Chapter 1: What are the latest updates on the Canadiens and their ECF series?
Chatfield prevented it from going deep.
Back in. A chance. And it goes. 702 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. Halford Brough, Sportsnet 650. Halford Brough in the morning is brought to you by Sands & Associates. They're open seven days a week, and they're open late to help you get debt-free. With no judgment or upfront fees, visit them today at sands-trustee.com. We are now in Hour 2 of the program.
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I mentioned this in the break. Dimitri Filipovich of the PDO cast here on Sportsnet 650. He comes in early to work in the adjacent studio.
Yeah, he's a grinder.
He's sitting in a chair in a crouching position.
Like an office chair. He's sitting in an office chair.
He does this often.
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Chapter 2: What challenges are the Colorado Avalanche facing in the playoffs?
I don't know why you haven't seen this before. I know. I've never seen it before.
And both his feet are on the chair? Correct. Is it a cross-legged or? Nope. No? Nope.
He's in a... It's like a squat. He's in a squat in a chair.
Like Crouching Tiger?
Yep. A little bit. That's on the chair. Like he's sitting.
Are you just jealous you're not as nimble? How does he get his feet up on the... I don't know.
You ever see those Asian guys smoke in the crouching position? That's what it looks like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The crouch. In a chair with a laptop. Yeah, except there's no cigarette.
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Chapter 3: How do the Canadiens' defensive strategies impact their playoff success?
Well, not that I know of. But anyway, I'm like, if I tried to do that... You would die. For 30 seconds.
Yeah, well, the chair would topple over, too. That's first the chair would topple over. You'd blow your other Achilles.
Yeah, right. He has no Achilles. We do have a guest on hold, by the way. Oh, yeah, right. Eric's on hold. Okay, let's go to the Able Auctions hotline now. Our next guest, Montreal Canadiens writer for Sportsnet, Eric Engels, joins us here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Good morning, Eric. How are you?
I'm not going to lie. I've been on the line for two and a half minutes, and you guys lost me at happy Monday.
I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Sometimes I ramble, and I forget. I apologize. Thank you for taking the time to do this today, and it sounds as though you're at the rinks. This is great. Game two, a lot to unpack there.
Not a lot of shots to unpack from the Montreal side of things, but all things considered with the series shifting back to Montreal now, the Habs have to be happy with where they're at in this series, correct?
I would think so. 1-1 coming home to your building. And I understand the Canadians are 2-4 at the Bell Centre, but they haven't played badly here. Talk about the shots. Do you expect to get outshot by Carolina? What you don't expect is if you spend close to 30 minutes in regulation in your own zone. and only allow 24 against those guys, you end up with a pretty good chance to win a game.
I think the Canadians have defended really well. Probably the first of their playoffs in general for a team that everyone thought of as a high-scoring, high-octane, artifact kids kind of team. I still think that gives them the best chance of advancing in these playoffs if they're able to. I'm looking forward to seeing more of that tonight, and I think if they can generate
or if they can capitalize on the chances they do generate, they'll have a good opportunity to win a game here at the Delta.
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Chapter 4: What factors contribute to the Canadiens' home record in the playoffs?
They lost by a goal. So like I said, it's not like they're playing badly in this building. And the fans have been unbelievable. Whether they're winning or losing at any point, they're just so loud and so involved and so intense and
I think the Canadians themselves have talked about how they want to win so badly for the love they're receiving from their fans that maybe that blurs the simplicity of their game a little, but I think they've had a chance to talk about it and deal with it. Their last game here was by far their worst of the entire season. An 8-3 loss to Buffalo in Game 6 with a chance to eliminate them from a 3-1.
I think they just got a little too excited. They smelled a little vulnerability in the Sabres, and they tried to push it and got too aggressive against a team like Buffalo that's not the most defensive team, I think if they had just waited it out a little, they would have gotten a lot of opportunities with a frustrated Sabres team.
But that didn't happen, and they lost the way they did, and they said, that can't be our last game at home, and they guaranteed that it wouldn't be, so they're back.
Eric, when Carolina is on their game, what is the key to beating them? Because I don't think they were on their game in game one. And full credit to Montreal for the response after Carolina got off to that quick start. And that was very impressive. But I don't think that was Carolina's best.
So assuming that they bring their best for most of the rest of the series, what is the key to still beating them?
On or off their game, you have to meet their first wave of pressure, and you can't get stubborn about making plays in your own zone to do it. Now, the Canadians were able to do that quite a bit in game one. They were able to do it less so in game two, but they still exited their zone 75% of the time and controlled the puck.
Where the disconnect kind of happened is in the neutral zone, where I don't know if you saw the clip of Rod Brindamore saying, we worked on one thing in particular, but I won't tell you what it is. It was his defenseman backing up a little bit once that first wave of pressure was beat. And they weren't allowing the Canadians to get behind them as often as they did in game one.
And so the answer is to get out of your zone quicker and be able to apply more pressure through the neutral zone so you can establish defensive zone presence. That's the key to beating Carolina.
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Chapter 5: What are the keys to beating the Carolina Hurricanes?
And I think that's a reason a lot of our listeners are really hoping that Montreal beats Carolina so that we don't have to watch Carolina in the Stanley Cup final.
Look, I'll tell you a couple things about them. One, you've probably seen the stats that they've given up the most breakaways in the NHL this year. It's not because they're chorus or anything. It's because they don't care. They believe they'll generate five scoring chances for every one they give up going that way and that type of chance.
The thing is, in the playoffs, and the reason they've made it so far through the playoffs... over the last number of years, only to be halted at the same stage each year. And Florida is a big part of it, obviously.
But it is that, that these games generally get settled by one goal and that if you don't have as much premium talent as the other side, it can go against you, even if you're out shooting and out gunning and all that stuff. The other thing you're talking about in terms of the style itself and how tough it might be for some fans to watch is I think they play super fast.
Chapter 6: How are injuries affecting the Colorado Avalanche's performance?
I think they're different than they were in previous years in terms of their willingness to create things off the rush. But if you're an offensively creative player, I don't, there's a lot of them that, and even that are still in that room that don't enjoy playing the way they play.
I mean, it's just, and, you know, sometimes things that you don't enjoy are the most worthwhile things you do in life. And, you know, these guys are, three wins away, just like the Canadians are from going to the Stanley Cup final. And I don't think they're going to sacrifice any of that. They're certainly not going to change it.
And look, it's the hardest, most demanding style of play to play against. There is ways to break it down. The Canadians, you said that the hurricanes weren't on in game one, and I don't think anybody would disagree with that. But the Canadians broke them down. They had an incredible plan, and they executed it to near perfection.
And I think they still feel in game two where they didn't have their fastball, they had plenty of chances to win that game. Even with 12 shots on net through 60 minutes, they did. So I think... We'll see where this goes. It's going to be a close series. My biggest question on Montreal is like, do they have the gas required if this goes a long way to make a pass?
And if they do, because Alex Carrier said before game one, we're the youngest team in the league. We've got plenty of gas. That'll be quite a feat after two seven-game wars against Tampa and Buffalo.
We're speaking to Sportsnet's Eric Engels here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. So you mentioned gas in the tank. And, you know, one of the ways that you can kind of maneuver around that or alleviate a lack of gas is rolling four lines and utilizing all your forwards. which turns our attention to Marty St.
Louis' deployment of the fourth line of Oliver Kapanen, Zach Bolduc, and Kirby Duck. I know it was a talking point after game two, specifically how the post-game media availability ended. What do we need to know that maybe we don't know about the way that St. Louis is deploying that fourth line and maybe the way he'll deploy them moving forward given how the first two series and a bit have gone?
Yeah, listen, again, you play against Carolina, you need to spread the minutes through your bench, even if the stakes go up and you're going into overtime. I think given the fact that the Canadian spent 29 plus minutes in their zone through the first 60, you know, it's not insane to roll your four lines through the first four shifts of overtime. That said, you know, the stakes do go up.
And I think if Marty, who generally has no issue shortening his bench, would have potentially considered that, you know, they might have extended play, but that stuff will never know.
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Chapter 7: What is the reaction to the Avalanche's series against the Golden Knights?
Now he's got to consider lineup changes. Kapanen has a chance to get that puck in with nobody pressuring him and he shoots it right into his chat field and it goes the other way immediately while Babson and Dobson are trying to make a change. And Ehlers, who's a burner and one of the biggest burners in the league, has enough speed to separate and create that opportunity to score.
You want to look at that play in isolation and say Kaepernick shouldn't play. There's an argument to make for that. You want to look at Kaepernick's game in general through seven of the playoffs. He sat out for most of the Buffalo series through 10 minutes. that night. No shots on net. I think the reason he was in over Valeno and Gallagher is you're going to get rush chances against Carolina.
As a rookie who scored 22 goals this year, the idea that he could finish them better than those other two guys is not a stretch. No shots on net through 10 minutes. If you don't shoot, you're not going to get a chance to score. I just think his game in general is left enough to be desired that I don't think he'll be playing this one. That said, Marty St.
Louis, you know, when everybody thought he should pull Kirby Dock in the first round, stuck with him and he came back and played a huge game three and won it for the Canadiens. When Dobish gave up three goals on four shots in Buffalo and everybody thought they should yank him out of the net, he kept him in and he made 31 straight saves for a huge win.
I just don't know if Kapanen has the currency to stay in under these circumstances.
Eric, what is the reaction of the Montreal fan base into the Vegas Golden Knights taking a 3-0 series lead on Colorado?
I don't know. I haven't spoken to them about it. I could tell you my own reaction to it.
What's your reaction?
I'm surprised. You know what really got me last night watching that game?
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Chapter 8: Is Jared Bednar's job at risk due to the Avalanche's playoff struggles?
At 3-3, we kept seeing shots at the bench because McKinnon was there, right? Yeah. There was just no energy. There's nobody talking. I understand it's a stressful situation. You're facing potentially going down 3-0 in the series. It can be nervous and tight, but you're still a shot away from getting yourself back into the series.
That was a really concerning look every time we saw their bench because everybody wanted to look at McGinnis and how... there was just no energy coming from it at all. So it was almost inevitable that that hurdle goal was coming next. I'm not counting Colorado out.
I bet a lot of people looked at what happened in the 10-in and the fact that McCarr is probably playing on a separated shoulder or something pretty serious. He looked pretty good for a guy who was playing pretty injured. I just, you know, having watched the Oilers come back from 3-0 and everybody thought they were dead, and Colorado's good enough team to do that to Vegas,
They need to start with one. And I would hope, for their sake, down 3-0 with the whole thing potentially going out the window, that the pressure comes off and they just go out and play. And we see a different type of energy on their bench. Because if it looks anything like it looked while the game was tied last night, they're dead.
Eric, this was great, buddy. Thanks for taking the time to do this today. We really appreciate it. Enjoy the game tonight. It should be a lot of fun. We'll do this again soon. See you guys.
See you later, Eric Engels. Oh, we lost him.
Yep, he's okay. Eric Engels from Sportsnet here on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. Do you think he was doing that from ice level or is a dog suggested to one of our texters while he was in net? Yeah, he was in net.
Yeah. Well, the guy kept on missing the net.
I want to imagine he was right at the boards and the players saw that he was on the phone. So you're just firing the pucks at the boards right behind him.
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