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00:00uh with mike kelly on the western hotline sorry about that uh mike is generous enough to join us
00:06from nhl network game one sabers canadians tomorrow night mike it's been a while since
00:11we've spoken i think and um i remember talking to you about montreal versus buffalo me too
00:17you too bulldog and just like how the team i was here for that one yeah you were here for
00:21that
00:23that's we'll have to get back to that uh just sort of like what was it bulldog that sort of
00:27the the
00:28builds of the two they were both up and coming along with ottawa and detroit i guess to an extent
00:32these four non-playoff teams most years last few years were sort of here they come and yeah
00:38montreal and buffalo were easy comps and i think that that only continues now mike right
00:45yeah i think that's fair i mean um i would say that buffalo had the pieces
00:51kind of to be doing this before um you know how different are they today than they were
00:58in mid-november not that different and for for years it was kind of like wow there's a lot of
01:03talent there why can't they defend better why can't they keep pucks out of their net and then
01:09you know gm gets fired coaches the same all of a sudden december rolls around and they string a few
01:15wins together and they string a lot of wins together and now they look like a team that i think
01:19frankly a
01:19lot of people were like kind of should have been some version of this team for a while now
01:24uh but they figured it out and they've been you know better part of the season as you guys know
01:29obviously they've been an absolute force yeah figure it out what did they figure out in your
01:35view mike i i've i've settled for simply buying in to play defense like being held to play against
01:42yeah and that doesn't mean running people through the boards but never giving up on a play when you
01:47see tage thompson dug in back checking you know below the circles in his own end off an opponent
01:53rush you i think you know you got the team kind of dialed in on trying to defend better so
02:00for all
02:00the talk about river hockey um i feel like they've always had that five on five scoring and the talent
02:06to be a one of the most skilled explosive teams in the league but the defending i think is what
02:12they
02:12were really missing well that's definitely been better than it has in years past for sure like i
02:20i look at guys like you look at peyton krebs and you look at dome and you know carrick had
02:25a good
02:25little spell there when he was in the lineup uh before he got hurt and sounds like he's going to
02:30be
02:30back sooner than expected which is great news um but they've got like even benson obviously talk
02:37they've got some dogs on that team that go and hunt pucks and that turns a that turns an exit
02:42into another offensive chance and then you're getting a few offensive chances and now the puck
02:47goes the other way and you're like oh i like those i'm gonna go and chase this guy down and
02:51i think
02:51that's probably contagious to a degree right where yeah maybe you weren't getting that out of some
02:56other guys for a while and um there's enough of them now that do it and do it well and
03:01it just
03:02permeates up and down the lineup um buffalo i mean that's one of the things that's been so great
03:08about them this year is yeah they've got team speed and it's not just and i say this with all
03:14due respect back malenstein had the fastest skating speed i think ever recorded this year and it was
03:19trying to beat out an icing that he didn't um but yeah he can skate fast it's not just skating
03:24fast like
03:24they play fast and and they play smart um so that's for me watching from you know the outside looking
03:31in
03:32uh i just see all these guys that are so tenacious and i it has to it has to resonate
03:38with everybody
03:38else on the team too i would think you know mike a couple of things i i want to ask
03:43you uh here what
03:44one is maybe more of a statement than a question having spoken with your colleague at nhl network
03:49ej raddick a couple of times of late he put it one way similar to your sentiment i think uh
03:56a month or
03:57two ago talking about the sabers and he was likewise thinking like i've always liked their their
04:01roster but he said ultimately they have to treat every game like it's opening night and i want to
04:09ask you about that because what we're talking about here i think sounds like it's largely about effort
04:14and dedication and the kind of stuff i'll just speak for myself here and if you want to glom on
04:20please do in a data world i don't know what to do with that like i never wanted to believe
04:27that the
04:27sabers weren't trying hard enough these last what 10 years like i just i never felt like it was right
04:35to settle for that and i think the prevailing take on this season is that yes how you're talking about
04:42their effort and dogs and ej's point is that they bought into something that i don't know how you
04:49quantify that and that's hard for me because you know i want to be able to point to something
04:53on a on a chart or whatever that says like no this is the problem yeah my problem is rasmus
04:59ristolainen is playing 26 minutes and giving the puck away all night that was easy but maybe maybe this
05:04isn't as easy i don't know like how do you reconcile that okay well let's start with like the glaring
05:13thing for me which is they got great goaltending this year right so you start with the fact that you're
05:19in games and you're winning a lot of games your their goaltending was really good like it's not
05:24like they became this top five elite shot and chance suppression defensive team they got better
05:31and they used to be really bad so now they're like good at that or good enough but your goaltending
05:37has
05:37also been great so that's really sure that side up and and they could they could always score i mean
05:42that's never really been a huge issue and and they they scored a lot this year too so um
05:49and i i wouldn't again i was looking and i wouldn't put it on the players like oh they weren't
05:53trying
05:53before and now they're trying it's like what what what leads to consistency game in and game out every
05:59single night when you believe you have a chance to win when you believe that you have a way of
06:03playing
06:03that will give you a chance to beat any team in the league on any given night and they started
06:09to see
06:09that and i think that's when it for whatever reason it it was able to continue throughout the
06:16course of the season like they've had these you know we know about the 10 game win streak that they
06:21had years ago in november and a lot of people kind of thought okay this team is arriving now um
06:28and you know i remember back then look seeing a lot of holes in that win streak and it didn't
06:33go well
06:33and i saw some in this one too and i was you know i didn't think it was as big
06:39of a bubble nearly at
06:40all but i would have been dead wrong to think that buffalo would finish where they did at the end
06:46of
06:46the season like they they kept it going and uh and that's a credit to the to the team and
06:50the
06:50organization so i i don't look at it as like they they kind of weren't trying before and now they're
06:56trying i think they're they very clearly saw something that was working and and belief is is
07:03yeah spurn out of out of that right how about their top four d i i've referred to this team
07:11and their
07:12success and those four guys dalene samuelson power and byram as if they have a superpower that's their
07:19superpower like those four dudes floating all over the ice in the offensive zone down below the goal
07:25line back to defend this high cycle that they use and i don't know maybe you can tell us how
07:30prevalent that is in the league you know i see teams that have defensemen that can really move like
07:35minnesota and faber with uh minnesota with quinn and faber do some of this too um but just i'd like
07:42to hear you on those four d and the breakthrough that they provided for this team yeah no that's huge
07:51and i remember you know when it started to kind of become a newsworthy the run that they were going
07:56on in december and you're looking at it you're like oh okay something's going on here um you start to
08:01watch more and more of the team a lot of teams do that uh like you talked about i'm glad
08:06you brought
08:06that up just cycling and having um the high cycle it's not positionless but you're yeah but you're
08:11having forwards uh or d go low and forwards coming up etc um but the ability the sabers had to
08:17to execute
08:18in doing that and find open lanes was like spy high-end skill um and you know samuelson what a
08:27find
08:28like boleen has been this superstar player slash you know next level we're going to get to norris type
08:35years with him i'm confident um and that's always been there uh you know owen power
08:44i i i get sense there's some maybe that at least we're maybe not now kind of frustrated in the
08:50market of you know why isn't this big guy just you know chris pronger out there but that's not really
08:55who he is right so um but he doesn't have to do what wrist align and had to do back
09:01in the day which
09:02was be way too high in the lineup play way too many minutes and you look at wrist align and
09:07today i mean
09:08he's very serviceable player in the right environment right um and bowen byram's dynamic
09:14i mean he he i think left colorado and in part because he wanted a bigger role and that that
09:20was a team the d core where you're never going to be the number one guy there so it's a
09:25great mix um
09:26and yeah watch like you said watching them and how fluid they are in the offensive zone and how well
09:30they execute uh that doesn't happen without defensemen that can do it yeah i'll bet a lot of markets have
09:35the kind of problem buffalo has with a big defenseman who doesn't cross check people in the
09:40face um it's a long-standing issue here it's not going away anytime soon although maybe i suppose if
09:47this team goes on a longer run here um maybe some of that criticism of power will soften up but
09:53i
09:54think there's a there's a lot to like about his game even though he's not like a big mean guy
09:58even
09:58though he's you know six six well yeah i mean like he he moves the puck well right like if
10:05if i look at um our this season um you look at things like outlet passes that we track at
10:13our
10:13company and zone exits and entries i mean he's top 20 to top 30 in all those areas the puck's
10:19on his
10:19stick a lot he gets to a lot of loose pucks um he's not overly physical and i'm not just
10:24saying
10:24that for a big guy i'm saying that in general as a defenseman in the league but a lot of
10:29defensemen
10:30kill plays with their skating ability with their positioning with their stick and lead with their
10:35stick um so like you want to have a nice happy balance obviously um but just because you're a
10:42big guy that isn't out there crushing somebody i mean there's plenty of those guys that go and
10:48finish hits and and don't skate well and aren't very serviceable players right so yeah with mike kelly
10:56nhl network mike show up in the bulldog here on wgr game one the sabers host montreal tomorrow night
11:03at seven eastern so mike this matchup it seems like everybody and the betting markets reflect this
11:10this is the closest matchup and i know now we're into the series the other series already so that's
11:16maybe easier to say uh how close is it what's the difference the the important differences between
11:23the sabers and canadians well uh our model has buffalo at 55 so uh hopefully sabers fans are
11:33happy about that but it also has the most likely game outcome in seven games so it tells you what
11:38you need to know about the series like you said it should be the closest of all of them um
11:43what do you need to know i mean montreal for the opponent can sabers fans know their team pretty
11:49darn well i'll give you a bit on montreal dovish is the real deal like this wasn't a guy catching
11:55lightning in a bottle for a week and a half against tampa bay from the trade deadline on he had
12:00the
12:00best goals he had above expected of any goalie in the league and he carried that strong play into a
12:05series of tampa bay where this is a mental side you're going up against vasilevsky and if you've heard
12:11dovish talk about vasilevsky you know that he that was like a hero of his right so it's a big
12:18deal
12:18it'd be like me taking a face off against gretzky in the 90s i'd be floored um and he goes
12:25in there
12:25play seven one goal games i think three of them went to overtime and they win and he was fantastic
12:30so he he is just because he's a rookie uh not taking a back seat to alex line or anyone
12:36else in
12:37that series the canadian's depth was a massive story in the first round um the sorelli line did
12:44such a job on suzuki and caulfield and slap costy marty's saying we had a game five split them up
12:50which he which he did this year as well and it's not a big deal um but those guys didn't
12:55do much
12:56like caulfield i think had 12 shots in seven games in the series it's a 50 goal scorer um but
13:02montreal's
13:03depth was unbelievable like they the canadians top seven forwards in ice time just something as
13:09simple as that had two goals at even strength and the bottom six had eight wow so that's where
13:16tampa bay was the total opposite and that's you know one of the things that separated that series
13:21in a way so they've got you know docks line whatever they montreal's got depth that can score
13:25um lane hudson you know cory perry tried to do it others tried to do it someone in buffalo is
13:31going
13:31to try to do it alex tucker whoever they're going to try to run through the boards and if you
13:36can do it
13:36great but easier said than done uh that guy's a competitor and and he wins battles and the rest
13:41of it so um you know buffalo's forecheck i've talked about it quite a bit it it was so good
13:47against boston obviously montreal has better puck movers and and i don't expect them to be as
13:54vulnerable there but it also doesn't mean it's not going to be a thing like we know how buffalo likes
14:00to go in and pound guys and force turnovers they do it really well so that'll be an interesting thing
14:04to watch do you have a thought on what lines i'm assuming to start a series that saint louis will
14:11put slavkowski back with coalfield and caulfield and suzuki excuse me um if he does that do you think
14:18it's top line against top line or do i want a couple of a couple of guys put like possession
14:24dogs
14:25puck hounds like benson and doan maybe with norris in the middle playing against that line like have you
14:32thought it through yet to see or you just got to wait and see what the coaches want to do
14:35but do you
14:36think there's a a favorable matchup out there within the line matchups
14:43yeah i to the honest answer is like want to see it play out a little bit um i could
14:48put you know
14:48my coaching hat on and give you an idea of what you might want to do like maybe you want
14:52to go with
14:53um having doan and benson guys that are like what you you said go out against um some top six
15:01guys and
15:02try to squash that and give page uh and his line mates a bit better of a matchup but um
15:08these things
15:09are always like whatever it starts it's not going to finish as it might not even finish as in that
15:14game
15:14right right let alone if the coaches start flipping guys up and down on different lines um it'll be kind
15:21interesting to see if marty san luis goes back to uh slavkovsky suzuki caulfield i i would maybe bet
15:27so um but you know anderson got put up there and anderson was a force in that first round series
15:34like
15:35playoff josh anderson came out and that's a power forward um so it the luxury i think for both sides
15:43is that you've got options um and there's not a lot of weak links really among the 12 guys you're
15:49going to put out it forward so um i saw that carrick skated today i don't know if they said
15:56anything about whether he'd be available right away or just later in the series but
15:59yeah that's that'd be a big ad as well yeah he did skate he's been cleared he did not have
16:05a line he
16:05was he was not in between malenstein and greenway on the fourth line today at practice lindy ruff said
16:12he's firmly day-to-day so i don't know by by him not being on a line in practice i
16:17might guess that
16:17tomorrow is not that likely but maybe friday i would say that too it sounded like he meant days
16:23away yeah so i think uh i bet against him for game one but we'll see you know um a
16:29couple minutes left
16:29with mike kelly my answer to this is no is there anything about sabers bruins that would have changed
16:39your mind about the sabers in any way was there something they did or didn't do well enough i mean
16:45the goaltending was ultimately excellent uh they had shot attempt advantages in games i don't know
16:52was there anything about the first round again for me there wasn't i think it was about the series i
16:58would have expected like the the likeliest outcome for me and that's it not even just the the game
17:03result mike but like sort of what the the games looked like for me it was about what i would
17:09have
17:09expected any thoughts on that from you i i would generally agree yeah like um swayman obviously
17:19kept it closer than it was buffalo as far as the series goes outplayed boston just about in every
17:25way um and swayman made it you know competitive i think that's what a lot of us thought going into
17:31it um and that's kind of what it turned out to be i i didn't think and i know what
17:36the bruins
17:36blue line look like i i still think they um shot themselves in the foot maybe more than i would
17:43have expected um like their breakouts some of them are so or like when there's a guy behind the net
17:49and
17:49it's a controlled breakout you should like you should never get scored on off that ever like you should
17:55get the puck out almost all the time um but that and that happened multiple times so again you credit
18:01buffalo for the way that they play and and uh all the rest of it you're not going to have
18:06that easy
18:06of a time against montreal obviously you think it would you always think the next round will be harder
18:11but with the way that the league has it set up i mean sometimes you pace your hardest opponent right
18:16away that wasn't the case for buffalo montreal's going to be harder but no there wasn't anything
18:21okay um i agree one of the goals you highlighted in your tweet today about this series or the boston
18:28series was the third of your four clips was the benson goal in boston in game four and that's what
18:35you're talking about that's mcavoy behind the net with no pressure and he comes up the right boards
18:40and it's over like it's just that they're trapped comes to benson and he scores so you're saying bad
18:46news for us you're saying that will not happen in this round well that happened twice in the same
18:52period in that game that's right sure that's right um yeah okay guys if that happens twice in a period
18:59against montreal i will drive down to buffalo and buy you each a pint all right i'm writing that it's
19:05a date one thing that you could to sort of answer mike's question not that we weren't expecting the
19:11power play to be a struggle it struggled down the stretch in the regular season for the sabers
19:16um but still kind of fits and starts there more fits than starts i'd say um have you had any
19:23time
19:24to look at their power play and do you have any kind of a diagnosis for what is ailing them
19:30when they
19:30have the man advantage i haven't had a ton of time to do that um just some quick like data
19:38points and
19:39again i haven't gone into video to really get to the bottom of this but uh in that just in
19:44that first
19:44round uh you look at power play goals per two minutes shocker they were last um expected goals
19:52per two minutes they were fifth so there is a okay healthy belief that there should be some natural
19:59regression there uh shot attempts were sixth shots were second slot shots were tenth so you lose a bit
20:06of quality and maybe that's something you try to improve but yeah no i've not done a deep dive on
20:11it
20:11but just from looking at some really surface level numbers it would seem like it was executing
20:16reasonably well and not finishing mike thank you where uh we nhl network i know but like what's your
20:23your schedule here going into round two when will you be on
20:28uh round two is not nearly as busy as round one so that's a little bit nice um but yeah
20:33i'll be on
20:34nhl network uh here and there throughout the round um and uh on x i still can't get used to
20:42saying that
20:43um at mike kelly nhl i'll be posting some stuff too as we go so very good that's the plan
20:49this should
20:50be great thank you for uh your time today and always and uh here's to a great series
20:56great catching up with you guys we've done it for years and i just always remember like
21:02buffalo you deserve better you've got such great fans it's such a great sports town
21:05and look at us now second round of the playoff here we are good yep just getting started i might
21:11say
21:11thanks again mike see you
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