HabsCast – Habs Roll Over Carolina in Game 1!!

Grant [00:00:00]:
Great day to talk hockey with Grant

Liam [00:00:02]:
McCag on Habs cast.

Grant [00:00:07]:
I should say so. We’re gonna crack one for that one. Just as we all predicted, the Montreal Canadiens defeat the Carolina Hurricane 6 2. Yeah, they set.

Liam [00:00:19]:
They set a record 62 games.

Grant [00:00:23]:
The fastest four goals on the road that the Habs have ever scored. Steve Iva, Jacques couldn’t do it. Maurice Boom Boom and company Couldn’t do it. Jean Ori couldn’t do it, but this team could. Liam, were you. Were you a little shocked by that first period, my friend?

Liam [00:00:53]:
Yeah, well, especially after we gave up our usual, you know, 33 seconds down, 1 nothing. May as well put 1 nothing up on the scoreboard before they start the game. I mean, it’s. It’s getting sickening. But to come right back and call the snipe especially, and then Craig Simpson, love him or. Or don’t love him.

Rick [00:01:13]:
He.

Liam [00:01:14]:
He made a. A good point there, I think, at the. In the second period when he talked about Carolina really missing reads, and that was really evident in that first period. We really, as it turns out, pretty much won the game in the first period, but I. I think they showed. They showed their 11 days. I. I really think they.

Liam [00:01:32]:
They did. And. And that was the. The first part for me. And then the second part was we could have had eight goals, not first period. Like, holy lift. And the chances that were missed. Evan’s gonna have nightmares about missing that topping, let alone the second part for me was when they pushed back and got that second one.

Liam [00:01:55]:
And they alluded to it as well. We. We bent, but we didn’t break and slash goal. Massive. I love that he got the empty netter after, you know, he screwed up in Tampa and. Yeah, it’s just. Yeah. Did not expect eight goals, obviously.

Liam [00:02:09]:
Did not expect a 62 Montreal win, and thankful for it. Guaranteed minimal split. It’s all the good things you want and very, very happy.

Grant [00:02:19]:
Yeah, I. That was a huge play by Slap, like, seconds after Seth Jarvis’s goal. That beautiful, you know, pass that he made to Caulfield behind the net, I think was. Was crucial. It was crucial that they get one back quickly. And I always love when the Habs score before the PA Announcers even had a chance to, you know, to announce the other goal. It quite it. You know, that building went from pure bedlam to kind of.

Grant [00:02:51]:
And it. And then the Habs just kept rolling. Best period of hockey this season by the Habs. Rick, do you think.

Rick [00:03:02]:
I think of one where you were better, Grant. You know, we. We often talk about fatigue, and we always worry about physical fatigue, but mental fatigue is something that’s there, too. And tonight the mental game of the Habs was phenomenal. The subtle plays they did, you know, slaps, that wonderful pass to coffee, and he was so aware. But even that goal by Daniel Grant, you know, and Liam, you know, Carrier draws two guys to him, bangs it off the board. Anderson just turns around and just neutralizes his opponent to give Daniel that, that pat to the net. It was just like a perfect example of how smart they played tonight.

Rick [00:03:41]:
And we could talk about. I wouldn’t even touch about the defensive game yet, but. And we will, I’m sure. But the intelligence the Habs showed was phenomenal tonight. I was really, really impressed. What a game.

Grant [00:03:55]:
The, you know, the Canadiens veteran corps has stepped up so large in, in, in the playoffs, like Evans, Anderson, Deno, Mattison, Carrier, you, like every one of them, has just elevated their game to level that we didn’t see all season long. And it’s just, you know, just a reminder of how important it is to have a sprinkling at the very least on this youngest team in the, in the playoffs. A sprinkling of key veterans.

Liam [00:04:31]:
Right, Liam, for sure, you absolutely need them. No matter where you are in your development, your growth, your rebuild, or your top of the chart, or you’re. You’re the bottom trying to get out of the bottom and, and work your way up, you have to have some vets leading the way. And man, I’ll tell you, the structure of this team is something that I lamented definitely in seasons past here as this rebuild’s gone on and they’ve moved along here, and you’re really wondering about Marty’s influence. And they touched on it as well again tonight on the breakout. I have never seen a Montreal Canadian team reverse. The puck has often has this one. The passes back to just you.

Liam [00:05:16]:
You know how crucial and critical they are to Elim eliminate immediate danger. And, and they know that, that that option is there. They know it should be there, and it’s there 99% of the time. And tonight the other thing, the little one touch passes in the neutral zone, you’ve got the outlet coming out to whomever, and boom, one touch and you got a guy, he’s flying any. And that’s another thing I haven’t seen with any continuity, but it’s the reverses out of danger, finding guys on the outlets that need to get out. It’s just such an easier way to play the game. And I know we took advantage of a team tonight, 11 days off, but damn, man, we played well too, at all sorts of junctures of this game. And that was great to see.

Grant [00:06:14]:
Yeah, Just saw a maroon $50 from Donnie. Love this control of a game. Go halves, go. Puck, possession, grant, Montreal trip fund. Yeah, I’m gonna. I think I’m gonna go down Green 5 to Cunningham’s Pub. I really do. If there is a game five, we’ll see.

Grant [00:06:39]:
Crushing hopes and dreams since 1909. Go, Abs, go.

Liam [00:06:43]:
Thanks very, very kind of both of you.

Grant [00:06:48]:
Yeah, absolutely. These guys are always pitching in. They’re great. Thank you so much. But when. Jeez. Eh. When they sprung Congress, Caulfield on that breakaway, hits the post, comes back, and then they come down, of course, and score that, you know, there was a little bit of doubt at that point, saying, gee, you know, got the crowd going and you thought maybe, you know, maybe Carolina, the Carolina that we saw in the first two rounds is.

Grant [00:07:26]:
Is going to come out here. But they righted the ship Adobe, you know, solid the rest of the way. This team, you know, if there’s one word I think that describes them, and we’ve heard it a few times, but once again, we saw it tonight. They are resilient, Rick.

Rick [00:07:47]:
Yeah, I mean, they. It’s like every time Carolina had an answer, Montreal had an answer right back at them. And it. It could have been easy to. To, you know, right after why, when the game started, they let in that goal, Montreal just, you know, two men covered, got out of position a little bit. It happens. Things go fast a little bit, they settle down and, you know, when. When Carolina tries to put pressure on them, they just stay calm, you know.

Rick [00:08:19]:
Liam, you mentioned it right before, right? They were. No moving the puck properly and everything. And we’ve heard that so much by coaches. You know, when you’re in trouble in your own zone, just get rid of the puck and bang it off the boards. But that could also lead to a bad breakout and loss of possession at the right spot. How many times did Montreal just take that extra second to calm down, find the right outlet, move it safely, and they got the out of their zone without any problems. And you do that when you’re Grant, as you said, you’re resilient. You don’t let things get to you.

Rick [00:08:51]:
You just stay calm, stay on the task at hand. And that’s what they did all night tonight. Again, phenomenal game by the ABs.

Grant [00:08:58]:
Yeah. You want to expand on that, Liam?

Liam [00:09:04]:
No. Well, I mean, you know, Rick said it, man. It’s. It’s really hard to. You know until he scored. I thought Slap had a few tough shits. I thought Doc was having a tough game but there was just so many things done well down low like we just are making plays that are. We keep, you know harping on the fact we’re the youngest team in the playoffs and second youngest and blah blah blah.

Liam [00:09:29]:
They’re not playing like it like they’re, they’re, they’re playing like they’re established and they know their way around a playoff rank and well this is old hot game one of the semifinals. When’s the bus like it’s, it’s know it’s, it’s just, it’s. It’s incredible to watch, you know now, you know we talked in the pregame. The anticipation we’re waiting. What are we going to see? The Habs coming off the emotion of an overTime Winning Game 7 on the road back to back game Sevens, Carolina the Beast undefeated 11 day layoff. What are they going to look like and everything else now the game’s over and we’re going. Jesus, holy God. A Montreal look great like.

Liam [00:10:09]:
So now we. How’s game two? What’s Carolina’s push gonna look like? You know game two. They can’t lose two at home. That would be disastrous. So the best they’ve got. You gotta know you’re gonna see it Saturday night. And it just leads all more to the anticipation level and to what Rick said. I mean it was many, many, many elements of tonight were textbooks would they.

Liam [00:10:35]:
Did they even have a shot on that in the third period? Carolina.

Grant [00:10:40]:
I don’t think, I don’t think they did. No, it was.

Liam [00:10:44]:
And before the broadcast took the shot away.

Grant [00:10:49]:
Yeah. Funny how like you know when they, when it happens to the Canadians. They mentioned it 4682 times it happens to. It happens to Carolina and they mentioned it in passing once I accept hater’s gonna hate.

Liam [00:11:03]:
You know.

Grant [00:11:03]:
Well, you know.

Liam [00:11:04]:
You know the leaves aren’t there.

Grant [00:11:12]:
Just you know it’s funny Haters gonna hate. Okay we’re. I’m just getting looking at the box score here. They’ve got them down for two shots on goal. So they found some. They must have got something at the. I remember yeah near the end there, Liam, like the last minute but the first 19 minutes they did not have a shot on goal. Yeah.

Grant [00:11:37]:
And when you’re trailing in the third period. Right. Like at least the, the period that the Habs didn’t get the shots. It’s not like they were behind two goals or something like that, right. They ended up winning the freaking game. So anyway, yeah, two whole shots on goal now. You know, I text in the first about holy frigate, this t how great they’re looking. And you mentioned in a second, Liam, you know, that that looked.

Grant [00:12:07]:
The real Hurricanes came out in the. In the second period. Hopefully that was the real Hurricanes in the third, too. So. Yeah, I don’t like the real Slim Shady, right? Will the real Hurricanes please stand up? Like, come on now. What’s going on? Are we. You know, I don’t know what to expect the next game. Liam and Rick, I like.

Grant [00:12:32]:
I don’t know much. All could. They could do it again. You just don’t know what this Habs team, you know, all you seem to know is that they’re not going to get swamped. Like, have they been. Have they been like one game all playoffs so far, that game six in Montreal, they’re now seven and two on the road there. There haven’t been many Habs teams that went seven and two to start the playoffs on the road. Like, that’s, you know, that’s phenomenal, Rick.

Rick [00:13:06]:
I can’t believe that. I didn’t even pay attention to notice that Carolina took like two shots only in the third, to be very honest with you guys, because they weren’t a good amount of time. That’s how good Montreal’s defense was. They were giving Carolina nothing, even though they were in the zone. Another surprising stat. The thing too, with the way the defense plays is that, you know, again, you know, Marty St. Louis, and this is the part where I’m going to give him a little bit of credit here. He switches his lineups, he switches his pairings even after a win.

Rick [00:13:39]:
You talked about that Grant, right. Like the great coaches do that they don’t fall to the trap of always going with the same roster just because they won. He saw a different team in Carolina than the Buffalo is. And then Tampa Bay is boom. We’re going to make some changes. Kaplan got a few more minutes. Struble played a good amount of minutes, I think tonight. I, I don’t think he did more than three minutes, that’s for sure.

Rick [00:14:04]:
So everybody, everybody has to be ready. And everybody is contributing just fantastic for the Habs. And everyone played again. I can’t think of anybody who didn’t play well. Let’s say Taxi. I found Texie was battling for the puck and just taking a big hit to make a play a few times and he was rewarded with a goal. But in the dirty, really, he really Played hard. It’s good to see.

Grant [00:14:28]:
Yeah, I think the veteran, you know, power horse is rubbing off on him. Like Texe looks at, you know, geez, I’m the same height as him. Maybe I should play more like him. Well, you know, it’s rubbing off. I’m serious, I’m only half joking here. But 14 over 14 minutes for Struble. Cappy got nine and you know it was fairly solid it. But what I like there is nobody got an outrageous amount of ice time here, right.

Grant [00:15:06]:
Like Dobson, Dobson 2235, Hudson 2236. They led the way. No player got 23 minutes in ice time. I like that. And even Suzuki 18 minutes instead of like the 23 he’s been getting. Right. He, he put his faith in Cappy being able to play more than, you know, past the first period. It helped, it helped that they had a lead, you know, helped that they had a two to three goal lead most of the game.

Grant [00:15:38]:
But look in looking at those stats, it’s pretty impressive that, that he really spread the ice time around. And as I said, as said in the pre game, you want to start out, I think you want to, you want to play all 20 guys, right? You want to play every guy, all 18 guys. A fair amount of ice time at the start of a series and, and it paid off. And I think you’ll see the same lineup next game. Would you expect they’ll kind of hard to switch it up. Liam? I think for the next one.

Liam [00:16:17]:
Yeah. Would be surprised. I’d say at this point also you can give guys ice when you got the lead. You have the ability to roll lines a little bit more and roll that 60 out there and so everything that was, was favorable that way and nobody. Yeah. I mean the guys that came in, Struble and, and Kapanen will capital and played but Stroop’s coming in for Arbor. I don’t, you know, I thought what I could see anyway. I think he just had one bad shift, you know that I saw.

Liam [00:16:49]:
Otherwise he looked pretty solid. Everybody did really, you know, a couple of small things and you’re going to get that in 60 minutes. The rest of it was oh my God, dream start, dream start to the game. Obviously dream first period and, and, and dream first game. I, I mean you couldn’t really draw up a lot of it any better. So many, so much scoring, so many guys getting on the board, so many things. Rick, you’ve mentioned it now a couple times here and you, you’re right, we should not pass along here. Too far without talking about the defensive structure of the Habs tonight.

Liam [00:17:24]:
That was, that was really, really impressive against a dangerous team, not only in transition, but on the forecheck and their depth and yes, you know, they get off their. Their number one line scores. 33 seconds in, you got Stankovan’s line, who was lit it up for eight games and you’re stifling everybody. It’s. It’s impressive. That’s an impressive start. Just really right across the board.

Grant [00:17:52]:
I think Freddy Anderson has an eight game playoff warranty. And after that the warranty is expired. And like we saw, we saw that tonight. Kip Rios thinks the cane should go with Bussy. Hopefully he’s wrong as usual. Yeah, well have scored seven on Bussy, you know, first game, first game that they faced him. So they don’t, they don’t care who they put in there. Bring them on.

Grant [00:18:18]:
If they play like they did in the first period, breakaway after breakaway. Like what?

Liam [00:18:22]:
Oh, jeez.

Grant [00:18:24]:
What happened to this Carolina structure that

Liam [00:18:26]:
could have scored eight, scored eight.

Grant [00:18:29]:
Literally could have.

Liam [00:18:31]:
Could have scored six, seven, eight goals easily. Not first period.

Grant [00:18:36]:
The Flying Frenchmen were back in town there. Fire wagon hockey was back in town. It was incredible. But yeah, interesting that they’re already, they’re already throwing Freddy under the busy. You could say there, Rick, it’s a good one. Grant.

Rick [00:18:53]:
It’s funny because Bussy in a sense is. Is a little bit like lion was for Buffalo. Right. He’s mostly an American Hockey League goaltender. They got really hot. I think he got himself a new contract with Carolina and right after he got that new contract, he went right into a slum. Yeah, that’s why Anderson is a net.

Grant [00:19:14]:
Right.

Rick [00:19:15]:
So, yeah, you could put Bussy, but I don’t know if he’s, you know, I don’t know if he’s a very good NHL goaltender. Historically. He’s not. And you know, as for the offense, I, you know, I, I took jiu jitsu for a few years and I was not very good. I didn’t mind you, but often they say to use your opponent’s strength against them and by positioning yourself well and taking advantage of it and it feels that’s what Montreal did. They used Carolina’s maybe over exuberant energy after being laid off for so long that they were just attacking and Montreal were being patient and just quick transition while everybody’s down into the ice. And that’s why they were getting so many odd man rushes in the first period. I think that Carolina was just not thinking they were Just attacking the whole time.

Rick [00:20:01]:
And boy, like I said, they could have had seven or eight goals because Carolina was always out of position in the first period.

Grant [00:20:07]:
Yeah, well, we’ve got a new. We’ve got a new segment here, folks. And Rick, I’m springing up this on you out of the blue. I did give Liam a bit of a heads up, but it’s the Cunninghams Pub, three stars of the game. All right, Cunningham’s Pub, 75St. Anne street in St. Anne de Bellevue, folks. Best chicken wings voted many times in Montreal, in the entire city, Cunningham’s Pub.

Grant [00:20:42]:
And they’ve been so gracious as to sponsor our three stars of the gate. So, Liam, we’ll start with you. Who was. Who would be your third star? Second star, first star of the. From the habs tonight.

Liam [00:21:01]:
I got Suzuki, third star. I got Goulet, second star. And I got Deno, first star. Those are. Those are my three. Dano’s game was absolutely exceptional. 10 out of 10. When he’s scoring, it’s such a bonus.

Liam [00:21:20]:
You know what you’re getting him getting from him. I know he didn’t have his greatest game on the dot, and their numbers were just marginally down from where they’ve been in the playoffs here. But you had a very determined Carolina team there fighting for every inch of ice, especially in that second period, and they kind of controlled the dots there. But I thought Deno’s game was just exceptional tonight. Goulet, it’s funny, we talked about him in the pregame. Grant, you. You really went off on talking about how great he’s been. And maybe tonight I watched him a little bit, even.

Liam [00:21:52]:
Maybe a little more closely than. Than normal. Although I feel I watch every inch of every game close, but I just. I just thought his game was. And this sort of slides into Rick’s comment a little bit about the defensive structure in Montreal. And I felt Goulet tonight was had for me. Was. Was right there and Nick was captain.

Liam [00:22:13]:
Nick, I mean, you saw it at both ends of the ice. You saw why he’s going to win the selkie. I mean, he comes back so deep, he makes so many plays. It’s his positioning as much as anything. Like he’s. He’s almost always on the right side of the puck that, you know, it’s one of the things that used to drive me crazy about Pacioretti. He’s such a natural goal scorer, you know, not like a pure Mike Bossy or lafleur type. But he was right there.

Liam [00:22:40]:
Right. He could snipe he could score, but I found a lot of times he was on the wrong side of the puck at critical times and whatnot. You just don’t see that with Nick. And I thought he had an exceptional game. He contributed offensively as well. And those are the three I picked.

Grant [00:22:57]:
Great choices. Rex, we sprung this on you just now. How about I go second and give you a little more time to. To contemplate it? Okay. I got Alex Carrier as the third star tonight. Just. He’s been so solid all. All playoff.

Grant [00:23:19]:
I, you know, I was one of his harshest critics going in, and it’s hard just to pick three, by the way, because I, you know, those are great choices. I agree with all three, Liam, but Carrie was plus four tonight. Four block shots, just solid on the PK Again, he’s really, you know, going in. I. I was. I was one. That said, I think. I don’t think they can win multiple rounds with Carrier playing and Reinbacher sitting.

Grant [00:23:51]:
And I was wrong. He’s been. He’s just. He has been outstanding, uh, for the most part in the playoffs. And once again tonight, he’s my third star. Second star. I have to go with Slough. As you said there, Liam, There were a couple of, you know, a couple more of those.

Grant [00:24:10]:
But as the game went on, I, I just. Well, the two critical points in the game, you know, getting that, that. That beautiful assist to call to Cole and. And then the. That was a sweet, sweet goal that he scored, that fifth goal, which was the. You know, that put them away officially, right? But the toe drag and the. The snipe and then finally, finally getting an empty neck goal that when he. He’s not just the last time, Liam, but there’s been 10 times this year, you know, that he has had.

Grant [00:24:51]:
And he made damn sure that it was going in this time that he freaking deked around. The guy wasn’t gonna get the stick in front of it. Put it in the net. Second star, Slough. First star. Same as you, Liam Friggin Phil De. No, man. Unbelievable game from him.

Grant [00:25:10]:
Just if you look at the stat line, a goal and an assist, right? 2 shots on net, 3 hits, 4 block shots, 53 on the face offs just right across the board. You know, Nick. Nick is Nick. Nick has the most points of any forward on the halves. Any halves forward. In the last two years, Nick has the most points. You know, who’s second. Has 16 points now in the last two playoff years.

Grant [00:25:53]:
He had eight last year in the first round for. For LA, and he has eight this year. Telling you, tell you. I. Tell you what. I. I put a. I put a post on, like I said, can I said in the first period on a post on Blue sky said, can we get our second rounder back for Deno? Question mark Bum.

Grant [00:26:17]:
And I. I may have been. I may have been a little sarcastic there.

Rick [00:26:22]:
Yeah, yeah, that was a great one. I was big. By the way of just joking around. When I say slap, I. I kind of assumed that you were going for that. No, on that one. Listen to me. I’m gonna just say I could have given the third star of the game to Gule or Carrie because they deserved it.

Rick [00:26:39]:
I’m gonna go with a third guy who I thought had a really understated, really good game. And I’m happy to see it because obviously he’s very important to the Habs. But I thought Dobson was really good tonight, played really well defensively and I like the way he got the buck out of his zone. He was playing more of a typical Dobson game, a little bit quiet, but not a lot of danger happened around him, I found. And that says something about how smart he played. And he had Whit Matheson. I think he had the most amount of shifts tonight. 28.

Rick [00:27:06]:
So the fact that he was on the ice for so many shifts and nothing happened when he was on, I think says something about him. And again, I could have probably given it to Carrie or Suzuki, but I wanted to give a little bit of respect to Dobson tonight. That was important. Number two, you know, I’m not going to put any surprises here. Slap is back is what I. Is what I tweeted today, because that’s what it looked like. It looked like the guy we’ve seen at the end of this year and taking over the game and using his strength and reach and size to make things happen with those really lovely hands and vision. He was great.

Rick [00:27:43]:
And Daniel, what can you say about Daniel? I mean, elite defensive abilities. He augments the intensity of his game when it matters. You’re watching a guy that has a very, very high IQ without the puck, and he’s using that ability to create offense and willing himself to take over, to take, to charge this team up. So those are my. Those are my personal picks for the three stars of the game.

Grant [00:28:13]:
Yeah, well, only one of us picked Suzuki and he had three points, so that tells you how many different. And you know what I thought, you know who I thought you were going to say? I thought you were going to say Matheson, you know, because you could. You could say Matheson too. You know, like Lane may have been the fourth best defenseman tonight. That doesn’t happen very often. And yet he was, he was good. So, you know, kudos to the, to the defense. It really is the strength of this team, that defense core.

Grant [00:28:45]:
I think like it just, it kind of starts there when they have good game. The Habs majority of time win as long as the, long as Monty’s not in nets letting in the first two shots. But yeah, we got lots of comments coming in. Good, a good crowd. 115 on board here. I, I, I like that. Thank you. Thank you everybody.

Grant [00:29:11]:
Keep bringing in the comments and Liam gonna stick around another five minutes or so, I think. Liam, is that, is that about right?

Liam [00:29:22]:
I go another, another 10. I’m going.

Grant [00:29:25]:
Okay.

Liam [00:29:25]:
If you give me 30 seconds to run and grab another beer.

Grant [00:29:30]:
No, no, you can’t go get a beer, my friend. Grab her.

Liam [00:29:36]:
I will. I’m go finish this one. I’ll go grab another one. I’ll hang around for a while.

Grant [00:29:40]:
Okay. Okay. Good, Good stuff. Good stuff. Dovish. Making that save on the breakaway broke them, I think. Yeah, well, yeah, that’s, you know, Dolby 7 and 2 on the road in the playoffs. You gotta love it.

Grant [00:29:58]:
This team was not supposed to be ready yet continues to show everyone they are. Indeed. Yeah, it’s funny talking to Rob Hudson in the off season and you know, he’s saying, no, the halves are three, three, four years away from being a contender. And I, you know, I, I, I honestly, I mean, I’m always a freaking optimist when it comes to the Habs. Always been, I mean, even when they were terrible, I, I think I picked them to make the playoffs, but I, I really didn’t think it would be that long before they could contend in, in East. I just saw the shift. You can only go so many years not rebuilding your young talent. And Tampa and Boston and Toronto, you know, all of those teams just too many years trading away high picks.

Grant [00:30:50]:
You can only do that for so long and then your window closes and then the teams that are bringing in the young talent and then getting top five picks, that never hurts, you know, and then turning out and then getting Elaine Hudson, who should have been first overall, the way things have turned out, it’s just, I’m not surprised that they are already contending. I’m really not. And I’m just glad that it’s this year because it’s only going to help in the future, the experience that they’re getting this year. Regardless of what happens, the Rest of the way, Rick.

Rick [00:31:33]:
Yeah, well said. This is a team that is, as you said, so ridiculously young. They are. There is some Runway ahead of them to get better for almost like three quarters of the team, I think could get better. And not just any player that could be better, but these are the guys that could lead them. You know, Suzuki is probably in his prime right now. Caulfield is prime. But Slav could get better.

Rick [00:31:57]:
Dobson could probably get a little better. Even as he gains experience. Gould could get better. Lord knows David can get a heck of a lot better. Hudson could get better. I mean, so many guys that are leading this team that are, that are, are going to be around for years. I’ve not even hit their peak yet. That is the most exciting part.

Rick [00:32:15]:
Now they’re getting the experience. This is, this run is going to be wonderful. Look what that short run did last year for this year. Now imagine what this year’s run will do for the coming years. Boy, I don’t know. I mean, I’m, I’m a young lad and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen been so optimistic about the Habs future as I am right now.

Grant [00:32:35]:
Yeah, for sure. More Kenny, Pedro, more goals in one game compared to the Canes first two series in four games. That has to be a shock to their fans. Yeah, well, you’re playing a real team now. Get, get, get used to it. Hey, well, I hope so.

Liam [00:32:56]:
You know, Dream start, man. Dream start. You bank a win, you got a minimal split, and you’re in the driver’s seat to try and do something really special. How’s our Vegas tomorrow night? So, you know, it’s, this is what it’s all about, man. And you get a chance to make some noise here in a series by, by winning that first one on the road. And Montreal did it. It’s not just they did it, they did it in the fashion that they did it. There’s just so many elements.

Liam [00:33:24]:
God, we all pick stars. We’ve got, you know, three. How many different players? I mean, it’s true. You could pick six stars tonight or eight. I mean, it was, it was a unified effort. And when they pushed, we bet, but we didn’t break. And, and then Sloth came through with that big one and, and the defense was so, such a great structure. So many elements of the game tonight that were so excellently played.

Liam [00:33:49]:
And I tell you, I, I, we’ve been saying this most of the year, almost all the year. Probably Grant through Habs cast and everybody that’s that’s played a role in Habs cast all year as we’ve watched Montreal, for the most part, hang right in that Atlantic Division. Right. They just hung right in there, kept winning games and. And, and everybody was winning games. And Montreal could have had another losing streak or something. Slid right back down and didn’t. And, and when push came to shove and it got a little tense there, at one point, they rattled off, what, eight in a row or something.

Liam [00:34:23]:
So it was, you know, this, this team is. You want to try and take the bias out of it because we all are so biased, but could we be seeing and have seen the genesis, the embryonic stage of something really special? Is. Is this something potentially that could be really special? Getting a little ahead of ourselves, obviously, but it’s just been such a Mercury run, really, for five years, if you think about it. And now we’re re. You know, being rewarded with the fruits of the labor of that. With. With what’s gone on here in this playoff run.

Grant [00:35:09]:
Well said, Liam. It’s, you know, I really think that they just. It’s just the tip of the iceberg here. Did you watch the game last night? I’m presuming the Colorado, of course, they didn’t have Makar. Right. But they, they look pretty ordinary.

Liam [00:35:30]:
Pretty.

Grant [00:35:31]:
Yeah.

Liam [00:35:31]:
Big nut to miss.

Grant [00:35:32]:
No, that’s right. Like, I, you know, I’m not afraid.

Liam [00:35:37]:
Whoever comes last night, they were quicker.

Grant [00:35:40]:
Yeah, they were. But, you know, whoever wins the East, the east dominated the west this year. They. They dominated them. And whoever comes out of the east, like, if it’s Montreal, I. They can hang. They can hang with either of those teams. I’m.

Grant [00:35:59]:
I’m sure of it.

Liam [00:36:00]:
And

Grant [00:36:02]:
Dick, they’re serious cup contenders. And, you know, I haven’t said that yet, but at this point, it’s just. I can see it like it’s there. And it’s just it at this point, like, I got to a man, it’s going to be so disappointing now if they don’t win, because it’s just, you know, it’s there. It’s there. Nine wins. And I mean, to come into Carolina a team that had not lost in the playoffs and you said six, two slapped them at home in the first game. This team is for real.

Grant [00:36:35]:
And we could, you know, this might be. This might be the. The cup run that you two. Us three, have been waiting for for. Along 33 years. So, Rick, do you think that the Habs could win the Cup?

Rick [00:36:54]:
It’s not out of the realm of possibility at all. I mean, listen, this was not a team that sneaked into the playoffs. This team finished with 106 points, one of the better teams in the league in terms of points. So this is the. This is not a sport that. This is a Sport that has 84 games. I mean, you have to 82 right now, but 84 soon. The.

Rick [00:37:16]:
You have to be good for a long time. It’s not a fluke at this point. It’s not a. It’s not a short run. It’s not like they played well for 25 last games of the year and now they’re in the playoffs and they’re causing damage after being terrible for most of the year, they were not. And when they were losing at the start of the year, it was mostly the goaltending that was hurting them. It was not like the whole team was not playing well. So they’re showing that point.

Rick [00:37:39]:
There’s something being built here. And as for the west, that was a great point. You bring Grant because I remember us having this talk at the start of the year, and I said, I’ve not sold 100% on Colorado. I know they had a phenomenal year, but I said, this is not an organization that has great depth. They also traded a bunch of first drop picks for years and years and years. They paid for their top talent like they deserve to be paid, but there’s not a lot of debt. If one of their main guys gets injured, they’re in trouble. And now we’re seeing one guy goes down.

Rick [00:38:09]:
Now Colorado is looking very, very fragile compared to what we saw earlier in the year. And you know, as for Vegas, they’re a very good team, very deep, but again, they’re not, you know, they had a lot of points for. In a much weaker conference. Montreal had a hell of a lot of points in a much better conference. So, boy, I. Yeah, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Montreal is a true contender now.

Grant [00:38:36]:
The Habs were in the toughest, the toughest division in the league this year, the deepest. They had Montembo starting for majority of the first half of the year. They had a key defenseman in Gooley out for most of the first half, New Hook and Doc, and they stayed top three within point, just a handful of points or in first place in the conference all season long through that whole. And now they’re healthy now they’ve got stable goaltending. So really, Liam, it shouldn’t be a big surprise that they’re. They are legitimate contenders to win the cup at this point.

Liam [00:39:25]:
I think it’s a fair statement. I, I agree with both you I, I, I think yeah, you both stated it there and I, I, I agree with it because you know, Colorado were on pace at one point there to beat Boston’s regular season record and like 30 games in they were on pace to break, you know, have less than eight losses, which Montreal holds for minimum 70 games played from 1977 and thought oh my God, like this, this is crazy. And it’s be interesting to see how it goes. Of course they came back to earth a little bit but still finished the job. And here they are in the third round. Now they’re down one. Of course Kale McCarr is such a massive part of that team and they looked, they were the second best team last night, there’s no question about it. But you look at it, they showed it on the broadcast, Kaden Goulet saying we’re not afraid of anybody.

Liam [00:40:16]:
You know, that mentality is running through that dressing room. It runs from the coach right through. Marty likes to say it too when he’s questioned about the greatness of other teams. He always likes to say we’re great too, we have a great team too, we have a very good team too. And so yeah, it’s, we’ll be having a discussion here in 48 hours or 96 hours after games 2 and 3 and 4 and more than likely a Carolina win mixed in there somehow and we’ll be saying geez, look at what went wrong tonight after because I know that’s what up and down with Tampa and Buffalo was unfreaking believable. I’ve never seen it win one, lose one, win one, lose one, I’ve never seen that. And you carry that over at the second two game streak now if you include game seven but technically in the series when we had games two and three in Buffalo, otherwise everything else was alternated. So you know, as great as this was tonight, it now brings up how are we going to look on Saturday night when their backs are moved a foot from the wall, not against it for sure, but they’ve moved a lot closer tonight you have put in the doubt another win, you’re going to put in some fear and, and that’s, that’s where this thing’s going when you win the first one on the road and you do it in the manner with which they did because with 42 all bets are off really.

Liam [00:41:50]:
And we saw that in game seven against Buffalo. Two goal lead, but slash goal and the, and, and, and shutting it down. Rick, you touched on it Earlier. The defensive structure of this team throughout most of this game deserves a ton of credit. That’s on the coaching and the boys adapting to it and playing under it. Yeah, Montreal, they could win the Stanley Cup. Are you kidding me? I didn’t even just say that.

Grant [00:42:17]:
Go get your beer, Liam.

Liam [00:42:21]:
47 years ago tonight, they won the Cup. And I was in the building. The Montreal Forum. They beat the New York Rangers last night as a teenager, and they. And they. They won the Stanley cup in the Forum. And I was there, and I watched them carry Bob Ganey off on their shoulders, and he won the cons. My trophy.

Liam [00:42:42]:
I told you guys the story. I had a golf shirt made up, said club, and it looked a hundred percent official. And I got by every bit of security after that game. I dragged my buddies with me, Kevin Jardine, Tom Bissonnette, and Greg Meredith, and we walked down there. We specifically mostly stayed sober during that game. We knew Montreal was going to win, so we only had a few beers because we’re going in the room, really. Larry Robinson had told me, said, liam, you get in the room, you’re gonna drink three for. For a week.

Liam [00:43:19]:
And I said, larry, I’ll get in that room. And we got in. We got right in the front of the forum dressing room, May 21, 1979. And then I could see Larry, he already had his shirt off. They were dumping champagne on him. He hadn’t seen me yet. There’s 50 people that’s going crazy in there. All of a sudden, whoosh, we get pushed back against the wall.

Liam [00:43:51]:
All these security guys coming in, earphones on. They’re built like brick houses. We get pushed back against the wall. In comes Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada with all the security. And we got pushed out to the end of the hallway, and we never got back in. We couldn’t get back in. Say they. Somebody.

Liam [00:44:15]:
Somebody ratted us out and realized that my shirt wasn’t. It wasn’t given to me by Claude Bouton.

Grant [00:44:25]:
Maybe. Maybe.

Liam [00:44:28]:
And maybe it was Trudeau. Maybe it was true 47 years ago tonight.

Grant [00:44:35]:
Maybe that was. Maybe it was Trudeau that ratted you out there live. Did you ever think of that? You wanted to get in.

Liam [00:44:42]:
Hardly talked to me when I brought Paul Henderson into Parliament Hill. You know, I was going to have this big conversation with him. You know, your dad kind of screwed me over in 1979, but he didn’t really give me much of the time of the day. But he was pretty happy to see Paul Henderson. So I figured, well, we’ll call that one a wash.

Grant [00:45:05]:
Okay, well, by the way, folks, and that was Liam’s last day as a teenager. He was telling us was that night and it was, you know. So if you do the math, guess what tomorrow is.

Rick [00:45:23]:
Rick, my math is not the best, but I think it’s someone’s birthday tomorrow. Is it?

Grant [00:45:29]:
Yeah, it is. So have a pint with. With Liam.

Liam [00:45:34]:
Wish him.

Grant [00:45:35]:
Here’s to Liam’s turning. What’s your favorite junior team, Liam? What’s their nickname?

Liam [00:45:46]:
Yeah, hey, the Ottawa 67.

Grant [00:45:49]:
The 67s.

Liam [00:45:51]:
What does this even mean anyway?

Rick [00:45:55]:
Everybody does it. I have no idea.

Liam [00:45:57]:
Somebody online here helped an old fell out.

Grant [00:46:01]:
Yeah, you have to watch the south park episode where they. Where they talk about six, seven. It’s pretty good. It’s a classic. Yeah, it doesn’t clarify it anymore, but. Happy birthday.

Rick [00:46:15]:
Happy birthday, my friend.

Grant [00:46:16]:
Yeah.

Liam [00:46:18]:
Got another. I got another 28 minutes at. As a 66 year old.

Grant [00:46:24]:
There you go. Yeah, Liam Trudeau was probably not that interesting to talk to anyways. You probably didn’t miss much. Yeah, well, you should have pirouetted into the room there, out of the way.

Liam [00:46:39]:
Yeah, yeah. Or something.

Grant [00:46:43]:
Or said funny. Duddy

Liam [00:46:47]:
done a bunch of the things. But my God, the plan worked for absolute perfection. And. And we just. We just got pushed out. But man, oh, man, being in the building, watching the Habs win the cup and us, us, the three of us having this conversation right now, which I don’t think really is grossly out of place. It. It really isn’t.

Liam [00:47:08]:
This could have we had a one in overtime tonight or we had to come back and scored a couple late and. Or whatever, whatever. But you know, it’s just withstanding their push in the second slash goal winning, taking it six two, game one. It’s a hell of a start. Long way to go, but what a start.

Grant [00:47:27]:
Yeah.

Liam [00:47:27]:
Yes. I met Eddie Palcheck multiple times. And that guy. Legend, Legend. Absolutely absolute legend. I believe he had 10 Stanley cup rings as a trainer. And we used to. When I started getting into practices, he.

Liam [00:47:47]:
We’d. We’d have lunch with Eddie. We go to the Texan. I watched Rick Chartreux eat the biggest plate of spaghetti I have ever seen any man consume in my life. I know he’s a big guy, but this is the day of a game and it was unfreaking believable. Mario Trombley could put the food back too, but man, Eddie Palcheck was very, very kind to teenage kids that were, you know, coming down from Montreal and getting in Practices because the. The RCMP officer was, was an uncle to one of my friends at high school and he could get us into some practices in the mid-70s there. 76, 77, 78 in particular.

Liam [00:48:38]:
And Scotty wouldn’t run the practices. You know, Claude Roll would run the practices. Scott would be up in the stands and, and Ruel’s out there. And at the end of the practice, you know, the Black Aces, man, C.L. claude would skate the crap out of Butch Bouchard and Jill Lupier sometimes Chartreuse, whatever. These guys would skate another two three miles. Stops and starts and turns and one timers shooting bucks.

Grant [00:49:04]:
They just say to. And say to the defenseman, each pair take a man that was one of. Dick used to like to say that. Yeah, Dicker. Dickie Irvin used to have some great stories that he tell on his especially in intermissions. Alien. Well you used to used to get to. I used to hear you on the radio some intermissions there.

Liam [00:49:29]:
Yeah man, I, I must have worked a hundred habs games with, with Dick.

Grant [00:49:34]:
Yeah.

Liam [00:49:35]:
On radio from 83 till. You know, till, till about 91 or 92 when, when he stopped doing the TV show Hockey Magazine, which I was on 14 times. He he, you know, my, my involvement. And then definitely when they, when they went to the Bell Center, I I didn’t do too, too many more with him AF after that. But I think bro, some of the broadcast was changing as well and different

Grant [00:50:04]:
TV was kind of coming on then and like, like back in the real heyday when there weren’t many games on tv, you know, before TSN and, and Sportsnet and the score and all that there was. Well, we used to have to watch them on the Parliamentary channel. Remember the Edmonton Calgary series? Tune into the Parliamentary channel to get the, to get the games, eh?

Liam [00:50:33]:
So good man. I’ll tell you. Even I don’t speak French, but I can understand it a little bit. And, and Rennie Le Cavalier and Jill Charmblay were has. Has frequent in our house as, as Danny and Dick because my. My late mother was a French Canadian and and so we quite often would have French radio on French TV on.

Grant [00:50:57]:
Yeah. Oh yeah.

Liam [00:50:59]:
Music on and, and Channel nine.

Grant [00:51:02]:
Channel nine.

Liam [00:51:02]:
Channel nine. Absolutely. Grant, you know it, buddy. In Ottawa. Channel nine. And then of course we all know what came on at Midnight Blue.

Grant [00:51:12]:
Nui,

Liam [00:51:17]:
Put your hands together.

Rick [00:51:20]:
I gotta ask quickly, did Rick Chartre have a spaghetti? You’re saying at the Texan. Is that where he had this big bowl of spaghetti? Yeah, yeah, I have a Nightmare story quickly. I have to say about having spaghetti.

Liam [00:51:30]:
Tell it, please.

Grant [00:51:32]:
I was going to say spaghetti. Spaghetti had more than spaghetti. Anyway, go ahead. Spaghetti.

Rick [00:51:39]:
We. I’ve heard of mine from my old neighborhood, Italian neighborhood in St. Leonard.

Grant [00:51:44]:
We, we.

Rick [00:51:45]:
We go to the tags that travel a bite to eat. And, and you know, two guys walk in and my friend knows them, he’s like, come and sit with us. So they sit down, and around five minutes into the conversation, I realized these two men are prominent members of a well known Italian family. I’ll leave it at that, Right?

Liam [00:52:05]:
Yeah.

Rick [00:52:07]:
Pasta. And he starts complaining about the pasta. Go, this is not good pasta. And I’ve had a few drinks. I go, why the hell would you order pasta at a steakhouse? That makes no sense. And he gave me a dirty look. And I thought, oh, no, my life is gonna end in just a few minutes. And he just looks at me.

Rick [00:52:22]:
He goes, that’s a good one, buddy.

Grant [00:52:29]:
And then you horsehead. And then you enrolled in the jiu jitsu class the next night.

Rick [00:52:35]:
Oh, no, that was a few years later.

Grant [00:52:40]:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.

Liam [00:52:42]:
That’s great, Rick.

Grant [00:52:44]:
Well, okay, I thought you, I thought you were gonna say it was Rick Shartra that, and he explained I would

Rick [00:52:51]:
be scared of Rick Chartreux, but these guys made me just a little bit more nervous.

Grant [00:52:55]:
Yeah. Yeah. And when you said, you know, all of a sudden you’re up against the wall, I thought, you know, oh, here’s a Joe Lupia story, because I have a good one too, too. Jill had mitts on him. Huge. And you know, at the Hull arena, the, the Bob one day, I was, I guess I was in his way. He. He wanted to get around me and he just, he just grabbed me like a sack of potatoes and moved me out of the way, you know, like that.

Grant [00:53:25]:
And I mean, I’m not a little guy, you know, Liam. Well, you both have seen that. But, yeah, I just felt like a, like a sacrificial or said, oh, okay, now, now I can see why he, you know, when he got a hold of you in a scrap. He may not have been a great scrapper, but, oh, I wouldn’t have wanted to wrestle with him, like almost in the chair. A kind of, you know, category when it, when it came to that. Liam, you got any, got any Lupien or Chartreuse stories back in the day?

Liam [00:54:04]:
Well, I told. I, I remember I, I met Jill Lupien for the first time in, in 77. And the next day I was caddying for Eddie Westfall, you guys remember Eddie, of course, he had gone to the New York Islanders. He had Islanders, Bruins. Yeah, tremendous career with the Bruins. Excellent penalty killer. Sanderson and Westfall, they were outstanding on those cup wins and, and in that run that Boston had at that time. And then he ends up going to, to the Islanders.

Liam [00:54:38]:
He was such a nice man. And I told Eddie, because Denny Potme was, was helping run this golf tournament. It was in the eastern townships of Ottawa, 1977. And I told Eddie Westfall that I, I was with Joe Lupier the day before and he went that big goof. That’s not really a nice thing to say. But, but he, he said, you know, he was, he was being pretty critical of him. And you know, I mean at the time I was 17, turning 18. I turned 18 May 22, obviously, and this was right just three or four days before my birthday.

Liam [00:55:21]:
And I remember talking to Eddie and I said, you know, I’m. We’re. Our family’s going to get. Pick up a dog next week or get a new dog next week. I’m going to call it Jill after Luke. And he got pretty pissed off. He thought I was having him back because he was hammering Luke gay. So that’s all I got.

Liam [00:55:41]:
It was kind of an interesting exchange with Eddie Westfall. Just a mirror. 59 years ago. 49 years ago. 49 years ago.

Grant [00:55:52]:
Well, you know, speaking of commentator, French commentators, you could have been named them after Jill Chamble, of course, who for many years did that, was an analyst on, on those French cbc, La Suare, Dog A back in the day.

Liam [00:56:13]:
Good night.

Grant [00:56:14]:
Yeah, good night. Kenny Lasoire. Daki was great. Lionel Duval as well as Renee. Yeah. Freddie the Freddy the Freeloader that I dubbed them. I dubbed him Freddie the Freeloader. And he’s back, baby.

Grant [00:56:30]:
We might see. You know what I want, I want to see Kochetkov before the end of this series. Then you’d really know. Then you really know. Carolina’s in trouble, right, Ricardo?

Rick [00:56:42]:
Well, they have, they also have Primo in their, in their American Hockey League team.

Grant [00:56:48]:
Revenge. Revenge of the Prims. Yeah.

Rick [00:56:52]:
No, I mean, you know, I’m happy if they just keep Anderson and Busey and that’s. Those are good enough for me. It’s never a team that, that seemed to never find the right goaltender that could hurt them. They never really, they never really found the right guy. They’re like a lot of teams based on analytics, right? A lot of analytics. People say go technic is not that important. And that’s not where you should spend your money, but it’s not important until you need it. And if they don’t get it, they’re going to be in trouble.

Grant [00:57:23]:
Yeah, you know, there have been people saying, oh, that, you know, the. The Carolina crowds as good as. As fervent and as good as. As the. The Bell center crowd. Right. And yeah, as long. As long as they don’t get behind.

Grant [00:57:40]:
Four. One in the first. And you know, how many were leaving the arena with six minutes left there? It was. Oh, my gosh, it was quite an extra. They do have. No, they do have good fat, so I’ll give them that. And one of the better crowds in the league. And that’s why.

Grant [00:58:00]:
One of the reasons why I gave slop second star, because I think it was so important to get that goal right away after Jarvis had scored because the place was rocking and I mean, it was literally just seconds later and it went from sheer bedlam to. It sounded like a Leaf crowd at that point. Freddie and Freddy the freeloader was probably thinking, oh, deja vu. Feel like a deja vu here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, go with it, Rick. I don’t have anything more to say.

Rick [00:58:38]:
No. Pretty much said everything. The only one thing too, I thought of it struck me as really being important. I. I don’t know if you guys have noticed it too, but when again, we’re talking about defensive structure, I found Montreal’s stick work tonight to be absolutely phenomenal. They used their stick so well to block lanes like crazy, and they were just timing it, I can’t tell you. Often Carolina seemed to take a shot at somebody just tapped at their stick at the last second, just ruining their. Their opportunities to get a good shot out.

Rick [00:59:09]:
Montreal were really fantastic with their stick

Grant [00:59:12]:
work, their hockey sticks.

Rick [00:59:16]:
Yeah, Montreal, like, the way they were blocking leads. I didn’t know what you were trying to get to there.

Grant [00:59:24]:
I was like, oh, boy.

Rick [00:59:24]:
Did I say something wrong?

Grant [00:59:26]:
No.

Rick [00:59:27]:
Montreal were just phenomenal with that. And you could see the frustration going at the end. Jarvis was just taking shots that, you know, like 0% chance of scoring almost. He was just trying anything. Yeah, because nothing was working.

Grant [00:59:41]:
Because he scored on the first shot of the game. And I thought, you know, geez, all I gotta do is shoot it. Really, though, what, Liam, when Jarvis scored that goal, were you thinking sweep? Gonna be a sweep

Liam [00:59:58]:
when Jarvis scored?

Grant [01:00:00]:
Yeah,

Liam [01:00:04]:
I was definitely fearful.

Grant [01:00:06]:
Yeah, I was.

Liam [01:00:08]:
I was fearful, man, because we. We were sitting back, we had three shots in the second period. I said, jesus, Murphy, we saw this in game seven of Buffalo, please, not again. After such electrifying first period where we took advantage of their sloppy play and as Simpson alluded to on the broadcast, their misreads and everything else, you got to figure they’ll be sharper out of the gate Saturday night. But I, I, I was definitely fearful. It’s, that’s just the fan in me. I’m not looking at it any other way, going, oh, no, God, you know, get out of this period. That’s the first thing you want, right? Get out of the period, keep the two goal lead, reset and hopefully, hopefully.

Liam [01:00:50]:
You know, I text my son, Rory and I, we go back like crazy. He’s teaching up in Rankin Inlet, as I may have mentioned over some of the broadcasts. And, and he’s watching up there and we’re texting during the second intermission. I’m going, we gotta have a good first five minutes here. And you know that’s four on four. And who came right through the middle was somebody came right through the middle on Carolina there and had that awesome opportunity there on the four on four to start the third. Missed a net high on the left side there. Thank God.

Liam [01:01:23]:
And I thought, oh, no, here we go, here we go again. But then as you’ve said mentioned several times, Grant and you gave him a star for that, plus his other things tonight and Slough and just such a massive, a massive goal and the rest is history. So here we are up one of the semifinals, seven wins to a Stanley Cup. You kidding? So it’s, it’s great stuff right now. And let’s bring on Saturday and, and

Grant [01:01:51]:
hope, hope for the best 24 years since Elise won this many, this many playoff games. And the halves are now, since the, since the lockout, it’s now 69 to 34. They’re up on the lease in playoff wins and wow, you know, all those years that they chirped us, you know, because they were, they were regular season Dynamos and.

Liam [01:02:17]:
Yep. And a parade. Yeah, they’re, they’re a unit man. That’s, that’s for sure. They’re going to get McKenna, but, you know.

Grant [01:02:27]:
Yeah, well, yeah, McKenna and Matthews, I don’t know. We’ll see. Of course, Matthews was a selfie sulky finalist a couple years ago, so, you know, he’s, he’s, he’s a great defensive center, that’s for sure. Okay.

Rick [01:02:49]:
They don’t have a ton of drafts coming up, so better cover for like three of them.

Grant [01:02:54]:
Yeah, yeah.

Liam [01:02:55]:
You see this question, Grant, if Montreal wins these, do you touch the trophy? Oh,

Grant [01:03:05]:
do I touch the trophy, too.

Liam [01:03:07]:
He was on earlier in the pre game. What do you guys do if they win these?

Grant [01:03:10]:
Well, I mean, I don’t know if I’d have to. You know, I have to get that club to Canadia shirt and sneak by security to get to touch the trophy.

Liam [01:03:21]:
But what would you do, right?

Grant [01:03:23]:
Right. If I. If I was a hab.

Liam [01:03:25]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:03:26]:
No, no, I was kidding.

Liam [01:03:27]:
I. I knew what you meant. I knew you were joking.

Grant [01:03:28]:
Yeah, yeah. Trudeau. As long as Trudeau’s not there. The. Yeah, what the hell? Sure. I’m not. You know, superstitions are just that. They’re.

Grant [01:03:47]:
They’re silly. I don’t. But the majority of them do it, so they probably won’t.

Liam [01:03:54]:
Did we touch it in 2021?

Grant [01:03:58]:
I don’t know. I know a couple teams have. Yeah, yeah.

Liam [01:04:03]:
Well, when, actually, it was different, the playoff.

Grant [01:04:12]:
You couldn’t touch it. Yeah, you couldn’t touch it. You might get the COVID Yeah. Yeah.

Liam [01:04:19]:
I don’t think we. I don’t think we did.

Grant [01:04:22]:
All right. Don has gone from chastising us for not thinking that the halves would make the next round to now saying, settle down, one win. Relax.

Liam [01:04:32]:
He’s not wrong. He’s not wrong. Oh, it’s a great win, though.

Grant [01:04:37]:
We’re just bringing up the. The fact that, believe it or not, the Canadians might win the cup this year. So, anyway, Rick, we are going to bid you ado. Yes, sir. Thank you for the Spaghetti house. Actually, it was a steakhouse. Uh, Rick will be giving us a spaghetti House story next time, I’m sure. Thanks.

Grant [01:05:04]:
Thanks, my friend, as always. And it has struck midnight. You know what, Liam? Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you Happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. You all right?

Rick [01:05:25]:
Happy birthday.

Liam [01:05:28]:
Thank you very much.

Grant [01:05:29]:
Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Liam [01:05:32]:
Thank you very much.

Grant [01:05:34]:
Okay. Bye, Ricky. Bye.

Rick [01:05:35]:
Bye, guys.

Liam [01:05:36]:
Later night, Rick.

Grant [01:05:39]:
Ah, yeah. Just you and me, birthday boy. So.

Liam [01:05:44]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:05:44]:
How much of your pint you got left? I got a half, but you know what? I. I planned. I planned ahead. I got an extra here so I can talk, you know, talk to a few more. A few more of our comments. I got a bunch starred here. Anything stick out? Anything stick out for you.

Liam [01:06:07]:
That’s so nice. That’s so. That’s

Grant [01:06:11]:
what.

Liam [01:06:13]:
Yeah, that’s. That’s really nice, though. I just. I just like the sound of that.

Grant [01:06:21]:
What?

Liam [01:06:22]:
I mean, I kind of have a rough idea what it means.

Grant [01:06:24]:
Oh, Bonfet. Okay. Well, it rhymes.

Liam [01:06:30]:
How many saves did the. Did the refs have in the game? Well, the Refs called a great game tonight. As soon as I saw Garrett was in the.

Grant [01:06:39]:
I know, eh, One of the officials

Liam [01:06:42]:
I thought, oh, but no, it was called pretty fairly tonight and that was nice to see. Officials did not play any role in Montreal’s pounding of Carolina tonight. And hopefully the Hurricanes, if you’re a Hurricane fan, they can find their game for Game 2 because the mighty Hobbs took him down tonight.

Grant [01:07:04]:
Liam, that’s a good point about Garrett Rank because I, I posted out four rests left in the playoffs and one of them is Garrett Rank.

Liam [01:07:14]:
I know.

Grant [01:07:15]:
And I thought, oh, here we go. Because he’s kind of. He hasn’t had a great track record against the Habs this year. Wishing you a happy birthday.

Liam [01:07:26]:
Maverick is making an appearance.

Grant [01:07:28]:
Yeah, no worries. So, but in fact you could almost argue that he, he let a couple ago. Couple of calls go there that. Yeah, some refs have called against the Habs in the playoffs this year. He. I don’t know if he’s been reading the press clippings or not, but I think he may, he may have. May have been subconsciously at least thinking, okay, I better, I better behave this time and not. Not call everything against the halves because I’ve been getting.

Grant [01:08:04]:
I’ve been getting roasted, but there we go. G’, day, Maverick. Look, Mav, how much does Maverick weigh now?

Liam [01:08:18]:
He’s about £50.

Grant [01:08:20]:
Oh, okay.

Liam [01:08:21]:
He’s not. It’s. He looks bigger than he is.

Grant [01:08:25]:
Lots of. Lots of fluff, eh?

Liam [01:08:26]:
Lots of. He’s got. Yeah, he’s got the hair. He’s got the nice hair going and he does. He won’t. He, he won’t get much bigger.

Grant [01:08:34]:
Okay.

Liam [01:08:34]:
Yeah, yeah, pretty much it.

Grant [01:08:35]:
But guys, Freddie, Freddie Anderson was wearing a Leafs jersey tonight. Yeah.

Liam [01:08:41]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:08:42]:
Brenda Moore looked like a deer in the headlights. So stunned without a clue how to answer the Habs juggernaut attack. Yeah, it was a good. It was a good Britti. You know, usually he’s arguing with the rest, but tonight they didn’t call a lot of penalties either.

Liam [01:09:01]:
Right?

Grant [01:09:01]:
They just.

Liam [01:09:01]:
No, there wasn’t.

Grant [01:09:02]:
No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t very rough or rugged at all, was it? Like they haven’t tonight.

Liam [01:09:11]:
I’m pretty sure. Like I didn’t. What, what are those stats on the hits, Grant? Because I think they out hit us.

Grant [01:09:18]:
Habs had 17 hits, Carolina had 42. Yeah.

Liam [01:09:24]:
Jesus. Okay, so when you got the puck.

Grant [01:09:27]:
When you got the puck, Liam, it’s hard to hit.

Liam [01:09:29]:
Yeah. You know. Yeah.

Grant [01:09:32]:
That always. It’s often the team that loses that Ends up having the most hits. And there’s a reason for that. Dick is a legend. Nobody brought a game to life in the radio like he did.

Liam [01:09:42]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:09:45]:
Was fantastic. And you know, he doesn’t get enough credit for just not only doing the play by play, but you know, as an, as the color guy with, with Danny for so many years. Right. Like how many were, you know, had as long and as great a career doing both. Dick. Dick did both just seamlessly. Right. Like for years he was on.

Grant [01:10:18]:
Well, Danny did. But you know, he, he’d do the color on TV and then do the, the play by play on radio, right?

Liam [01:10:26]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:10:26]:
For quite color.

Liam [01:10:28]:
He’s working for Hockey Night in Canada, right. On tv, on radio. It was, it was a Montreal Canadian employee.

Grant [01:10:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. Right. And, and, and you know, the research that he’d do, he’d have all sorts of. All sorts of Ted Butts, man. Yeah, he was just, he was great. The best, you know, one of the best color man by easily of all time and, and, and great play by play on radio. But you know, like I say, you know, I’d get the old transistor radio or whatever and, and put it under my pillow and, and listen to those games and especially the west coast games.

Grant [01:11:14]:
Right.

Liam [01:11:15]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:11:16]:
Try to stay up. Try to stay up by the end of the second period, that was it. And I’d wake up and to the hiss because the radio go off and that, you know, the hiss of the radio at three in the morning and oh, missed the third pair to have to wait till the, till the Citizen comes in the mailbox in the morning to find out if, you know, if they hung on to win or not. That was, that was the way it was in those days.

Liam [01:11:41]:
I listened to Dick call Gila Fleur’s first goal with the transistor radio under my pillow.

Grant [01:11:46]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:11:48]:
They were in la. Montreal was in la.

Grant [01:11:51]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:11:52]:
When he scored, he scored on Gary Edwards. And I think, yeah, I think I want to say J.C. trombley got one of the assists. I’m pretty sure, pretty sure he got one of the assists. JC Trombley. October 23rd, I believe. 1971. Wow.

Grant [01:12:15]:
Eh.

Liam [01:12:16]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:12:17]:
Remember, you remember his, his rookie card and then it’s the only time I’ve ever, ever seen it. I’ve never seen it again. Like on the back there was always a little just that Ghee will be a superstar and it had, you know, and then the three stars around them, eh.

Liam [01:12:35]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:12:36]:
Never before or after have I seen one that just, you know, that’s it you know, facts of fact. And I mean, the first three years, you know, whoever wrote that probably that maybe I jumped the gun a little bit on this, You know. Do you think taking off the helmet had anything to do with it?

Liam [01:13:01]:
Oh, I think in 74, you know, he, he got married. He saw, he signed the contract because his wife’s his father in law, his future father in law, and his, his fiance’s father was part owner of the Quebec Nordics. And they were desperately trying to get him to come to the wha and he, he rebuffed it and he married her and he took off the helmet and then his, he took off and just everything, every. Everything came together. I, I remember that time he picked me up in the helicopter and we flew to Shawville.

Grant [01:13:42]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:13:42]:
He was, he was telling me that he would drive after practice in Montreal. He would drive back to Quebec City to get a haircut. He was so homesick for Quebec City after his years in junior there and he just felt it just was so tough in Montreal. He was having such a tough time, even though he had 29 goals and 64 points in that first year.

Grant [01:14:13]:
Right.

Liam [01:14:14]:
And. And yet it was, you know, because Marcel Dion was doing so much more and went second on Detroit. And I couldn’t believe that when he, when he told me that like that’s not, that’s not a short drive.

Grant [01:14:29]:
No.

Liam [01:14:29]:
And I, I know traffic patterns and everything else is a whole lot different than today, but that’s not a short drive.

Grant [01:14:34]:
No.

Liam [01:14:37]:
And I, I found that really was indicative of where, where he was like

Grant [01:14:43]:
a lot of Wickedheiser. There were a lot of parallels there really, you know, with Wickedheiser at the start there. Right. And you know, with, with Denny Savard taken off like he did and another, like another French Canadian that, you know, outshone them the first few years and the pressure they’ve built. Right.

Liam [01:15:04]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:15:05]:
You know, and, and Doug just not handling it very well and even guy

Liam [01:15:12]:
having issues over by Cloverrell too, though. I mean. Oh, terrible.

Grant [01:15:17]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:15:18]:
He sat on that first night. Grant, I was not your home opener. There’s no way home opener in 80. You’re playing Chicago and Denny Savard.

Grant [01:15:26]:
Yeah. Who.

Rick [01:15:27]:
Who?

Liam [01:15:27]:
They beat Montreal. Savard’s a star. He scores. And your 18 year old first overall picks in the press box. That’s inexcusable. All the good that Clothe did he. When he, you know. I know.

Grant [01:15:41]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:15:42]:
He took over for Toll. Blake. It was a Band Aid thing. I think everybody thought Toll was going to go one more year for sure.

Grant [01:15:50]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:15:50]:
I never actually put that right to Yvonne or anything but I think everybody thought Toll was going to go and he wasn’t, he wasn’t know going to pack it in just yet. They throw in Ruel. He couldn’t handle it after 1970 because they hadn’t missed the playoffs since 1948.

Grant [01:16:08]:
Right.

Liam [01:16:09]:
And he sits down and Al McNeil comes in. We all know the story. But yeah, LaFleur, and this is pretty funny one see it. I think LaFleur might have been the best player to ever play hungover. Do you like to have a good time? I, I don’t know if he ever played hungover, but he, he, you know, he, his, his prime. He was unfreaking believable. Yeah, he was unbelievable. We are lucky to have seen him play.

Liam [01:16:45]:
Yeah, we’re lucky. That’s just the bottom line. We were lucky to see him play because he took over games. He was the best player in the NHL for six years and the best player in the world for three. Three or four of those.

Grant [01:17:00]:
Yep.

Liam [01:17:01]:
Maybe if not six, he was best player in the NHL for minimal four to five anyway. And, and you know, he took the torch from Bobby Orr and then he passed it, he passed it to Wayne Gretzky. That’s exactly how it went.

Grant [01:17:16]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:17:16]:
And in that time period between 75 and 80, I, I think Gila Fleur was the best player on the planet.

Grant [01:17:23]:
Oh yeah, you think he was better in helmet Balderas?

Liam [01:17:28]:
I don’t think Beldaris was fit to carry his jock strap. And I think Helmet Balder’s did a lot of good things in the game and obviously has got a little anecdotal history himself. Right. He’s the oldest guy ever to be drafted, but I, I, I, I don’t think he was even, even close. The other guy that people mention a lot is Anders Hedberg because he was scored 70 in the WHA. And then him and Nielsen go to the Rangers and, and he scores 30 some.

Grant [01:17:57]:
Yeah, yeah. Come on. Well, come on. I mean different leagues. Tardif, before he got hit by Jodio over the head was the best player in the WHA at that point. He was awesome that year. And then Jodzio cracks him over the head with the stick. And I often wondered if, you know, if Tardif had stayed with the halves on that second line.

Grant [01:18:24]:
Right? Lemaire. Lemaire Tardif. Cornway. Your second line.

Liam [01:18:29]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:18:29]:
You know, my goodness, Tardif in his prime he’d have been a, he might have had 50 in the NHL. In his prime, you know, he was, he, he had enough skill and, and especially if you’d have played on the line with Lamar and Cornway, I mean, yeah, that would have been something else. Right, but what a.

Liam [01:18:49]:
He was very gifted offensively. Very, very gifted people. I saw, you know, Montreal got hit pretty hard too with the WHA right. Like Frank left after an 80 point season.

Grant [01:19:00]:
CRL.

Liam [01:19:01]:
You got. Yeah. Reggie Tardif. Reggie. You know, and then you couple that with Dryden sitting out.

Grant [01:19:10]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:19:11]:
74, you don’t have the same team. You know, I mean you’re coming off a 10 loss season and a waltz to the Stanley cup and all of a sudden, you know, you bunch of your guys are gone and that’s pretty big holes to fill. But, but eventually we, we, we righted the ship and, and a big part of it was Flower clearly getting her going, man. Yeah, I think when he rebuffed, rebuffed his wife’s dad and they got married that summer and he took, and he took the helmet off. He wore the helmet for three years and he took it off. And the legend was really born of lying and six straight 50s, six straight 100s, four cups in a row and too hard rest is history.

Grant [01:20:04]:
Thank goodness the Internet didn’t come along in 1970 or he would have gone to Quebec. I, I’m no doubt about that.

Liam [01:20:14]:
You know, I really think it would have been horrendous on him on social media, especially after his third year. His goal totals went 29, 28, 21. As you know and man, that, that, that was tough sledding boy. In, in 73, 74 because the team, the Rangers took it to him in the playoffs again and they, they their goals against went from 180 to 240 without Dryden and none of the boys could carry the mail and of course the WHA defections and you put it all together and, and it was like boy, what the hell? We just got hit by a truck after two Stanley Cups in three years. And, and it just. You wonder how are we gonna write this ship. And then things just. Things came together.

Grant [01:21:04]:
Larry. Well, Larry kind of bloomed and yeah, a few things. Few things like that happened right?

Liam [01:21:13]:
Kane’s fans are quiet, Wade. Yeah, they sure are. You’ve been posting that all night and I don’t know if. Do we normally see many on, on. On here, Grant, do you?

Grant [01:21:24]:
No, not too many Canes fans can’t smash. There’s been a little bit of uh, you know, ever since the, the, the uh, Sabachinajo off your sheet, there’s a little bit of, you know, Cane’s fan and have fans haven’t been on the best of terms. But. No, let’s, let’s get back to the series for, for a little bit here and then we’ll let you go, Liam. But uh, you know, it’s only one win and Don’s right. Yeah. You know. Yeah.

Grant [01:22:00]:
Saying the styling cup, it’s, it’s. Sure it’s too early, but I, I can now actually see it. You know, I, I mean it’s, it doesn’t seem like a pipe dream now. And, and I just, you know, I wanted to mention that. But winning, I said it at the start. They had to get a split in Carolina. I truly believe that maybe they win too. Now that’s why it’s always great when you win that first one because then maybe you could win too.

Grant [01:22:31]:
And you know, they have. They only have to win one of the next four to get it to a game seven again, right? So.

Liam [01:22:46]:
Well, they gotta win or. No, you gotta win four. Yeah, you gotta.

Grant [01:22:51]:
It could be three, two.

Liam [01:22:53]:
So.

Grant [01:22:53]:
Yeah, it look three two to get it to a game six. I mean one of the next one of the next four, right. Get it back to, to Montreal for game six and this time not lose the game six. You know, but I, I expect, I expect Carolina to bounce back. They. They have to win the next one. They’re, you’re. We’re gonna see maybe their best game of the series, maybe next game.

Grant [01:23:26]:
Canadians are going to have to be ready for it. They’re not going to go up 41 in the first period and get eight breakaways like they did. As you mentioned to me, Liam, you know, the rust, right. The first period it was evident that, oh, okay, you know, all of a sudden they’re playing a team that was just battle tested and still playing game seven kind of competitive fire. And they hadn’t played at all for 10 days. So it’s not no wonder six of the seven teams that have swept that played, teams that played, that won seven game series ended up losing. Because I think we got a glimpse tonight as to why that it’s not necessarily an advantage to have that 10 get 10 day rest.

Liam [01:24:24]:
No, no. And I told a story last week, I think about 1966, right? Nahab’s 10 days off between semifinal and final open at home against Detroit and lose the first two games. They lost the first two games and they went to Detroit. This is Gordie Howe, Alex Del Vecchio, Paul Henderson. They, they had you know, they, they, Bill Gatsby, they, they, they had a good club. Roger Crozier won the call to trophy the year before. Like, they, they had a, a really good team. And they come into the Montreal Forum and win two games.

Liam [01:24:59]:
And Bellevo goes to San Paulock and says, I need 300. And, and Sam Paulock, notoriously cheap, 1966, 300 bucks. May as well been three grand. And he said, what the hell for? He says, just get the cash. I need 300 bucks. I’m taking the guys out. He took all the players out. They all had a few beverages and he said, we just got to get back to basics.

Liam [01:25:23]:
Don’t worry about it. We’re not out of this. We’re going to get back in it. We just got to win game three. We’ll write the ship. You know the story. Of course, everyone knows they win four straight and win the series four games to two and win the Stanley Cup. And it’s, it just goes to show you, even a team as battles proven they’re defending Stanley cup champions, you’re being led by John Bellable, you’ve got up and coming upstart rookies like Cornway A, you’ve got solid goaltending and Gump Worsley and Charlie Hodge, you’ve got established defenseman, you’ve got the rookie of the year and Jacques Le Perriere, you’ve got all these things going for you and you lose the first two games on home ice after 10 days off.

Liam [01:26:09]:
So.

Grant [01:26:09]:
Right.

Liam [01:26:10]:
And that Grant is 60 years ago to this year. So.

Grant [01:26:14]:
Okay.

Liam [01:26:15]:
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Let’s see what we get out of Carolina on Saturday. But text. Well, textbook win tonight.

Grant [01:26:26]:
Hopefully Brenda Moore is even cheaper than Sammy Pollock and he doesn’t lend Sebastian Aho three grand to take the boys out. And they’re down two games to done at, you know, after, after, after the second game out before they’re heading to Montreal. We could, we could only hope.

Liam [01:26:47]:
All right, Liam, knife to a gunfight. That’s pretty good too.

Grant [01:26:51]:
A gun fight. Well, yay. You know, hey, Kane’s fans had had a reason to be optimistic. I mean, Frank, in the modern era, no team had swept the first two. First two rounds. How often has it happened, Liam, do you know that? It seems so.

Liam [01:27:10]:
You gotta, you gotta go with everything. Became best of seven in 1987, so.

Grant [01:27:17]:
Right.

Liam [01:27:17]:
It’s, it’s, it’s a little bit skewed it. Either you go, you need to go back to the old days. You’ve got the 52 Red Wings and the 1960 Montreal Canadiens were the only two since the best of seven came in in 1939 that swept both rounds. Right?

Grant [01:27:38]:
There was only two rounds. There was only two rounds back then.

Liam [01:27:41]:
The birth of the octopus in Detroit was because of them sweeping both rounds. And prior to. To what would have been the eighth game. What was the eighth game? Game 4 against Montreal, the Cusimano brothers threw the Octopus on the ice, and that’s when the legend was born. So that actually came out of Detroit winning both series four straight, and then Montreal duplicated that in 1960. So.

Grant [01:28:09]:
But, yeah, but series were best of sevens back then, though, right? Like the first round and, and the second round. Yeah. So, like, I know there was a period there, but, you know, since 39, there’s only been two other instances then where.

Liam [01:28:27]:
Well, I don’t. I, I, I’m actually, I want to say. I want to check the 1980. 85 Edmonton Oilers possibly. And, and just double check that one. Strikes me as they may have won four straight first two rounds. Not positive, though, Grant. Not.

Liam [01:28:56]:
Not.

Grant [01:28:56]:
Okay, okay, okay. Yeah. Did the Islanders win 19 straight? But it. They didn’t.

Liam [01:29:03]:
But, but they won 19 straight series. But which.

Grant [01:29:08]:
Okay, okay.

Liam [01:29:09]:
Yes. Ridiculous.

Grant [01:29:11]:
That. That’s something else, eh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that run there.

Liam [01:29:15]:
The 50s hobs and the 70s. Hobbs didn’t have an opportunity as many, as many rounds. Series. Yeah, but.

Grant [01:29:22]:
And there were some best of threes or whatever. Best of fives in that era too, right?

Liam [01:29:27]:
Yeah, yeah, there, there, there was. I mean, they nearly lost the best of five to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Grant [01:29:32]:
Pittsburgh.

Liam [01:29:33]:
In the third period in 82. That’s. They pulled it. Pull the rabbit out of their, out of their hat there for sure.

Grant [01:29:40]:
Yeah, Yeah. I talked to Rod. Shoot about that. He was on that Penguins team. And it was just, you know, Billy Smith threw a stick, somebody, I think Mike Bullard on a breakaway and threw a stick and whatever. You know, to hear their side of the story that they had it. They had them. They were down and out and they just, you know, for me, Liam, the best, the most entertaining series that I can recall growing up was that Islanders.

Grant [01:30:14]:
I think it was the best of five.

Liam [01:30:16]:
Islanders.

Grant [01:30:16]:
Rangers, yeah. Islanders. Rangers, yeah. There it was just in fourth. Just non stop, non stop. Just go, go, go. And unbelievable.

Liam [01:30:32]:
That was. That was so good.

Grant [01:30:36]:
That was.

Liam [01:30:36]:
That was so good. I was actually working at the Civic center for game five. There was a convention. Conservative or liberal? Which one? I think it was a conservative convention. And I, I got a Took a part time gig just to make, make a few bucks that night and, and that game was on and I was supposed to be, you know, doing what I was hired to do.

Grant [01:31:03]:
Yeah, yeah.

Liam [01:31:04]:
Instead I was running, running to spots where I could, where I could watch the game and they should show, they should be re. Like in the summer on these channels. They should be reshowing some of these games.

Grant [01:31:17]:
Games like it is on YouTube and I’ve rewatched it and it just, you know, okay, I wasn’t wrong because at the time I’m just on the, on the edge of my seat. LaRouche was with the Rangers and you know, it was, they weren’t supposed to come close to the Islanders that year but they gave them all they could handle like it was and they lost

Liam [01:31:39]:
to them every year. I, I mean it has to be the height of frustration for the Rangers at that time because they beat the Islanders in 79 on the way to the final that lost Montreal 47 years ago tonight and, and then for the next bunch of years, man, the Islanders just walked them. But that’s pretty wild stuff with Wade’s writing about Dundon there. You know, if that’s, if there’s any truth to that. I mean,

Grant [01:32:05]:
cheapest owner, no owner that cheap deserves to win anything.

Liam [01:32:10]:
And then this one, yeah, this one

Grant [01:32:12]:
right here uses to pay for block cases to travel with the team and makes team staff check out in the morning so they have to carry luggage around the city until the game is over to save a few bucks.

Liam [01:32:23]:
That can’t be true.

Grant [01:32:25]:
Brings back memories of the Pierre Gaultier era in Montreal. But anyway, yeah, there have been, there have been other examples in Pierre Gauche when he was in Montreal. I’ve heard some stories and. Well, I, I mean I was, I was part of it. I got, I was a scout part time scout for the Habs at the time. And Liam, the one year I worked, I basically worked as a full time scout and got paid $10,000 and he cut my job because you know, he cut like four scouting jobs and they didn’t have a scout in Ontario couple years in those days. And it’s just those were the dark part. You know, there were the OOL years but that was a dark era for the halves too where.

Grant [01:33:20]:
I’m sorry, you don’t. You got the biggest building in the friggin league in the biggest capacity. It’s sold out all the time and you’re cutting corners on meals on scouts on, you know, when you shouldn’t be, you should not Be cutting corners. You do not. The Ontario Hockey League is the biggest feeder hockey league in the, in the world for NHL players and to not have a scout for I think it was two to three years that they went without a full time OHL scout which absolute Ontario League scout was absolutely ridiculous. But anyway, yeah, Dunton, I’m not a

Liam [01:34:07]:
big Wade’s backing it up here saying yeah. TSN 69.

Grant [01:34:12]:
Oh no well referenced it and yeah

Liam [01:34:14]:
well the smallest scouting stuff. Do you think that’s true too Grant?

Grant [01:34:18]:
That that could be. I know Montreal probably doesn’t anymore. They have added some obviously but for a few years there they, they really. And there was no reason for it, especially with the revenues coming in. It was just, it was ridiculous. But well, we saw, we saw what kind of. When, when he signed, when he signed Can Yami to that contract. Right? Yeah, we saw Just cut the mindset of this guy.

Liam [01:34:49]:
Yeah, that’s pretty petty right there, you know.

Grant [01:34:52]:
Yeah. And I mean is he, you know, is it paying off? Is it pay. Is he paying off? Is it paying off for him? KK is not even hasn’t played a game in the playoffs.

Liam [01:35:06]:
He, he ate, he ate that one large and yeah yeah, for sure. It yeah, it, it looked, it looks good on him. I had no idea about this this frugal approach that, that he had. Some of this sounds pretty ridiculous but boy, I, I don’t know, man. Yeah yeah. Tulsi, their, their gm. I, I, I saw well we saw the footage of him tonight there before the game getting pictures with the fans and stuff. So.

Grant [01:35:37]:
Yeah.

Liam [01:35:38]:
Yeah. Hey, you know what, man? They had a hell of a year and they’re a hell of a team and they’re not going to go away quietly here, so.

Grant [01:35:45]:
No, they won’t.

Liam [01:35:46]:
We’re gonna our, our hands full here, but you know, you get a great start, you get the split minimally and let’s see, let’s see. Saturday night. Can’t wait. Cannot wait.

Grant [01:35:58]:
Islander sweep while the Rangers weep. Yeah.

Liam [01:36:01]:
Yeah.

Grant [01:36:02]:
So are you going to game three? Do you know yet?

Liam [01:36:05]:
No, I don’t know. I, I’m anticipating tomorrow being the day that I’ll get because over the weekend I think it would be less likely that some things will sort sort out my way. But I’m cautiously optimistic that one of my forays here will be successful, but I do not have any confirmation for that as of yet.

Grant [01:36:32]:
All right. Okay, Liam, listen, I’ll let you go and always, always a pleasure getting you on. Next game is in two nights, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, we’ll, we’ll be texting you, seeing if you’re. Seeing if you can. Come on. Are you, are you doing a show at, Are you going to Liam’s or.

Liam [01:36:54]:
No, we, we. So we won’t be doing the, the game show. It doesn’t look like we were tentatively, tentatively scheduled to go to the Prescott Hotel, but it does not look like that’s going to happen, unfortunately. So I may be going to Liam’s. The place just don’t know yet. But you and I will chat and we’ll.

Grant [01:37:17]:
Okay.

Liam [01:37:18]:
We’ll figure it out.

Grant [01:37:19]:
The Prescott, eh? Geez, I haven’t, I haven’t seen a game there in a long time.

Liam [01:37:26]:
Yeah, it’s not, it’s not what it was. You know, personally, the ownership, Tony Discipio sold it there a few years back.

Grant [01:37:33]:
Oh yeah.

Liam [01:37:34]:
And these.

Grant [01:37:35]:
Meatball sandwich. Meatball sandwich ain’t what sandwich is.

Liam [01:37:39]:
Still there, still good. Square pizza still there, still good. But they switched from a Molson bar to Labats, and so they reduced your option for quartz. And, and, and, and it’s just you can’t pay cash in there anymore. Only pay by card. So debit or credit? No cash. And it’s, it’s been, you know, they have a, it’s been a revolving door managing the place and they, including some American and they, it’s up saying any against them as a nationality, but hockey isn’t their first priority some nights. And I’ve gone in there, you know, wanting to get Montreal on, on one of the TVs and it’s been a battle.

Liam [01:38:25]:
I mean, the last few times, it’s been okay. But anyway, we were tentatively scheduled to do the show. It would have been great. They have a nice little stage area there. We would have had a hell of a night. So, you know, maybe we’ll get a chance down the road to, to get it off there at some point because it’s, it is a good bar. Still been around since 1934, so it’s got a lot of history, but legend. Yeah, I, I may be going to Liam’s.

Liam [01:38:49]:
I don’t know. But we’ll, we’ll text.

Grant [01:38:51]:
Okay. Okay. Good stuff. Thanks for coming on for so long and enjoy your birthday, my friend.

Liam [01:38:59]:
I will, pal. We got a fun day plan. Got some golf and. With some great buds and a few pints.

Grant [01:39:05]:
Okay. Okay. Have a good one.

Liam [01:39:08]:
All right, guys. Good night, everybody. Thanks. Anyone who’s still on at the comments. Grant, you know how much I, I, I, I love it. These guys are awesome. Boy, everybody that that chimes in. It’s fantastic stuff.

Liam [01:39:19]:
You gotta. It’s always, it’s. It’s always great.

Grant [01:39:22]:
Okay my friend. Bye bye for now.

Liam [01:39:25]:
Night night drum dude. Good night guys.

Grant [01:39:31]:
Leah McGuire Folks gotta love the stories. He’s. He’s a legend around these parts. So again you didn’t catch it The Cunningham’s Pub 3 stars we had Suzuki and Guhlie and Deneau were were the choices of of Liam I went Katriea Slough and Dano and Rick had Dobson Slough and to know so there you go. Let’s without further ado we better mention our sponsors here here is next level and they next level hockey specialist in hockey development trusted by NHL prospects. Whether you’re looking to elevate your shooting, skating, stick handling or overall game, NLH is here to take your game to the next level. Visit them at next level hockey or sorry nextlevelhockey.com and follow their Instagram at Next level Hockey for daily tips, posts and updates. If you or someone you know have young aspiring hockey players who want to elevate their game, trust next level hockey to guide them forward.

Grant [01:41:06]:
Next level Hockey it’s in the name and we also have to give a shout out to our buddies at bonashire caves. That’s bonashire caves.com go to the website. It’s $25 for adults, $15 for children to go on a guided tour through the caves and it’s a fantastic. I mean you can’t beat the price right these days. $25 for an outing. Eaganville, Ontario an hour from from Ottawa, a private family owned business run by hockey fans bonashaircaves.com check out their website. They’re open now till Thanksgiving. A great place in the summer.

Grant [01:42:01]:
A hot day doesn’t matter. 35 degrees out there. It’s cool in the caves. It’s the same temperature all the time. If it’s raining it’s dry and cool in the caves. If it’s hot it’s dry and cool in the case anyways Bonnish Air Caves. Check it out and I’m going to be leaving some of my hockey. I’m gonna go.

Grant [01:42:32]:
I’m going to go and see Chris Hope sometime over the next week and take him a bunch of my the book I wrote Valley Snapshots. I’ll be doing a second edition with Larry Robinson in it but Valley Snapshots if you go right admission is $25. This is a. Well it’s a $20 book but it’s really worth probably A book of this magnitude, usually 35, 40 bucks. I’m gonna give him copies like a couple hundred bucks this summer and he’s gonna pass them out for free. So if you go, if you book a trip there, pick up one of my hockey books and tell them that you, you know, you heard about, you heard about Bonashire Caves on, on Habscast. And then he’ll have, you know, then he’ll know that, hey, my advertising is actually working here. So he’s getting, he’s getting a response for, for helping me out with, with this great sponsorship.

Grant [01:43:45]:
But Chris, Chris is a great guy. La la, La Fontaine. Yeah. Well, that was another. He scored course in. That was a quadruple overtime and I think it was against. Was it while he was with the Islanders at the time, Was it against Bob Mason and, and Washington? I believe it was. Yeah.

Grant [01:44:19]:
Those were good, good hockey back then. And you know, apologies for us going a little off off on a tangent there, but Liam has so many great stories from, from the 70s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 50s and 40s too. Just the world’s foremost hockey historian and you, you get a glimpse of it every time Liam’s on Off the record. Yeah. Liam used to be on off the record all the time. He was the most outside of Toronto. Like anyone that lived in the Toronto area. He was the most invited guest on off the Record with Michael Landsberg.

Grant [01:45:06]:
And he had some famous battles with Gene Gene Mac, some people might remember if you get a chance. I don’t know if it’s still. If it’s on YouTube or not, but off the record with Liam and Gene Mac, damn close to getting in a scrap with, with, with Mac. And of course Liam, you know, at the time probably went about a buck 70 and Gene Mack was a, like a linebacker in, in the CFL. Weighed about 250, 260. But Liam and the Irish in him there, he wasn’t backing down. He wasn’t backing down. And Gene was.

Grant [01:45:54]:
Let’s just say he was. He was under the influence at the time when he was doing those shows and it, and it showed. But Liam, it’s classic stuff and kept. Landsberg kept inviting them back together to do shows because it just, I mean there was nothing. It was. You’ve never seen anything like it. It was must see tv. I don’t know if it’s up.

Grant [01:46:27]:
I don’t know if it’s on YouTube, but Google Gene Mac, Liam McGuire OTR. And if it’s up there, man, it’ll, it’ll blow your mind. Gabe is A huge halves fan from Montreal. Okay. Canes must win game two or they’re dead. There’s no way around it. Are you a Cane’s fan car Keynes? Yeah, they’re behind the eight ball there. We formally submit a request to fort with the series unless you stop scoring on breakaways.

Grant [01:47:15]:
Signed Keynes Nation. Well, maybe don’t give up ten freaking breakaways, man. It was like. I think he gave up more breakaways in that game than you had in the first two rounds. Like it was uncharacteristic. It was crazy. Hurricanes in the house. Remember you showing up on Eastern Conference losses? Respect.

Grant [01:47:43]:
Yeah, I respect a. A fan of a team that shows up when they lose. Unlike the Buffalo guys that would only show up after Buffalo won and then try to, you know, whatever, troll. So we got a cats and rats. We got a Cane’s fan and a Florida Panthers fan going back and forth here. Thanks Rick and Liam. Have a good birthday, Liam. Gabe and Cam are awesome.

Grant [01:48:21]:
Right on. All right. Posted link to liam on otr where. Yeah would go at the guy he said to him no you’re the idiot. Oh he. No he didn’t back down. It was. It was.

Grant [01:49:11]:
I’ve never. It’s just. It’s classic. That’s where I first saw Liam and loved him ever since. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Not. Let me share the link in chat to Liam on otr.

Grant [01:49:26]:
Oh no. Okay. No idea who gave his weight. All right. This is a three beer night guys. What do you think? Too late now. One more and we’ll. We’ll call it a.

Grant [01:49:57]:
We’ll call it an evening. My got my new laptop up and running. This is the second episode. It’s rock and rolling. We didn’t have any likes tonight, did we? That’s good stuff. Listen I. Yeah, one more. I am considering going.

Grant [01:50:32]:
I am considering going to Cunningham’s publisher for Game five. That’d be next Friday. Cunningham’s pub is in St. Ann to Bellevue. So west island. Just gonna gauge over the next few days if there’s any interest in people showing up for a watch party. Go and do a pre game show. Watch the game with some has fans and some.

Grant [01:51:05]:
You know some pod. Some of you that are on the pod that join the podcast here. If you’re in Montreal and you think you might be able to get out to Cunninghams for a. To watch game 5. I am seriously considering driving down from Ottawa and doing a. And doing a. A podcast at Cunningham’s. I mean I haven’t.

Grant [01:51:35]:
This is just. I’m throwing it out There. I mean, I haven’t even got. You know, he doesn’t even know about it necessarily, but I think he. We had talked that he might be interested in me doing a remote there, so I figured I would first bring it up and. And throw it out here and see if. I don’t know how many. Yeah, most people, I realize, aren’t necessarily in Montreal, although probably 35 to 40% of.

Grant [01:52:16]:
Of our audience each month is in Quebec and the majority are in Montreal. So I assume there’s a few of you listening in there. And hey, if there’s. Oh, you’re going to game too. Yeah, well, I won’t be. I won’t be going down to Caroline, but geez, everybody’s. Everybody seems to be at it. I’m in Alberta and Nova Scotia.

Grant [01:52:55]:
Would love to come to Montreal. You’re in two places at once. That’s. That’s very impressive, Keisha. Well, you split the difference and be in Montreal. I’m in Alberta too. Yeah, Calgary. All right.

Grant [01:53:14]:
Long time, first time haves found in Detroit. Appreciate all you do. Hey, thanks for. Don’t be shy, folks. If you’re. If you’re listening, don’t be shy to. And it’s. I’m always curious to know where you’re from.

Grant [01:53:30]:
Like, you know, it. Just a little bit of information. I mean, hey, you know a lot about me, right? You know, I’m in Ottawa, all that. So don’t, you know, if you’re on here, you’re watching, you’ve been watching lots of times, watching for the first time. Let us know where you’re at. I’m always curious. Long time, first time has fan in Detroit. Appreciate all you do.

Grant [01:54:01]:
What do you think Galley can bring to the series? Would you bring him in or leave the roster as is? Well, it would be at the expense of Kapanen, I guess, at this point. And anyone that follows me relatively closely knows that I do like Oliver Kapanen. It was nice to see Oliver get a bit more. Bit more ice time tonight. I think the fact that he can play center and. And the wing and the same with Valeno, kind of gives him a little bit of an edge on. On Galley at this point because it looks like Marty not real comfortable with having Kirby play center right now. Kingston.

Grant [01:54:57]:
Kingston Frontenax. Yeah, I remember the Kingston Canadiens playing against our Ottawa 67s in some classic series. Mo Robinson, Kenny Linsman, Tony McKegnie. They had some pretty good teams and some wicked battles against Bobby Smith and Dougie Wilson and Donnie. Okay, man, I Was wondering. It said gas and beer fun. I’m going. Huh? Okay.

Grant [01:55:36]:
Gas and beer fun. To Montreal. Too bad, Donnie, that you’re not done teaching. Or you know, you could, you could hook up with us next Friday and in Montreal. But doesn’t sound like not tonight anyways. There aren’t too many Montrealers on here, right? We got them in Nunavut. We got him in Detroit, we got them in Kingston, we got them in Calgary, Alberta. Nova Scotia.

Grant [01:56:09]:
Drum dude, of course is a Nova Scotia. Yeah. Maybe those stats are lying to me saying 37 of the audience is in Quebec. Love the Blue Nui reference. Yeah. Hey, gotta take National Geographic and Blue Nui. Oh, I think Playboy was a Penthouse was out at that time. Hustler.

Grant [01:56:45]:
That was pretty racy stuff. Yeah, I guess he’s in a slump. By the way, when I said like Nick has a one point or two point lead over the last two years, at one point there they were tied and Nick had a one point lead when he got that second assist and they took it away. Then they gave it back to him again. I already had this stack kind of ready, you know, if, if they wouldn’t have given that assist back because they gave it to Gooley and then they gave it back to Nick but then Nick was a point ahead of Dino and then he added another one. So at one point my sense. Well, Nick’s tied with. You know, I was going to ask those guys which, which forward is he tied with for most points? And it’s.

Grant [01:57:43]:
It is surprising that it’s Phil to know the old guy that got traded for a. That they traded for a second round pick to get who didn’t. Didn’t show much friggin offense. Oh, you’re heading off, Don. Bonui. Salut mon ami. All right, Nice to always rhyme it up there, Don. Thanks.

Grant [01:58:13]:
Thanks as always for your. Your. Your generosity, my friend. Any thoughts on MPP finally winning a Walter cup last night? What a career. Pretty cool to win the MVP and, and the Walter Cup. Hey, what killed the. What killed Ottawa and I, I was rooting for Ottawa. I must admit I’d be a Sense fan if, you know, if I hadn’t grew up.

Grant [01:58:53]:
If there was. If the Sens had been around when I was five years old, I’d be a Sense fan. But they weren’t and I had to cheer for somebody and it wasn’t going to be the Leafs. My mom was a Leafs fan and dad was a has fan and the Hats were better than the Leafs in 1970. And you know he tell me about Jean Beliveau and Henri Richard and Yvonne Cornwayer. And I fell in love with them instantly. And I was. I’m never gonna switch allegiances but.

Grant [01:59:34]:
But I thought it was pretty cool that Montreal played Ottawa in the final. And you know, mpp mvp, MPP sets up that friggin tying goal, right? Scores that huge goal in what was a triple overtime. Clutch, Captain, clutch. And but sets up the goal with two seconds left to tie it up. And then they win it in overtime. That, that killed. That killed Ottawa right there. And it was pretty cool to see her win the MVP.

Grant [02:00:16]:
67s beat us out this year. Yeah. Yeah, they did Wade that series in I think it was 77 was crazy though back then the OH it was called the OHA, not the OHL. They played to eight points. So a tie was a tie. And you could play like end up playing eight games and it was pretty crazy. And that that series went right to the right to the wire. And when Kenny Linsman kicked Jeff Geiger between the eyes and there was a picture the next day on the front page of the all the local newspapers.

Grant [02:01:10]:
Linzmann got booted the rest of the playoffs of course for that. That kind of killed because he was their best player. That kind of killed Kingston’s chances of winning that year. But very memorable series 67s had like Wilson, Bobby Smith, Steve Payne and anyone that remembers when Minnesota beat out Montreal and ended their four years of winning cups. Steve Payne and Bobby Smith were large parts of that Minnesota team. Tim Higgins, who would have been a really good NHLer if he hadn’t thrown out his back just 67 said great hockey team in those days. But Kingston was damn good too. They had Mike Gillis.

Grant [02:02:13]:
It goes on and on. They had a really good team. Kingston is in the middle of Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. Lots of diversity here. Yeah, it’s true. College town. Been there lots. Remember Kirk Mueller playing there.

Grant [02:02:32]:
He walked into a bar and it just. Number is retired in Kingston. Yeah, there’s a few. It definitely feels like spring in Montreal. Clothing peeling off terraces. Full smell of dog poop. Yeah. Smell of skunk.

Grant [02:02:54]:
Lots of skunky smell in downtown Montreal and have still in the playoffs going for a cup. Yeah. Apps you play Crib. I’ve never played crib on. On online. I used to play crib. More of a kind of a Scrabble guy. As far as apps, there’s any apps that I play.

Grant [02:03:22]:
I downloaded a New York Times. What’s it called? Crossplay. I haven’t played yet. But I used to play Words with Friends. Crossplay. Yeah, I gotta check that out. If you play. If you’re into Scrabble, Don might hit you up for a game sometime.

Grant [02:03:58]:
What do you teach up in. What do you teach up in Nunavut? Done. Let’s have another look here. Your eye with four shots on net, two more goals. Young fella. Nice to see him get three points. Just like Nick. What’s laugh up to now in point system? Let’s see if we go to the summary, I’ll be able to find out.

Grant [02:04:45]:
So sloth scored is six goal and six assists. 12 points. Okay, that’s not too shabby. Susie’s up to 12 laner. We’ll have a look at the stats. Canadians must be climbing the old stat sheet. Nick Suzuki is now second. Tied for second and NHL playoff scoring.

Grant [02:05:24]:
You gotta love that, eh? Lane Hudson is ninth. Slop is tied for 11th in playoff scoring. I like it. I like it a lot. Cole tied for 15th, 11 points. I like that too. So Alex, seven goals is what, third? Tied for fourth in goals. DorothyV.

Grant [02:06:04]:
Freaking sniper, man. I had him ranked in the first round. Went in the third. Hagle had six goals in seven games. That’s pretty impressive, Stanky. Seven goals, nine games. Wasn’t really all that noticeable tonight, was he? Administration? Oh, okay, so you’re not a teacher. I have a unique board from here I want to gift you.

Grant [02:06:46]:
Okay. It’s like a crib carved out crib board or whatever. When I said Gulu becoming Sloven in the pregame, I didn’t mean this. Slav. Slavin. Yeah, yeah, Okay. It sounds good, Doc. Love Jake Evans.

Grant [02:07:22]:
But who. Who do you see to see in the next three years? Not Jake Evans. I had a good chat with, with my good friend at next level hockey, Mike Bonnet country. He. He suggested that and, and I didn’t mind. I. I didn’t necessarily disagree with him. Go after Malkin.

Grant [02:08:04]:
Go after Malkin in the, you know, have him playing with, with Demi and kind of mentoring him for a couple years and, and you know, signing him as a ufa. Hey, the Canadiens for the first time in a long time are, Are going to be real intriguing. It’s. They’re going to be an intriguing place for free agents to want to sign because hey, they’re. They’re cup contenders. They’re going to be for a while here. And you know, with that young nucleus with the crazy fans, everything, the organization being great from top to bottom, great coach to play for, great young talent, Close knit bunch Maybe they can get like a Malkin, convince him to sign here and then guess what, maybe that, maybe that leads to something like convincing a Sidney Crosby to wave his no move clause or whatever to be traded to Montreal and perhaps even that ends up. He went one further and said, and then you get LA Tag to finish his career.

Grant [02:09:41]:
So just, you know, it was kind of a cool. Just throw that out there. So Latang Crosby and Malkin over the next couple years, with Crosby it’d be more than a couple years. It’d be five anyway, minimum. I mean Crosby’s the one that I’d really want. But even Malkin to play second line center with Demadol for a couple years. Yeah, he’s a stop gap, but he’s a freaking 90 points could stop gap, man. You know, there’s nobody ready in the, in the system right now.

Grant [02:10:23]:
No, I like, I like, I like Kapanen a lot but. He’s not, he’s. He’s not going to be of getting Malkin over the next couple years. So. H. What age is not. He’s going back to, he’s going back to college. And is he going to be a second line center on an NHL playoff team next year at playoffs? I don’t know.

Grant [02:11:02]:
Kind of hard to ask a kid to come in. And I mean, look at Cappy was one of the top rookies in the, in the league and I mean he isn’t centered in the second line at playoff time. I doubt that Marty would just stop and say, oh, okay, we’re going to. With three games of NHL experience, we’re going to put you at second line center in the playoffs. It’s unlikely, but not that I, you know, I think H might be capable of doing it, but. Also, hey, you can’t have too many centers, right? They can always. One can always move to the wing. But you know, what about a second line of Hage Malk and Demidov? Right? I can live with that.

Grant [02:12:02]:
Anyway, it was a, it was an interesting conversation I had with Mike today and you know much I’ll rarely plunges into the UFA pool in part because players just haven’t wanted to. Significant ones haven’t really wanted to come here. They used Montreal as a, you know, as a pawn. Like remember Brett Hall? Remember Matt Sundeen? Remember Shanahan? Remember, you know, I can list a lot of guys that oh, they might be getting this guy. Oh, they, yeah, they’re. It’s down to them and one other team and then they always, they used it as leverage to get a better contract from another team. But now the Canadians, you know, Players or UFAs are going to want to come here. Kind of cool watching Jake Allen talking halves.

Grant [02:13:15]:
Yeah. And did you hear what he said about Mike Matheson? Like I’m telling you, and I’ve said it many times, the players absolutely love Mike Matheson. Like the difference in, you know, what the fans think of Mike Matheson and what players think of him is friggin night and day difference. Does Mike make the odd mistake? Yeah, he does. Mind you, he plays friggin 25 minutes a game against everybody and on up on the pk. But is he a fantastic skater? Yeah, top, top of the league. And I mean it’s so important to have, has some mobile defensemen back there and Mike, Mike Matheson’s one of the elite skaters, elite skating defenseman in the league. And you need that.

Grant [02:14:08]:
You need those guys. He. Breaks up so many scoring chances, breakouts, you know, potential breakaways with that, with that skating ability. It’s, you know. Yeah. When he’s got the puck, sometimes it’s a grenade. Yeah. When he’s got it in the offensive zone, you get friggin frustrated with him.

Grant [02:14:35]:
But yeah, but wow. Hey, he kills a lot of rushes, man, with that skating. I’ll let Kathy the best so far too. Where are you at with Hage and Juroski? Well, Jarovsky’s not going to be a center. There’s just no way that he’ll play center. I, I’m, I’ve cooled a little bit on Juroski. I, I like his, I like his ceiling. Like he’s got, you know, I think he can be a second line winger if he puts it together.

Grant [02:15:18]:
But I don’t see him as a first liner, I don’t see him as a center. And he might not, you know, he might not become an NHL regular. He’s got a, he’s got a low floor and a pretty decent ceiling. And for a second round pick, I mean you can’t ask for much more. There’s reasons why he wasn’t picked in the first round. I know there’s been a lot of independent scouts and journalists and stuff, so you know, the steel of last year’s draft. But just looking at the numbers on the surface, you would think that. But if you really study him and his play away from the puck, his skating, his competitiveness, there’s a lot of work to do there.

Grant [02:16:05]:
It might, he might put it all together, he might not. I, I look at him as a prime trade chip for the club. I think his value is high right now. I think there’s teams in the league that perceive him as a, you know, as a really good prospect. And I’m not so certain that’s the case. I would be, you know, if the Canadians go all in on a, on a. Trying to get a like a bona fide top two center in the off season and it’s possible because look at how good they are without it. Imagine if they had it like, you know, a.

Grant [02:16:55]:
A 80, 100 point scorer playing with Demidov. Like I, I’d really like that. I think the Canadiens can. Would be cup favorites maybe next year if they got that with all the young defensemen a year older and all that, you know, I don’t see why not. So. But I think Taroski would be. Would be a trade. Chip Angstrom would be a good trade Chip.

Grant [02:17:25]:
You know, Angstrom, Zarovsky, you start there. Teams are going to start to listen. Right. They’ve got a fair bit of value, I think. And. And then there’s also the consideration of Fowler. You know, again, if you really trying to land the big fish. Swarovski, Fowler, Angstrom are all, you know, would all be in this discussion.

Grant [02:17:56]:
For me, I’d hold on to H. But those three would be, you know, and maybe even Beck. They’re all, they’ve all got value and some got a lot of value and they could get you a very important piece to help you really, truly contend again going forward here. Mike is an amazing skater. I love him. Sick of all the hate he gets. Yeah, I agree with that. I forgot Trevor Lyndon played for the Habs.

Grant [02:18:42]:
Yeah, he was like 28, 29 when they got him, but he just never. He just didn’t fit in with the halves for some reason. I, I like I didn’t mind getting them, but he just didn’t. Didn’t prosper on the halves. Another one of the Reggie Oul lose that didn’t really. Didn’t really pan out in New year. Are two of our best skaters. Never got the hate.

Grant [02:19:18]:
Yeah. Stovish a top 10 goalie in the league right now. He is George. Absolutely. Yeah. Frank, you’re. If you’re the starter on a, you know, and played every game, you’re six zero in, you know, seven and two on the road, six zero in after losses. Yeah.

Grant [02:19:50]:
You’re a top 10 starter in the league. Absolutely. Kind of catching me off guard with the redraft question on Dovish. I mean, I’d have to study the. That entire draft to give me an answer on that. 20. 20. That was the goolie draft.

Grant [02:20:18]:
I know if you. Gooley be top 10 for me if you did a redraft just in quickly looking, you know, there’s some nice neighbors. Perot, Greg, Maverick, Bork, like guys that were picked after 20 that are pretty, that are pretty solid. Paterka, not bad. Evangelista Faber, of course, Will Cooley, Laferriere. But I mean I, you know, I’d rank dovish certainly value team ahead of a, a guy like Laferriere right now. So in looking quickly here you, you’d have to rank Dobie as a first round guy. If you did a redraft towards the end of the first, I’d say 20 to 30 somewhere.

Grant [02:21:48]:
You know, Cooley be in there like I say as far as later guys, but not a lot. And then in the top 20, you know, like he’d be ahead of Holtz, he’d be ahead of Askarov probably, you know, at this point. Rikels. Probably Chinikov, Lapierre maybe Forester, probably Zeri, he’d be ahead of Baron. So you take what, At least eight guys out of the top 22. Yeah, he’d be late first, I think if he did a redraft today, at least late first, maybe, maybe higher. Maybe higher. And as far as goalies go, like would he be the first goalie picked? Well, what Askarov.

Grant [02:23:05]:
Still. Jury’s still out on Askarov, right? Commesso definitely ahead of Commesso. Blumquist. Yeah. Mary Linen. Yeah, he’s ahead of him. Kelly Clank. Clang Likes to hear the, you know, when it hits the post, right? The clang of the post.

Grant [02:23:37]:
That’s the only time he’s effective. Nico Dawes, obviously better than Nico Chechalev. Never heard of him. Dylan Garand, No. So quick answer on, on Doby is best goalie in his draft class and the Habs got him in the fifth round. They got Gooley 16th overall, should have been top 10. You know, Bob Rob gets a lot of the plaudits for, for the drafting in the last few years, but this was, this was when Marty and Trevor were doing a lot of good work as the top scouts and they, they deserve a little more credit for, for building this team. Hey, appreciate the conversation.

Grant [02:24:52]:
Thanks for taking the time. Grant. Cheers from Michigan. Thank you. I appreciate the $20. Haven’t got a lot of people contributing tonight, but it’s been 20 and 20 or 2070 from Donnie McCaskill, 20 from Junior. I appreciate it. That’s a, That’s a very generous.

Grant [02:25:19]:
You know, may not be a lot of quantity here in. But the quality, you know. And 10 from Mark as well. So 70, 90, 100 bucks in donations in five donations. So that’s pretty cool. I really appreciate that, As always. Sounds like you will end offload Fowler for the presence. Ah, well, again, to qualify.

Grant [02:26:16]:
I, you know, goalies are. Things can change, right. And I’ve said it, I said it not long ago on this podcast that I think the smart move is like I don’t trade Fowler just for anything. It would have to be to get a big fish. That would be the only like a Crosby or whatever. Like there’s no. I don’t think there’s any prospects that would be untouchable with the possible exception of Reinbacher when it comes to Crosby. Like I, you know, I, I trade Zarovski, I trade Fowler, I trade Hage, I trade Pickford, I trade any prospect it in the system with the possible exception of.

Grant [02:27:08]:
Of Reinbacher, and I’d even consider Reinbacher. But I, I think that there’s enough other that you can. You can package it together enough that’s gonna beat any other team. So offer for it for it. You know, for a Pittsburgh team that would be smart to. Would be smart to rebuild. So crack another beer. I’ll ask questions all night.

Grant [02:27:42]:
Yeah. Don’t think it’s happening. Sounds like you’re willing. Yeah. So hey, it would have to be for a big fish. Robert Thomas, Sid Crosby, you know that. That ilk, right? I mean, if you could land either one of those guys. Yeah, Dovish, you can always find another.

Grant [02:28:15]:
There’s some good young goalies coming up in the system. You can always get another. Yeah, Dobie looks like he can be a starter. It’s fair to say, you know, at this point. So hopefully Dovish and Demidov keep the trend of signing team and cap friendly deals to keep the team together. Yeah, well, I can’t see Dolby breaking the bank just yet. That’s why you signed them soon. Both of them.

Grant [02:28:55]:
Oh, now we’re getting into the pwhl. Oh, yeah. Go for it. It’s popular. Yeah. They need more teams in the playoffs. They need a longer playoff. Do I see captain staying in? In captain in? Yeah, sure.

Grant [02:29:26]:
Why would Crosby retire? He’s a point per game. Sydney Crosby, he’s got five freaking Premier league seasons left. In a minimum comes to Montreal. He’d be the fountain of youth. Crack another beer. Oh, I’m. I maybe consider cracking Another beer, but I don’t know, it is 1:30. I’d have to be bribed.

Grant [02:30:11]:
Do you? Yeah. I saw in sports that tonight Crosby has no intention to retire after next season. Exactly. No. Why would he retire? What’s my package for Rob Thomas? I don’t know. Start with Jaroski. Jaroski Angstrom pick. Maybe if Fowler has to be part of it, maybe, you know, with Jarovsky, Angstrom and Fowler be too much.

Grant [02:31:00]:
Maybe something. Something along those lines. All right. Wade Wilson, thank you. As I’ve said to you before, it’s not, you know, every day that a former NFL quarterback comes on and contributes on our podcast. So thank you. Thanks for tuning in and have yourself a pleasant day. Never thought Wade Wilson would.

Grant [02:31:33]:
Would retire in Kingston, but you just never know, right? Have a good night, Wade. WW Double W. Oh, I missed this. Sorry, Derek. My dad once told me he misses Danny Galvin and Dick Irvin and they were the best. Play by play. Guys versus what’s out now. Hey, Bias, you know, time period Bias.

Grant [02:32:05]:
I mean, we grew up with them, right? The voices of your childhood, the players of your childhood will always be like I was saying the other night with, with Liam, like, you know, as much as I disliked Bobby or he, As far as I’m concerned, he’s the greatest player of all time. I saw it. I saw it when I was a kid and he just, he was just so dominant. Rest up for Saturday. We’ll all be listening in. Yeah. Yeah. Got about a quarter of a beer left here, guys, so hurry up with the questions.

Grant [02:33:14]:
Still got a hundred. Still got a hundred on board here. Hit the like button before you know when you’re leaving. I don’t know if we’re up over a hundred. We up over a hundred people that have tuned in and liked please do like the. Please do like the podcast. That would be doing me a huge favor. We’ve had 1600 tune in.

Grant [02:33:46]:
That’s not bad. Not like game seven, but hey, it’s early in the. It’s early. It’s early on here. Oh, Peter Mansbridge. How many likes? 79 likes. Eh. See, I didn’t push it.

Grant [02:34:07]:
I have to push it. I don’t push it. Seems like it’s 5%. Is this. You get 1600, you got 80 likes. Got 2000, you got a hundred likes. So you get 5% of the people that. That tune in, that press the like button.

Grant [02:34:30]:
One out of every 20. That always kind of floors me, I guess. It’s tough to. It’s tough to hit the like button, eh? Anyway, I like to try to have a hundred likes before the end of the podcast, but seeing that it’s 1:30 in the morning, I don’t think that’s going to be the case tonight. Abs in 4. My legs are starting to seize up on me here. Absent for. No, no, I wouldn’t think.

Grant [02:35:12]:
I mean, Donnie McCaskill thinks so, but. No, I, I don’t think. Just kidding, Don. Can’t see it. Does anyone else think they’ll do it in four? I think that’s. I see. I see Carolina bouncing back and winning the next one. Geez.

Grant [02:35:46]:
Six. Maybe, maybe they can end the six hex there, right? We’ll see. Paul’s still in. Yeah, Paul’s still in the Netherlands there. He’s coming back Monday. So we had nobody, nobody from Montreal watching the podcast tonight. That’s hard to believe. I’ll ask again after the next one and if there’s no takers, then I won’t come down.

Grant [02:36:31]:
That’s all. Cunningham’s publisher. Friday 5th Gabe, anybody in Speak now or forever hold your peace. All right, folks, I think I got caught up in every. Don’t really have much more. I think everything that needs to be said has been said. You’ve been a great audience as, as the comedians say, and I will let you go. I am, I’m trying to get Bryce Pickford on for an interview.

Grant [02:37:23]:
Contacted him. We’ll see. We’ll see. If we can’t get Bryce. Bryce to do an interview, that would be pretty cool, I think. And I’ll definitely be doing a pre game, pre game for the next. I’ve got a, oh, I did a Vinnie Rohr video that I will, I will post at some point. I’ll do a scouting report on Vinnie Rohr at the, at the World Championships because he’s, he’s looking pretty good.

Grant [02:37:56]:
So get another HABS prospect report up. Okay. 2:30. Yeah, it might be time to go to bed. Yeah, Bryce would be a cool interview. I hope, I hope I can convince him. I know he’s a, he’s a shy farm boy, but here’s hoping I can get him on. Get, get them on the podcast, please.

Grant [02:38:22]:
Hit that like button, folks. Let’s get it up over a hundred. I wake up in the morning and I, I click on, see if I hit a hundred likes, I’m confident, but at the same time, you know, it’d be nice if I, if, if in the morning We’ve got 100 plus likes. Okay. Ex Montreal are now live in Las Vegas Wow. Few years in the States, eh? Otherwise, I would be celebrating with you guys up there. All right, well, we’ll. I’ll keep asking.

Grant [02:38:59]:
Maybe I might even throw a. Throw something out there on Twitter and see if there’s any. I’ve got 24,000 followers on Twitter, so maybe. Maybe that’s the better route to go with this. Quite a few of them are Montrealers, so. All right, very good. Thanks, everyone. Have a.

Grant [02:39:24]:
Have yourselves a good night. It was a great night to talk hockey. And I’ll be back on later today to talk hockey again. Okay, ciao for now, everyone. Bye.