Welcome to the Bacou and Galin Notebook on this Friday, January 26, 2024. I am Marc-Antoine Galin with Arpind Bacou as usual. Arpind, did you feel the emotion with Pata and Croix last night?

Yeah, of course. How could you not? It was a really nice touch from the Canadians, I thought, doing it during the anthem. Actually, there was a comment on my story on the athletic that I thought was really good. The commenter took the lyrics of the anthem, and he liked how the photos of Patrick Croix were lined up with and all these things. It was the imagery and the lyrics lining up was another touch that I actually hadn't noticed. But yeah, I thought it was It was really great.

I'm glad you read the comments.

It's good to know. I do read the comments. I don't always respond, but I do read them. But I thought a really nice touch in the way it was done. It was done in a way that didn't make it a thing. It was an added layer to the game. And I think that was respecting Patrick Croix the way he was viewing it, that he didn't really want it to be about him, but it It was impossible to not make it about him. And so the Canadians, they had to do something. And I thought the way they did it, incorporating it into the normal routine of the game was really nice. And obviously the crowd, being the Montreal crowd, stepped up again and made it for a nice moment and I think made Patrickouat feel very uncomfortable. And so mission accomplished, if that was the goal, because I think he would have much rather just started the game, but a very nice moment.

Yeah, for sure. And you cannot... It's a bit weird When it comes to a legend of this magnitude, we're celebrating him as a chance to create really potentially a momentum shift. Doing it at any other point in the game, once the game has started, starting celebrating the other team's head coach is risky for your own team. Doing it during the Anthem was safe territory. It was a good move.

It's also that it's not Patrick West's first came back. He's coached in the building before. It's normal when a player comes back, yes, it's first TV time out, they do that, and it's always a nice moment and everything. But this was different. This was just Patrick West got a job, and he's coaching a team against the Canadians, which he's done three times before. Not that many, but three times before. But it hadn't happened in seven years. They had to do something, and I think they did it well. Also maybe got Patrick's kitchen a little bit by doing it. I don't know. But it's also you can't... It's one thing when they did for P. K. Suban, he has tears streaming down his face right before the game. You can imagine that it probably affected how he played right off the bat. I don't think it really affected how Patrick coached right off the bat. No.

All right. Let's say enough with Patrick Roy, but we'll keep one aspect of last night's game to start our discussion because obviously, the hit that Brandon Gallagher inflicted on Adam Pelec was a turning point in the game. Blindside hit to the head, elbow in the face, Gallagher's skate's lifted off the ice. Pelec didn't have the buck. It was really the whole shebang. So earlier today, we learned that he would get a hearing with the NHL, which is no surprise. It's a telephone call. It's not an in-person hearing, which means that he's going to be given a suspension of five games or less. Maybe that at the time that you listen to this podcast, the suspension has already dropped.

We're recording at 3:45 PM on Friday. So just to give you a timeline, but we don't know what it'll be. But yeah, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. Just to give that little bit of information.

But I think that it doesn't change anything to the fact that if you objectively look at the hit, whether it gets three or five or even in three, four, or five games, it doesn't change anything to the fact that, in my opinion, it was worthy of more. The fact that guys are given a a pass because they don't have previous history with the Department of Player Security. It's an argument that seems to really go a long way in terms of deciding the sanction. And last I check, it's an exaggerated, I'll admit, it's an exaggerated example. But if you kill someone, the fact that you have not killed someone before It doesn't factor in into the fact of what you did. So I'm going to the extreme here. But ultimately, I find that, Oh, no, he hasn't done anything bad before. So hence the sanction this time will be It will be easier. I find that it weighs a lot sometimes.

You're assuming that the NHL runs... Our legal system is, people might argue differently, but our legal system is based on common sense and logic. In much the same way, our legal system, if you assault someone but they're not injured, it doesn't mean you get away with it. It's the same thing. You're still going to get charged with assault. Here, if you hit a guy and he escapes injury, more often than not, you're not getting a hearing and you're not getting suspended. In this case, yeah, I agree. We have precedent for it this season. I believe Charlie McAvoy got four games for his hit on Oliver Eklend Larson earlier this season. Was A bad hit, a really bad hit, probably deserve more. But McVoy had no history, hence got to three games.

No, he had.

Or he did. Yeah, sorry. I don't think he did.

I thought he didn't. He had already... Okay. But anyhow, in this case, I'd be disappointed, but actually, I'm not even going to spectate because probably a lot of you listeners probably already know the length of the suspension.

But the fact it's not more than five, I agree, is wrong. Everything in the checklist of a legal check to the head is checked off here. Elevating into the head, leaving his feet, picking the head, elbow chicken wing coming out, blindside, fuck was gone. Just go down the list of things that you can't do when you hit a guy, and he did it all. In a greater issue, listen, this is not... Brandon Gallagher doesn't have a history He's not in the mood of doing this either, this thing. He's generally an honest player. He takes penalties, but dirty plays are not common with him. And even though he gets involved in rough stuff in front of the net or whatever, this is out of character for him. What is it? It It is not, unfortunately, out of character for him, and with the Canadiens, I feel a need to address, is this tendency to take penalties laid in games when the Canadiens are either trying to tie the game or the game is tied, or they're coming from behind, and he effectively puts an end to that. In this case, obviously, they're trying to protect the lead, gets a five-minute major, they're going to underscore twice, they tie it, almost cost them the game.

Were it not for Cole Caulfield, Josh Anderson, and Sean Monaghan combining on the winning goal Well, it might have gone overtime. The Canadiens might have lost. I remember before the season, the day after Tana Pearson was acquired from the Vancouver Knux, I asked Martin St. Louis a question basically stating, when you have to decide between a veteran player like Tanner Pearson or a younger player on who's going to get a specific role, who's going to get in the lineup, How do you come down on that? How do you differentiate between the two, aside from their performance on the ice? If it's relatively even, what's the tie break? And tie break for Martin, we said at that time, is, well, generally a veteran player has a track record, and that track record gives that veteran... Because a veteran player is a veteran because he's done certain things for a long enough time that he's managed to stay in the league. And that track record gets him the benefit of the doubt. Brett Gallagher has a long track record in the NHL, a long track record of being a team guy, a heart and soul guy, the heart and soul of the Canadians for a long time.

But this season, these are starting to pile up. And that hit, forget the hit itself, which we've already discussed, was bad. No one disagrees with that. But the time of the game, the necessity of it, all of it just speaks to some of Brandon's questionable decision making late in games. When he is the guy who's supposed to be showing the way in that department, he's the one who's supposed to be setting the example for how you behave situationally late in a hockey game, especially that game. Forget Patrick Loie, but the Canadian is coming off three really bad losses, identifying that game as a need to bounce back and put an end to this, for him to jeopardize that the way he did as a veteran with a track record is unacceptable.

Unacceptable, no.

Yes, he's going to get consequences from the NHL, but we got to see there's got to be some internal accountability. And I think Marty is not willing to share that publicly. I think that's something he's going to deal with with Brandon himself. But the difference, the verbal gymnastics he went through after the game to avoid calling Brandon out for that penalty and the ease with which he called out Arbort Jacky for his penalties, it was night and day. It was completely, and it It just goes back to that answer after the Tana Pearson trade. A veteran gets the benefit of the debt. Well, when a veteran keeps making the same mistake over and over again, Marty says this all the time. If that's when you got to step in, that's a trend, not a one-off. This is a trend, unfortunately.

It's certainly a trend. I didn't go into the penalties that he took while the Canadians were on the power play. I don't know if he canceled the team's power play this year with a penalty. I believe he did once or twice. But in terms of the situation you described, here's his history for this season. On November 14th, he had a tripping against Calgary with three minutes, twelve left. Calgary was leading by one. So the Canadians could not come back from a two to one deficit because of that penalty. You remember, he argued, he complained about the referee after the game. It was in Montreal, and he said, It's a terrible call. He cannot make that mistake because the ref, Pierre Lambert, was too far away from the plate.

Absolutely.

Yeah, and he was right. Two nights after against Vegas- He went on and on about it.

He really laid it on publicly, heavily thick that day.

For sure. He was ready to take a- He was hot.a find for that.

For sure.

But two nights after, against Vegas, he takes a double minor high sticking with 2:51 left. The Canadians were leading 5 to 4. Vegas scored two goals, ended up winning. So that's two nights after. Then on January December was quiet, but on January 13, he took a hooking with 149 left against Edmonton in a tie game. The Oilers did not score on that, but obviously it put the Canadians in a tough spot.

And that power play went into overtime, right?

Exactly. They carried over into overtime. No, actually, I think Matheson got a penalty in overtime, and that's how the Oilers scored. No, I know, but that power play, didn't they start over time? Yeah, they did. So ultimately, it was... Yes, obviously, there was 11 seconds left. But those were all in... And then yesterday. So you see, that's four instances in a single season where in the last four minutes... Well, yesterday was not in the last four minutes, but it ended up.

It was five-minute major.

It's a five-minute major with eight minutes left. It amounts to the same It's puzzling. The intention behind it, I don't know if they have a prior history, the two of them, or something happened during the game, but it was so deliberate. I have a hard time explaining that to myself.

It was deliberate and unnecessary. It was not in the flow of the game. That's not a hit you normally make. There's cases where you finish a check, where you will hit a guy shortly after he passed the In open ice like that, coming from the blind, that's not that. That's not a case of that. That's just bad, bad, bad judgment and a bad hit. It's a technically bad hit. Everything about that hit was bad and wrong. Really, the synapses in his brain, one of the checklist should have been like, Okay, Brandon, no, we're not doing this. We're not, Oh, No, you're bringing your elbow up. No, we're not doing this. There had to be some firewall in his brain that said, No, this is not the time for this, buddy. That track record, that veteran track record, is what should have made that firewall much stronger, and it didn't. And this goes back... I believe... When was that game? I wrote about it. I think you wrote about it, too. But the game where a Yule Army took for second game in a row, took a bad penalty that cost the team. And didn't even miss a shift, was right back out there as soon as he could.

That game was in Florida, I believe, during the holidays. Same thing. And to Marty's credit, There were no consequences for Jol'Armia. Right now, Jol'Armia is playing the best hockey I've seen him play in a really long time, probably since this 2021 play-ups. Honestly, this is the best version, the best stretch of Jol'Armia games we've seen. Maybe whatever discussions Marty had with him coming out of that situation, maybe that had a positive effect on him, maybe that something sparked in him that triggered this play to him. But man, there was another case of a veteran getting the benefit of the doubt, and that's a case that turned out okay, but there's a certain culture of accountability that you want to create. I don't know what's going to happen with Brenda Gallagher, but after the game, and even today, I think Marty was very hesitant to call him out on it.

Yeah. There was that point that I've been harping on since the beginning of the season that Martense Nui has the limited options when it comes to accountability because he just doesn't have the bodies to switch guys around the way they probably should and that he most certainly would. But it's just that he's got... Right now, he saw Lucas Condota, who was called up. He He benched, well, he scratched Yesu Alonin in a few games, but he doesn't necessarily have the ammo to say, I'm going to promote some guys, give them larger responsibilities, and punish the guys that I'm unhappy with. He can do that on defense to a certain extent, but all year round, it's been difficult.

I disagree. I'll tell you why. Because obviously, this doesn't apply to the game last night against the Iyanders because Brenda Gallagher was kicked out of the game. He had a match penalty. So you can't bet you guys. It's not in the game. But it's not as if Marty doesn't have a history of benching guys. They're just lower in the line. Like, Michael Pizzetta gets benched every game, almost. Christ, he gets out of the way. He didn't play after the first period. So Yasi Alonin, when he was in the lineup, regularly got benched in the third period. It's not like he has no options. Are they good options? No.

But that's That's what I'm saying. Benching his worst players is a vote of no confidence for them. So after that, to give them not only a regular shift, but additional shift in order to- It only proves his point further.

It only proves the point further. If you're willing to give Michael Pizzetta your army as ice time or Brenda Gallegher's ice time, it pulls your point further. That, I have a line that you cannot cross. You have crossed it, so I'm going to put this guy in your spot. And I don't care if he's not as good as you, I don't care if he won't do the job as well as you will. What you're doing is unacceptable. I have to draw a line in the sand. And so I think it just makes that point more impactful when you take a lesser player who you don't necessarily trust all that much and say, Look what I'm willing to do. You have crossed the line so egregiously, I'm willing to do this. And when you're in a position where the Canadiians are, they're not going to make the playoffs. They're They're trying to be competitive, and they are. Listen, they're a 500 team. They've stayed in and around 500 all season. They deserve some credit for that. I think that...

For a team that's looking for consistency, they sure are consistent at the 500 mark.

They're consistently mediocre. What do you have to lose doing that? What you have to gain is this idea of accountability and telling your younger players, Listen, I'm not only hard on you. My rules don't only apply to you. They apply to everyone. This is a different situation because obviously, Brandon Gallagher is going to miss some time. Then the Canadians are in a bye week. Like, Brenda Gallagher might not play a game for two weeks, more, perhaps, depending on what happens. When their next game is scheduled after Saturday's game, I believe they're playing February fourth?

They're playing Washington. I think it's February fifth. Yeah. February sixth against Washington, and then the 10th against Alex.

I think we can safely assume Gallagher's at least going to miss the game against Washington. If it's only that, then shame on UNHL. Honestly, he should get five. He should get five, but he could be He's not playing until the week of February 12th.

I agree.

And so that's already a three-week break in the middle of the season. I don't know what more Marty could do with him. When he comes back, he can't really say, Oh, remember what you did three weeks ago? Well, now you're getting fired for it.

Of course not.

But the example needs to be made out of this. In some way, I don't know how he does it, but it has to be because How many questions was he asked about Gallagher after that game? He was asked four, five?

Oh, at least. Yeah.

And as soon as he's asked one question about Arbor Jack guy taking two penalties, the game after he took one,. It just came out of him. But that's all you have to say about Brandon, too.. It would have been something instead of I have to see the video. Video. Come on. Yeah. Really?

You really have to see the video on that. Or it's a fine line.

Or it's a fine line. Or it's a fine line. It's not that fine.

In that case, it was not fine. It was not a line. My God.

No, it was a big, fat, broad line, and Danden jumped clear over it, way past it. It was a border. Yes. It was a huge, thick line that he crossed.

For a lot of fans, the reaction, clearly, it looked as though it was the final straw for a lot of fans regarding Brandon Gallagher, because let's face it, it's been potentially a pivotal season in his career, trying to rebound from a couple of years where he was bothered with injuries and low performances. At times, it looked as though he was back on track, even though I think everybody understands that he'll never be a 30 goal scorer again. But there were There were spurts of very interesting effectiveness. I think that there are parts of his games that are still encouraging in the fact that, yes, he'll empty the tank on every shift, and you'll feel as though he's exhausted when he goes back to the bench. But the first 30 seconds of his shift, I find that he's gotten more jumped than he did last year. And he's involved and whatnot. But there are three things to me that are really a deterrent to his overall performances. The The first one is the indiscipline. We already touched on that. There's also the fact that if you look at the statistics, at the analytics between the goal four and the expected goal four, there's always a difference, obviously, between the two.

Some players tend to have more goals for than expected, but the majority of them will have a tiny bit less real goal four than expected because you score less than the opportunities you get. That's okay. But among the Canadians, he's... Brandon Gallagher is really in a league of its own in the disparity between the goal for and the expected goal for. So for the total of the season, he's minus 14. So he's got 16 on the ice at five on five. The Canadian scored 16 goals when he's on the ice. The expected goals is at 30.39. So it's a bit more than 14. The next guy up on the team is Mathieson at minus eight, then Slap minus six, Suzuki minus five. So Gallagher minus 14. It means that even though he continues to generate or help generating a lot of chances, they're being converted a lot less. And as an impact to that also, the other stat is that his good old plus minus is is a team worse minus 21, which is along with a tally of Chicago players, San Jose players, and Anahunt players, he's tied for 13 in the league in that department.

So That doesn't look good at all.

Yeah. The one thing I would say about the expected goals thing is that when you look at the individual expected goals, not the on-ice, he's still right up there. I mean, his individual expected goals per 60 is 1.18. Austin Matthews is 1.2. But Austin Matthews' actual goals are 1.81 per 60. These are all five on five. And Gallagher is 0.73. But when you look at it individually on a per 60 basis, 0.73 goals per 60 and 1.18 expected goals, the disparity is not as great as what you just described. It's just that he still generates chances. No, I don't expect He still generates chances for himself. He generates chances for his teammates. He is doing that, but he doesn't do it. They don't result in goals often enough where that chance generation, he needs other elements of his game. The lack of discipline that you mentioned can't be an element of his game at this stage of his career. It just can't be. It just cannot be. I get that he does play on the edge, but he's not had this part of his game. This hasn't been a part of his game previously. Usually, as a younger player, you would take bad...

Like, Brandon Gallagher always got called for penalties, for sure. But Gennie didn't take bad penalties. He didn't take unnecessary... He took penalties that you he would like to kill. He would take a penalty like battling for a puck or hustling back or doing things that are just... When the penalty killers go out there, they're like, All right, let's get this one for Brandon because he was working his bag off, and we're going to kill this one for him. The penalties he's taking now are just dumb. No penalty killer is motivated to kill the penalty when the penalty took place 200 feet from their net. It's some stick foul in the corner, some unnecessary hook that you just didn't want to move your feet on or a blindside hit to the head of neutral zone when you're up two goals with less than 10 minutes left in the game. No one's expecting Brandon Gallagher to not take penalties. It's just he can't take dumb penalties, and he's taking them with relative frequency. It just It can't be an element of his game. It just can't. For him to even come close to justifying the amount of salary cap space he takes up, he needs to be a positive influence on this room.

He needs to be someone that can show the young players the way, that positive veteran presence. And this is literally the opposite of what a positive veteran presence does, is take penalties like this.

Yeah. Okay, well, we won't get into the contract and et cetera, and the value and what it could... We'll have ample opportunities in the next few months and years. There's three years left in the deal to revisit that topic. But after 25 minutes of Brandon Gallagher, I think we can move on. And we'll wait for the decision and react on it or not in our next podcast. But for now, we both agree also regarding Martin St. Louis stubbornness about one-Man crush. Man crush. About one specific combination. It's always resorting back to putting Josh Anderson with nick Suzuki and Cole Caulfield. Suzuki and Caulfield, their line had ups and downs. They have good nights, bad nights. With Stavkowski, for the most part, I thought that they did a decent job.

That Slavkowski did a great job. Well, they-Generally speaking, they did a great job. Yes, they had some lulls while the Canadians had some lulls. But I mean, honestly, that line for the better part of a month has been running the show.

I'm just thinking of those two bad losses against Ottawa and Boston, where it was not... Anyway. But for the most part, this is a team that's lacking depth at this point, they turned to that line to carry them more often than not. Slavkowski is certainly not the scapegoat in all that. And yet, Matheo Senwi thought that in the third period of the game against Ottawa, the second one, he mixed things up and brought back Anderson with Suzuki and Caulfield, in the good old days, and decided to keep that against the Islanders. The Canadians overall seem to who crater offensively in terms of Puck possession. That's mainly in part because of that line who was really buried in terms of Puck possession against Orvat, Lee, and Barzal. It's easy to make the connection with what has not worked before, for some reason did not work yet again.

Yeah. Marty always One of his favoriteisms is the game speaks to you. Yeah. Well-listen. You're not listening to the game, man. I mean, honestly, you just have to watch. There were a few shifts in that game where Josh Anderson was just not on... He was not reading the same book, let alone be on the same page. He was in no way, shape, or form helping the line offensively. Just seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, was just a second behind or a second ahead. It was just off. I don't know how much more evidence you need that this combination does not work. Back to back seasons, Josh Anderson began the season on Cole Caulfield and nick Suzuki's wing. Last season, it lasted a handful of games. This season, it lasted a bit longer, but still not very long before it became very obvious.

It goes back to when Tyler Toffoli was here, because he would go from Toffoli to Anderson and to Anderson to Toffoli.

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Look, Let's say... But honestly, on this, I wanted to give Marty some benefit of the doubt because I was baffled when I saw that it was Anderson. He played the third period in the last game. He practiced with them on Wednesday, and then, lo and behold, in warmup, he was there. And so that line, you were mentioning being buried. That line finished with a 2.57 expected goal rate. 2.57, you heard that right.

2.57.

Percent. 0.57 % of the expected goals when they were on the ice were credited to the Canadians, which for those that are not math inclined means 97.47 More than 3% of them were credited to the Islanders.

I'm not math inclined. For those who listened to the previous podcast, I am not math inclined. Thank you very much.

Exactly. That was mainly for your benefit that I did that. Thank you. Leroy Sofkowski gets put on a line with Sean Monahan and Yul Armia. You know what their expected goal percentage was?

91.33. That was the final line? Because that was in that neighborhood It's been good after two periods.

91.33. 91.33 % of the expected goals when that line was on the ice were credited to the Canadians. So between the two lines, Canadians were roughly 50 %. Basically, it evened out. And I remember at one point I said to you in the game where I was watching Monahan play, and I was like, Sean Monahan is going to have a career high in expected goals today. Just already in the first period, you can tell. So yes, this thing with Anderson is a stubborn thing, and there's two things about this. So the first thing is, I tried to give Marty the benefit of doubt on this in the sense that I thought maybe he's putting Yureis Lafkowski on the Monahan line to improve that line, more so than taking him away from Suzuki and Caulfield for something he might have done. Maybe this is a way for him to balance out his lines. Yuraislavkowski is playing so well that I'm going to put him with someone else, and maybe he'll get that line going. If that was the intention, Bravo. It worked. It made that line much better. After his press conference, after the game, I asked him that, and he said, just think of it as a rearrangement, basically.

It's not a demotion, it's not a promotion. I just needed to change something. I liked how he looked in the third period of the game against Ottawa, so I decided to stick with what I did there, which brings me to my second point about which is the third period against Ottawa. And this, listen, it worked. The Canadians had an excellent first period against the Islanders. Marta for two days talked about how he hoped the third period from Ottawa would carry over into the first period, and it did. So credit for that. But this has been numerous occasions this season where the Canadians go into the third period of a game that they're losing pretty badly. They have a bit of a bounce back. They have a bit of a push. The other The team weather's it because they're protecting a lead.

Like most teams do.

Like most teams do.

I mean, score effects- You tend to sit back.

Score effects are a thing for a reason, especially teams coached by Jacques Martey who is trying to teach this team how to win. And in Jacques Martin's book, the way you win when you're up by three goals in the third period is you shut things down. Basically, you turn the game into a slog and you shut her down. The Canadians... This is something Michel Théa used to do all the time. All the time. He would have a glimmer of positivity in the third period. He'd be like, We played better with this combination. Let's go into the next game with that combination. And there's also something that Marty used to not do. Marty, for the longest time, would switch up his lines in the middle of the game, but by the next game, he would go right back to what they were. And there was a certain notion of continuity needed and what have you. I think that was Maybe he liked continuity too much, but I think there was something good about that where he could recognize that, Okay, I did what I had to do in this game. It doesn't mean I have to redraw the whole thing.

I don't have to redo the whole thing. I can go back to what was working before and have faith in that. Yeah, exactly.

That shows belief. When you go back to what you had conceived, and even though you changed it along the because on a certain night, it didn't work, it shows belief in what you've built and say, Okay, I trust that. I trust my decision making and the reasons why I put these guys together in the first place. So at the first hiccup, I should not necessarily be distracted from those motivations. From score effects. Especially score effects. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, no, it's true. Clearly, I'm thinking of Michel Thierry, who used to do that, too, also all the time. And after that, he would take the blender out, make all sorts of line combinations, and he would ask, Well, what do you see in those three guys together? And he would come up with explanations, but you can come up with explanations for any potential line combination when it's time to justify it. But there are certain ones that work better than others. My point is that when it comes to Anderson with Suzuki and Caulfield, the one thing we know is that it doesn't work. This season, just in terms of high danger chances, when the three of them are together, they got 21 20% of the high danger chances.

That's a bad ratio. When Anderson's not with them and Caulfield and Suzuki have another line with them, another winger, 50%. Yeah.

And what is it What is it with Slavkowski?

Let me tell you what is it with Slavkowski. I guess it's certainly... It must hover probably around the 52, 53.

I would guess it's closer to 60.

Okay. That would be my guess. Drum roll. It is 49.5..

Oh, really? That's surprising. That's surprising. That means it must have been pretty bad in the last few games, which would lead to a change like this. But this is I'm wondering that, what are we looking for in this Canadian season? You're looking for glimmers of the future. You're looking for... I'm at least focusing on elements of this team that will be there through this whole process. So that's why I look closer at a Cade and Gouly, or I look closer at even an Arbort Jackai, or Justin Baron when he was here. But when those three guys got put together, The line that the Canadians envisioned them being from the moment Slavkowski was drafted, this is what they thought. It put Suzuki and Caulfield's jersey in the dressing room and had Slavkowski He sipped between them for crying out loud. It was on draft night. And even Suzuki said that when they drafted him, that's what he envisioned. So it was cool to see it come together, and it would It would have been cool to let it play out, to let them play themselves out of a slump and lead the team out of a slump.

And so it's not the end of the world, they changed the line, but it's Marty made a point of mentioning this. He's like, When I played, I would go from Vinnie to Richie to Vinnie to Richie, just based on how things were going. Over the course of the season, it'll happen. He's going to put Slavkowski back on that line. At some point, he might even do it on Saturday.

I don't know. Yeah, but that's fine. It's not the fact that he took Slavkowski away from them. That's a problem.

No, it's the Anderson. It's the Anderson part. It's the Anderson part, yes. That's what I was getting at. I don't know how many alternatives he had, but any other player, I would have rather seen Harvey Pinard play with them than Josh Anderson. You could put Gallagher with them. You could have put anyone, literally any other way. Taylor Pearson, I would rather see than Josh Anderson. It's honestly like any other option would have been better because it's just there's no... You always talk about a sample size. Well, jeez, a sample size is massive, suggesting that this line does not work, will not work. There are no circumstances under which Josh Anderson will work with these two players. He's been given enough opportunities, just accept it and move on.

He's had very good games, Anderson, with other line mates. On other lines, he's had good games. So keep it to where it works. Raphael Vipina will come useful, but I think that right now, especially with Gallagher being suspended now, because he formed a duo with Evans for quite a while now. But you can tell that you have Caulfield and Suzuki as a duo. Now, Monaghan and Arbia have become a duo. And those two duels are what Martin St. Louis will work around just to fill the rest of his lineup.

Yeah. And just as an aside, I think it's worth pointing out. When Marty was asked about Sean Monaghan and how his play has improved, he went on and on about Yol Arbia. And the Jol'Armia's impact on that. Kudos to Yol Armia. Honestly, it's been a tough season for him. A lot of people just wrote him off. He looked like a guy that was worth writing off for a good chunk of the season, definitely in training camp. Went to Laval, didn't complain, played well there, was described as a leader in that room, gets called back, had that lull. He wasn't playing great, took those penalties, Carolina and Florida. And now he's He's playing tremendous. He's a really, really effective player and pain in the ass to play against player when he's playing like this. He's a really useful player. He's still overpaid. He will be over peed until the end of the contract. But he is a useful player that is difficult to play against. He's a difficult opponent because he's just does so many things that are out of the ordinary, bored battles, having a very stick, neutral zone, causing turnovers in the neutral zone, killing penalties, just getting in passing lanes, just doing all sorts of really annoying things that disruptive things to the opposing play.

Good for you, Joel. I think I'm going to have to talk to him about this soon. I don't think anyone has talked. I think Joel Army has done two interviews all season.

The entire media corps is afraid of talking to him because he doesn't talk. They're giving up. They're giving up because they don't get anything.

I'm not giving up. I'm going to ask to talk to him the next time I can. That's good. When they come back from the All-Star break, I will ask to talk to Joel Army.

That's good. He's your unsung hero of January's- Of January.

Yeah. If there was a Jacques Beauchat Trophy for January, it'd be your Armeya.

That sounds good. All right. So Armeya has been useful with Monahan. Monahan has seen plenty of ice lately. He's been very good, too. Jake Evans has been useful, too. But there was an instance earlier this week where the Canadians played with three sentiment after the rather puzzling demotion of Mitchell Stevens to the American League. The easy explanation is that, Taylor Pearson was coming back. They had to send somebody down, and Stevens was the one that they had the biggest certainty that he would be claimed on waivers. So it was an easy an easy fix. But in the meantime, the Canadians didn't have- That's not a good explanation. I know, but it's a reason. Listen.

I know. I'm just saying it is the easiest explanation, but it's still not a good one. But anyway.

I know. That's why I'm bringing it up to you now, because they played with three sentiment. Honestly, it looked... All those times where we see 11-7 setups and the defensemen hate playing at 7D because it messes up the pairings and all that, and they shift from one to the other. So they don't like it. It's a well-documented fact in hockey that defensemen don't like playing 7D. But playing three sentiment, I I feel like for the Wiggers, they got a taste of the equivalent of the frustration that the defensemen get when they play 7D because they got rotated and changed line constantly. Monaghan and Evans had easily four wingers each that they played pretty much on par in that one game against Ottawa. Finally, it was fixed and Lucas Condota was called up. It's going to be, most obviously, a situation where they're going to use that spot to try guys and see where they're at in their development and use it as a bit of revolving doors. I don't know if it's only... Maybe that Condota will be here Until just Alex Neuha comes back. He skated in his full gear today in Brassau. But the Canadians had the opportunity to pick up a guy on the waiver wire, Adam Ruzczynska from Calgary.

They chose to pass. Nick Benino was put on waivers. The whole league passed because, let's face it, Bonino is at the end of the road and his legs are shot. So that's where they're at. And also, they chose to keep maybe... I don't know how big in the picture that is, but they're trying to keep their number of contracts as low as possible, approaching trade deadlines.

Yeah, there's that. And I just do think that they like the idea that Lucas Kondota is up. I don't know. Maybe Jan Mischack will get a shot at some point. Maybe they can give him a look for a few games. There's a bunch of guys that they could But I feel like it's just worth going over just how ludicrous that situation was. And it's just one game. It's not the end of the world, but it's a very odd way for an NHL team to manage their roster when there's a game to be played, not just any game, a game against a team that spank you 6-2 in Ottawa. You're coming off two games where you just gave up 15 goals in two games. You gave up nine, nine in Boston. You have this game and you decide to purposely go with three centers. I asked Suzuki about it after the game. I was like, When you saw that you were dressing three centers, what was your reaction? And he's like, Well, to be honest with you, when I saw that they put Stevie, who was Mitchell Stevens, when I thought that they put Stevie on the waiver.

I was a little shocked because I was like, Well, now we have three centers. How are we going to do that? He didn't say it, but the vibe was like, What are we even doing here? What's What's going on? You want me to go out and try my best to win a game when you're not trying your best to win a game? As far as management is concerned, that's the message you're sending to your players. They're sitting there wondering, Why are we doing this? Because you mentioned, Taylor Pearson is coming back. Yes, he's a winger. You mentioned Mitchell Stevens was likeliest to get through waivers. Yes, 100 %. And he did get through waivers. But you had a waiver exempt player on your team, Joshua Roy, a winger that you could have sent down easily. Now, if the argument was, Well, we wanted to keep Joshua Roy, he had earned his weight. Jesus. He had earned staying. He had earned staying. He played well enough to deserve to stay. And so we want to send him a message that you're playing well. It's a meritocracy. So we kept you and we did all these gymnastics.

We put a guy on waiver, risked losing him, sent him down, played a game with three centers, all so we can keep you in the lineup. And then what happens the day after the game? They send him down. So it's like What are they doing? What was that whole series of things? And the other thing, you mentioned all the wingers being rotated. Why were they being rotated? Because Michael Pizzetto was in the lineup and didn't play after the first period. That's why. Because otherwise, if you You have four sets of wingers, you have eight wingers and three centermen, it's actually not that disruptive. It's the three centermen just get to play more. You keep your wingers together and the three centers rotate through them. Or the three centers take turns playing with the fourth line, basically. It's not that hard to manage.

Yeah, but you still amputate your bench after the first period in order for that to run more smoothly.

But if you didn't amputate your bench, if you didn't sit Pizzetta from the first intermission on, you could run that smoothly. It's not that... We see it all the time. One shift, Suzuki goes on the fourth line. Next shift, fourth line is next shift. Evans goes with the fourth line. The fourth line is next shift. Why goes with the fourth line. You continue like that. It wouldn't be that difficult. But they sat Petseta after the first. Petset was in the lineup. Why? Because they were playing as Ottawa and it might get rough. Marty said, I wanted to have Michael Petset on my bench. But it was Arbër Jackai's first game back, which would have been a good reason to go 11-7 because you don't know what you're going to get from him. He's been in Laval for a while. If you want to give yourself insurance on D, go 11-7. And if you're worried about it getting rough, You got Jacky.

Yeah.

And so that was another puzzling thing about that game. And all of it just... If you look at it from the point of view of the players, from the outside, none of this is all that consequential, right? It's really like, who cares? Does it really matter that much? But if you're a player on that team, having gone through the two games you just went through, looking at Ottawa as an opportunity to get back at them for the game that they just... The licking they gave you in Ottawa, 6-2, get back to playing decent hockey after having a total collapse in Boston in the third period, a game that they were in for 40 minutes. Let's not forget. They played well for 40 minutes of that game. Well, they They were in the game. I don't know if they were playing all that well, but they were in the game and just had to collapse late. And so for that, you would think from a player's point of view, Okay, my coaches and my management team are going to put us in the best position to succeed here because we need to win this game. It was the opposite of that.

Yeah. No, it was. Even after the game, Suzuki said, he was said, Oh, it's tough for the wingers to go through this, to go through all those changes. Me, I didn't rotate all that much. They double shifted HP and Monahan more, which is certainly weird and interesting. That's what he said. I said, Oh, okay. Also, he's not too pleased because he must have thought it would be the one that would be double shifted. Yeah.

Overall, there's a bunch of games this season at least more than north of '20, where he played more than in that game where there were three centermen. Yeah. Because John Cooper likes going 11 and seven, especially in the playoffs, because it allows him to get Kucharav on the ice more. It allows him to get his best players on the ice more. And that's why Suzuki said, I don't mind going three centers, I get on the ice more. But yeah, I wasn't there for him saying that, which was certainly weird and interesting Interesting. That's great. But all that to say, it's not really all that consequential, but it's just I think that there's going to be some roster tinkering that has to be done, especially after the trade deadline. Between now and the end of the season, there's going to be moves made. If they're going to run a rotation at fourth-line center, then so be it. Why not take advantage of the situation? But I think this team has to keep in mind what the players are thinking and how they digest the decisions that they make. That's the lesson here, is that you might have your own reasons.

And Frankly, I still don't know what the reasoning, what possible logical reasoning there was for what happened on Tuesday against the senators. I don't understand. There's no good explanation that you can really give me that would convince me that that was the way to do it. But whatever it is and whatever other things they do this season, I think in the back of their minds, they have to keep the notion that, how are our players going to digest this information? How are they going to receive it? You don't want to make every decision based on how your players receive it. But I think in circumstances like this, I think that was overlooked. I don't think the Canadians took that into Well, especially since there was an impression last season that there was a bit of a disconnect between the ultimate interests or preference of management versus what was going on at ICE level when it came to competitiveness, and there was some a refreshed understanding and agreement that everybody would be on the same page because everybody at every level of the Bell Center this year, everybody wanted to win.

But when you make decisions like these, you don't send a message to your players that you're building the most optimal lineup to help you win on that day. And it's not the first. Look, carrying three goalies, that takes you one skater less to give you options. Keeping Gustave Lindstrom and having him sit for a month just because you don't want to lose a right-handed shot. And ultimately, you lose them on waivers on the day that one team in particular could have that need. And when you keep eight defensemen and you don't play that defenseman, well, because of the three goalies, you're down to 12 forwards. Again, it's not optimal, less flexibility for Martin Saint Louis. Those are decisions that were all originating from the fact that we don't want to lose players on waivers because it'll hurt our depth. I can't help but look at this current situation and say, Isn't it more of the same where instead they sent Stephens down because they're concerned that they might lose Petzet or Oulonen on waivers if they were choosing to do so? Because, yeah, the possibility is certainly much higher.

You didn't even have to. You had a guy who didn't need waivers in the lineup.

I know.

You could just send down-There was no need to Losing anyone. There was no need to risk losing anyone because they could have lost Stevens. That actually would have hurt them. Mitchell Stevens remains the best candidate to be the fourth-line center of this team right now. And he's a very important player, Paul Vau. He's Very important to them. But they didn't have to risk losing them. Listen, the risk was very minimal. There's very, very low chance that anyone's going to pick them up, but you never know. It's just the whole thing's bizarre. It was odd.

Yeah. Maybe that they're just stuck taking, to your point regarding trade deadline. Maybe that they're also looking, Okay, what do we got in terms of debt players that could help us down the stretch? I mean, Pizzetta caused a huge surprise two years ago, and he ended up being a marginal NHL player. But certainly, I've not seen that coming. Maybe that they have the same thing in Kondota, and two years from now, we'll look at Kondota and say, Oh, yeah, well, he's a great 13 forward on the team, but he's bring size and he's versatile and whatnot. Maybe that's what we'll talk about in two years from now. Those little stints could help the Canadians figure that out.

Yeah. Maybe they'll give Philippe Maillet a look. He's on an NHL deal, right?

No, he's on an NHL deal. He's on an NHL deal. He's on a two-way deal. I think it would be more Lyès-Anderson rather than Philippe Maillet, I think.

But why not both? I know. Why not both? Philippe Maillet is 30, but he's even more. 32? 31. 31, yeah. So anyhow. Well, that's actually a good segue to our Feature Friday. Yeah. Our Feature Friday- Let's make that quick, though.

Let's make that quick, though. Yeah. All right.

Yeah. We're not going to talk about a prospect in particular. We're just going to talk about actually the Laval Rocket. They They are rocketing up the... I'm sorry, that's bad. I actually didn't do that intentionally, but they are rocketing up the standings.

My God, it says if you work for NHL. Com. Yeah, I know.

With headlines like that. You could take the boy out of NHL. Com. You cannot take NHL. Com out of the boy. I was talking to Arbër Jackai about this the other day. He was mentioning how when he got there, this would have been early December when he got sent down. The Rocket had lost nine games in a row, and he said, I got there and the place was depressing. It was depressing. Guys were not feeling confident. They were not having fun. It was just a bad environment. I think Jacky's arrival, and not only his arrival on the ice, but his personality arriving in that room, I think had an impact on this team. He said, We started having fun more. We were just playing. You got It got a lot less heavy. We started winning a little bit. And now they're just rolling. I mean, they are basically tied for third in the North division. They've gone from Just about last to third. And so what I told Arbër is repeating what J. F. H. Said at development camp in July. He said it at the rookie camp in September. December and was steadfast. He's like, We are going to have trouble until Christmas, and after Christmas, we'll figure it out and things will go better.

You look at the Rockets since December 29th, and they can't lose a game. I mean, I think their only loss came in overtime or a shootout, but they picked up a point, but they've won every other game. I have never seen a coach be as predictive, Nostradamus-like prediction as J. I. Full. It's astonishing.

He was right on the money.

He was right on the money. It's funny. We talked to him, or maybe- Around that time.

Around the time that while During the time that Jacky was there.

Yeah, exactly. Early January. I asked him. Actually, this was before I went there for Jacky's first game. They were in the middle of this. I remember I asked him, I said, You said until Christmas, it's going to be difficult, and you're not at Christmas yet. So do you still see a possibility? He's like, Well, yeah, we're not at Christmas, and it is difficult. And you could just see it was heavy. It was weighing on him. It was like, It is difficult. I knew it would be, and it is. But hopefully, we're just not getting... Our young players are not figuring it out. They're not progressing the way I had hoped. So it's a little bit more difficult than I had anticipated. And then he talked about Joshua Roy, who at that point was going through a slump. And he said, he has a good game here. And then the other night, he was bad. He had a bad game. Why are you kidding me? Good game here, bad. He just started one by one naming off the young players on the team that were letting him down, that were disappointing him. Then less than a month later, a few weeks later, they can't lose.

I think Jayfouh deserves a decent amount of credit because they're the hottest team in the NHL right Yeah, for sure.

They're in a playoff spot.

That's pretty-Yeah. And so they just need to keep that going. Frankly, getting Mitchell Stevens back is a boon, getting Justin Baron as a boon for them. And I'm not saying that that has to be the priority for the Canadians, let's be clear on that, the priority is in Montreal. But I do think getting Laval to the playoffs and giving them a fighting chance is worth prioritizing to some extent for the Canadians and being a factor in their decision making, especially on Trade Deadline Day, when they have to decide which players will be papered to Laval to be eligible for the playoffs.

So I think that Jackai going to Laval and helping Logan Mayu find another step, another level.

It was a key there. He wouldn't have been a star otherwise.

No. So Emel Einemann being healthy and back, that's good for them. Elias Anderson healthy in back. Very good for them. Jacob Dobesch, finally, he's one guy that had a tough first third of the season, really struggled. And he finally found his marks, and he's now backed up by this Finnish journeyman, Casimir Kaskisu, who's on a professional tryout contract.

You should all check out his YouTube channel.

He won all four games that he started with a 1.96 goal against average. For having a guy like that who's experienced, he's 30 years old. It's a good lesson for the Laval Rocket, never go with two inexperienced goalies. Make sure that you have one, at least, who's more seasoned and can help out because the balance that he brought around the net, not only when he played, but also helping Dobesh, has been very helpful for the Laval Rocket. So there's many things Many contributing factors. But it's fun because if the fans in the Montreal Canadiens have a chance to go to see the Rocket when they're going to be in the playoff run later in the season, the atmosphere is always rocking, but it's going to be pretty special.

You did it, too.

In crunch time.

You did it, too. You made a bad rocket pun. Just like me, the atmosphere is rocking.

Oh, yeah. I didn't even notice. Is that the thing? Okay.

But it would be nice to... I mean, it would be cool for the Canadian's NHL affiliate to make a play-off run. It's been... Laval has never done it, made a deep run. We'll see if that's a possibility this year with this team. But it's definitely... I'm not part of the LaVal Rocket marketing team, but if you do want an entertaining night of hockey at a more affordable price in a great building, LaVal Rocket games are well worth the trip. It's a great game experience. They actually do a very good job on game presentation. I think some elements of their game presentation are even better than the Canadians on some nights. So I would highly recommend it had to get out there. But it's a real positive development for the Canadians because the way things were trending in Laval, we had a lot of fans thinking that J. F. H. H. Should be fired, like what's going on there? This is a disaster. Young teams don't generally succeed in the NHL, far less so than they do in the NHL, actually. He's done a really good job. J. F. H. Has really done a good job.

And again, called this so far in advance, exactly how this was going to go. He does credit for that as well.

All right, so we'll wrap this up. Two housekeeping notes. First, if you listen to us on on Apple podcast, please give us a five-star rating. Drop us a comment. If you watch us on YouTube, well, don't forget to subscribe to the ESDPN channel. Tons of great podcasts there. Don't hesitate to send us your question for our Monday mailback. You can do so on Twitter at Basu and Godin, or you can write us an email at basuandgodin@gmail. Com. That's it for this episode of The Notebook. We I wish everybody a good weekend. Arpen, enjoy yours, man.

Enjoy yours as well. We'll be back on Monday, even though the Canadians are entering their buy week and the All-Star break. But we will be here to talk to you about more outrage. That's it. More outrage over inconsequential things coming right up on Monday. Enjoy your weekend, everyone.