- 3 months ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00also the host of tea to green a host of tea to green saturday mornings on wgr
00:05before we take turns smacking brian around for not picking aldrich potgeiter on his pick 10 team
00:13let's talk about the sabers loss last night and just where we think the series is headed
00:17other than to montreal brian were you what surprised i mean here here was here here was
00:25how i felt yesterday going into last night i just want to trust these guys and that includes
00:32a seemingly ailing tage thompson and we're whatever alex tuck is right now and the
00:36erratic lukinen and you know it's not the whole team but i didn't get what i needed out of any
00:42of those guys and it was pretty costly yeah your top two forwards didn't come through your goaltender
00:49didn't come through that obviously is a bad recipe for success in a playoff series that's super super
00:54tight um after the first period i mean it was it was maybe the most entertaining period of the
01:02series i think and the back and forth and even the just kind of the uh the stuck you in
01:08and hey they
01:08got this almost it felt like and then right up bang montreal would be nope we're right back in it
01:12kind
01:13of mentality it was a a mood swingy first period but the sabers were flying i thought throughout that
01:19and i thought okay they're playing with that pace that they're looking for yeah and it almost even
01:25kind of started right where they left off in the second and then i was talking about quite a bit
01:30on
01:30postgame i said the moment that i know you know you guys have talked about thompson's game and his
01:35lack of production i guess throughout your show the moment where he goes in on that breakaway in the
01:41early second uh early portion of the second period if he scores there makes it 4-2 i feel like
01:47the ability for them to just kind of keep it going would have been so much easier instead
01:51at that point dovish makes the state who knows maybe dovish has even pulled at that point um
01:56because he was kind of having a train wreck during the first period his worst period i thought
02:00of the series and maybe they pull him just to spark them and instead it's a big save a few
02:06minutes
02:06later it's tied and then man the rest of the game it was just like they were not with it
02:11in both
02:12ends of the ice the part portions of the second period they were just stuck on their own end forever
02:16yeah it did it really really swung quickly there from what seemed like it was going to be maybe
02:21the most entertaining game of the series yeah i i thought brian the the first seven up until right
02:29up until montreal they score right off a draw off an icing in the buffalo end and that's i think
02:33around
02:33eight minutes or so into the period and the shots might have been 6-1 buffalo um and the play
02:40was all
02:41down there i i you know you can fall into a trap of sort of believing your own nonsense like
02:46one
02:46thought i had about yesterday's game was that you know these teams are so close but we've seen
02:52montreal sort of put the sabers down a couple times on the scoreboard and i thought maybe we get that
02:57in
02:57in reverse and the way the second period started at three to two and how the goalie had looked at
03:03that
03:03point dovish i thought they're gonna they're gonna blow them out of the building and then
03:09like i don't know they score that third goal and then buffalo just could knock it out of their own
03:13end i was like what what happened here like i really thought the recipe was was was being was
03:20being written here they're they're they're gonna they're gonna just take this game over so i i'm trying
03:24to keep that in mind as i you know look ahead here process and talk about this game with you
03:30and with
03:31our audience today and think about tomorrow they they were for half of the game sort of in control
03:38not you know not ever that comfortable on the scoreboard at three two but i thought it was their
03:43game and then montreal just took it so at least even with talk and thompson in whatever state they're
03:50in uh they were able to still do that so it gives me some hope for tomorrow yeah i agree
03:57and and paul
03:58reminded me on post game as he did two post games ago hey all they have to do is win
04:03and it's the
04:04same scenario again that we had going in the last night's game it's all tied coming back to your
04:08building now for whatever reason coming back to your building doesn't really mean anything i guess so
04:13far they obviously have not been good losing four of the six that they've had a key bank center and
04:17they've won four or five on the road so uh lindy ruff even last night yeah kind of indicated that
04:22he
04:22might treat it like a road game i don't know if that means hotel or probably you know being secluded
04:27from family all that sort of stuff and friends um yeah that's probably what it what he's going to
04:31look to do if they if they're able to get it to a game seven but um i i have
04:35i have no problem with
04:37them um going to montreal and winning because they like i said three for three in boston one out of
04:43two
04:43in montreal i know it's going to be a scene um bulldog owen said it's going to be psychotic which
04:49i
04:49thought was a great way to describe it on you know we know saturday night in canada is special for
04:54hockey and if they can figure hey this is our chance to clinch and go to the east finals like
04:58it's going to be a great mood all day there i'm sure and in the building it's going to be
05:02electric
05:02leading up to it i don't think the savers though for whatever reason um i think the savers can handle
05:09those situations i think they've shown it so far the only thing i would say the two games in the
05:13bell
05:13center if i was going to say one thing that maybe the atmosphere could have gotten them caught up
05:19into in some sense is some of the undisciplined penalties that they took and that is an area
05:24that when they've thought when they have played clean periods they've been excellent the third
05:29period in game four the other night after having two periods of not disciplined play they play a
05:35clean third they kill off that penalty with two and a half minutes the carry over from the byron
05:39high stick and then they don't take a penalty the rest of the way and then of course if you
05:43remember
05:44the clincher against boston in boston game six they didn't take a penalty the entire game
05:47so like that to me has to be a piece of how they're going to be successful because look at
05:53last night even just montreal had two power plays i mean that's not a lot in the entire game
05:57um but to me obviously they score on them both right and look who takes the two penalties it's
06:02your two studs it's dalene and thompson and neither of them were really like hey i'm going to take this
06:08penalty to maybe save a goal or a huge scoring opportunity here they were crosschecks away from
06:14the play or not even at least in the defensive zone so i i uh i think they have to
06:19clean that
06:19up area that area up if they're going to be successful coming into game six because that
06:23atmosphere can probably get to you very quickly if you feel like you're frustrated on a shift or
06:28you've had a a bad stretch of a couple of shifts there where maybe you're hemmed in your own zone
06:32and
06:33you maybe take it out on a player and you know all of a sudden now you're sitting in the
06:37box and
06:37you know the dangerous power play comes out on the ice for montreal let's focus on tuck for a minute
06:43um you mentioned lindy ruff last night he had a comment about tuck trying too hard to make the
06:51extra play was the quote i saw chad didaminis's tweet on that where are these extra plays can i see
06:57a single one like i don't know i i think it's got to be almost 100 true that thompson is
07:03is in bad
07:04shape physically somehow i think we're all kind of guessing wrist what he's not doing with his shot
07:10what he's not doing on face-offs even maybe that's the case but we don't know tuck i can't figure
07:15out
07:16i mean unless he's got some sort of a core injury or something where he just can't go i mean
07:21i don't
07:21think there's anything you can do about it really brian also but tuck's play is mysterious he had a
07:26strong first round points wise at least he had a strong first round i think i think i think eyeball
07:31analytics everything he was he was a force in the first round scored a big goal in game six early
07:36i don't know can you figure that one out the tuck one is mysterious because he just seems like his
07:44ability even get shots on goal right now are really hampered way down i mean seven points in the first
07:49series no points in this series uh he's been on the ice again for goals against quite a bit yeah
07:55i mean
07:55with thompson i feel like we've seen some evidence that maybe we can conclude that there's something wrong
08:00because he has he is a guy that literally can can go through guys with his sick handling ability we
08:06know his shot is lethal and we've seen evidence that he's not being able to do that he's losing
08:10control of the puck and he's maybe not able to as we saw in that breakaway lift it and that
08:16could
08:16maybe indicate that physically there's something wrong but with tuck i haven't seen anything like
08:20physically that would say okay he looks limited in that area i know lindy's words last night was about
08:26moving his feet i don't know if there's anything to that um i don't feel like i've seen alex tuck
08:31like looks low necessarily but he's definitely not generating offensive chances and i know that top
08:37line even with krebs i mean they they've struggled here over the last few games they're going to need
08:41them to be great i mean montreal's best players even though a lot of their points have come on the
08:45man advantage they are producing right now and as great as benson and doan's story has been through
08:50this postseason here they've got to get a little bit more uh from somebody else i feel like and
08:55obviously that would point to that top line to do it you don't know what else it could be i
09:01i i'm
09:02inclined my default setting is to guess back oh there's back yeah talk talk he's and i think he's
09:08had i i'm i'm just i'm gonna put it on the board my guess on talk when we get the
09:12locker room clean
09:13out hopefully it's a few weeks away uh is some some kind of a back injury makes sense it's probably
09:18going to sound really bad herniated maybe will be used i don't know i just yeah i just i think
09:25that it's hudson going by him on three three it's the best i it's the best guess i have um
09:30so i don't know we'll see maybe maybe it's nothing maybe he's just terrible at hockey now i don't know
09:35maybe that seems unlikely to me injury draft oblique can't be ruled out right um pretty scary with
09:42owen power um i feel like another sort of i don't know it's anecdotal but like a other piece of
09:48evidence that there are guys on this team that are maybe dealing with injuries and maybe they're
09:54they're pretty serious is that power felt like he needed to come back to that game because the way
09:59he went down like he could have very easily just stayed in the room and he not only did come
10:04out
10:05it took a couple of test twirls and then he took a shift at least a shift i don't know
10:09if even more
10:09than that man that was a scary looking injury and we may not know until you're on the air with
10:15pregame
10:15tomorrow uh maybe even halfway through pregame whether he's going to be okay to play
10:22right i mean that that would be a major major loss himmons last night i know struggled and paul
10:29thought afterwards that maybe you know the fact that he had gotten that maintenance day that there's
10:32something more to that he looked slow to react he was late on that goal that ended up being the
10:37tap and at the side of the net that beat lucan and i think probably you've got the fact that
10:42lindy
10:42doesn't use his last pair in five on five that much for minutes and we know the top four skate
10:48a
10:49ton as probably in in healthy scenarios you would want them to because they've all been really good
10:54so to me now okay if power is is all of a sudden not available or even if he is
11:00and he's hampered i
11:01mean yeah maybe that's the best case scenario and maybe as you as you guys were saying earlier with
11:07thompson is well are you just going to take out tage because let's say he's at 60 and put in
11:14tanner pearson no because i think i still think 60 tage thompson if he's able to play is still way
11:19better and a much better threat to maybe do something out there to make a difference and maybe it'll be
11:23the same thing with power like are you do you want to reinsert michael kesselring do you want to
11:28reinsert zach metza or logan stanley and taking power spot i guess kesselring would feel like the
11:34natural replacement if you're looking for what power does and his abilities and what his strength
11:38might be but um if he's going to end up playing only six minutes and you're thinking well even if
11:43power is limited a little if he's still going to be able to give you high teams in numbers well
11:48then
11:49you probably still end up signing up for that in the end here so yeah i mean maybe there's there's
11:54quite a few players that are going to be in this boat right now but uh it's and is it
11:58a saber only
11:59problem i mean maybe maybe all these other teams i'm sure are probably dealing with the same thing too
12:03which is we seem to be focusing on buffalo so much so i don't want to make it seem like
12:07the
12:07sabers are the only team here that it's kind of the woe is me factor with injuries maybe you know
12:12maybe they are on the short end of the stick but i'm sure all these other teams are kind of
12:15dealing
12:15with it as well well if they do make it through somehow winning tomorrow and monday they will have
12:21played much longer into the playoff season than anybody else left i mean the west finals is set
12:26and carolina has won eight of eight in the playoffs as of tomorrow have been off for a week
12:31so yeah i mean let's find out but their state of affairs going into round three if we get that
12:37far
12:38we might uh really wonder with brian kozio if did we cover lukanen well enough here just brian like were
12:44you on team lukanen for that game uh were you i mean disappointed we all were i think probably but
12:52how surprised were you that that happened
12:56yeah i mean if if i was able to make the decision myself i would have went with line i
13:01just i just
13:02like him just a little bit more and for the argument of the rotation i if if if you would
13:09have said hey we're going to continue with this rotation then it could have been lying last night
13:12lukanen game six line game seven like i would have been on on board for that too but i totally
13:18understood why he didn't change the lineup at all because it's kind of what you do right the goalie
13:23has an outstanding game he seemed as though he progressed even and got even better as the game
13:27went on and he ends up with a first star like there's no you know there's not really a strong
13:32argument to sit there and say he has to come out um and i know probably me saying oh i
13:36would have
13:36went with line it's probably you know easy to second guess after this is over with at this moment but
13:40um now i think we've probably seen the last of lukanen for sure in this series if and if the
13:47sabers advance maybe he can come back into play but obviously you know lion tomorrow if they
13:53advance they're going to come back with him i would think a hundred percent and if they lose well
13:57obviously there are no more games but we're not going to see them anyway so i i think it's lion
14:00series the rest of the way for sure um you know a couple of a couple of the goals early
14:05on it didn't
14:06matter who was the goaltender i think those were just happens with poor coverage and um the power
14:10play goals i in some sense i don't love that the goals that are against but they're still power
14:15play goals with a lethal power play so at the end of the night is lukanen the number one reason
14:20they lost my answer is still no to that all right want to talk some golf sure good how dare
14:29you
14:30you guys are sitting in a good spot in our in our best
14:32power
Comments