, especially low. So they’ve got to get to the inside, the Habs that is, and get low and get to those hard areas and make it really, really hard on Freddie. I just don’t think he’s been tested. I don’t think he’s been tested yet so far in these playoffs, especially physically.
Montreal swept all three games against Carolina in the regular season, including two in Raleigh. Does that even matter now?
Absolutely. Absolutely. I just think of the other side, if they had been swept by them three times, I think that’s all we would kind of be talking about is they have no luck against them or they don’t play well against them. And one of the first things I think you would do as a coaching staff, and that Marty would do as a coaching staff, is go back and watch those games. And I know that the rosters may be a little different. There may be some tweaks here and there. Obviously, both teams have brought in different guys along the way. But you look at those three games as a template for how you want to play and you’d see what you did to beat them and what you can do to beat them. Because I’ll go back to it: it’s an impressive team. So to be able to have the success you had on them earlier in the season, it’s absolutely huge. I think even for the mental psyche, for the players, just to know it can be done, just to look across the ice and know that they’re not unbeatable. Just because they’re undefeated so far, it doesn’t mean they’re necessarily unbeatable.
The Habs keep finding a way to win on the road. Could they manage to steal a game or even two at the Lenovo Center?
They’re going to have to. I think the old saying goes, I’ve probably said it before on here, but you never lose a series till you lose at home. And I just think here is yet another series that to me deserves seven games. And I use this phrase a lot just because it’s two teams that play a kind of similar style. They want to play fast. They want to go north in transition really fast. They play a man-on-man in zone where it’s tons of one-on-one battles. It’s lots of skating. I’ll tell you one thing. I would not last a period in this series because I wasn’t a good enough skater. These teams can just skate miles and miles for days and days. And I think you’re going to see that early. But if Montreal does want to extend this thing and have a chance, it’s going to be easier for them to go home with a split rather than looking behind the eight ball and coming back with a 2-0 deficit.
Now that we’re getting closer to hockey’s biggest prize – with four teams left – what exactly does it take to win the Stanley Cup?
Well, first of all, I wish I knew because it’s all I wanted to do as a player. It is the most challenging trophy to win in sports. You can see with what Montreal has gone through so far that you just you can’t take a moment off. You can’t take a shift off. You can’t take a game off. Maybe you can, but it will eventually come back to bite you. And you have to go through four really, really challenging opponents, usually in sequential order of how they finished in the season. But that’s not necessarily how the NHL works. They had to go through the Tampa Bay Lightning in round one. They had to go through the Buffalo Sabres, who had a fantastic regular season only to be met with the leaders of the Metropolitan Division in the Eastern Conference final. It just gets more challenging and more challenging. And you just know that anyone’s watching these four teams left. There’s a team over in Denver, Colorado right now that I think is going to be in the Stanley Cup finals that won the President’s Trophy in Colorado. That is another very, very impressive hockey team. So it gets more challenging and more challenging. There’s no shifts off. There’s no days off. But what I love about this Montreal team is they’re young. A lot of guys are experiencing these things for the first time. And it just seems like they are bringing the right attitude into this night in and night out.
Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final between the Montreal Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes begins Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on Sportsnet.
