Martin St. Louis with a smart tweak to the Dach and Evans lines | The Basu & Godin Notebook

Martin St. Louis with a smart tweak to the Dach and Evans lines | The Basu & Godin Notebook

Last summer day. [Music] We are Monday, November the 3rd, and this is the Bessuang notebook. Hello everybody. I’m Mon Gang with Harpen Vasu. Uh Harpin, uh how was your weekend, man? Uh good weekend. Good game on Saturday night. Um another overtime game for the Montreal Canadians. Fifth time this season. Obviously, you were in Toronto for the tragedy. Um I spoke there was I spoke to a fan after the game who said, “You know what? We’re kind of numb now. We’re so used the two words the two worst words in Toronto sports game seven. We’re numb to them now. We’re so used to it. We half expect it. It’s unfortunate just because uh well, you know what I mean? The Jays had so many chances. They had so many chances to win that game. Um and to win the the previous game. So, you know, two shots at home to win the World Series. You don’t get it done. I think that’s kind of on you. Um but obviously, yeah, the Canadians go to overtime again. Uh rivalry game kind of lived up to the billing to some extent. Um you know, yes, it did. It did. I like that. I’m I I I like those confrontations now. I you know, the the whole thing with Nick’s cousins and the retaliation that everybody was waiting for in the building. Uh you know, you you slashed our our our our wonder kid. you know, yeah, be ready for our wrath. The fans were asking for it. Strubel was looking for it, too. And eventually he got he got his piece. So, let me So, let me just read to you what Strubal said um about that. He was a he actually just had the, you know, the gumption to like be just forthright, you know, and he was just like, you’ve got a guy taking a that’s taking a shot at your young a star young player. That was a bad play. None of us liked it. Obviously, we were thinking about it. This is the first time we played him since. So, that was on our mind. You can’t just go around and try to hurt our best players. Jaden Strugal and that you talk about team toughness, you talk about unity, you talk about culture, like all sorts of things that people might think is barbaric the way that scores get settled in hockey, and they wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, but it is a thing that’s inherent in the game. And the fact that Nick Cousins was trying to get Brendan Gallagher to settle that score, was trying to get Alex Carrier to settle that score, just further just further exemplifies everything that’s wrong with Nick Cousins basically. And so eventually he had to go with Jaden Strugal. And you know, we had a question in the mailbag, but might as well just say it now, like just kind of the mechanics the mechanics of how that works. So apparently that morning Harper Jackive kind of came up to James Tr was like, “You going to take care of cousins?” He’s like, “Yeah, I got it. I’m going to take care of cousins.” Because there is a separate subsection of the code that dictates that if a middleweight or someone below your weight class is the person that needs to be uh needs to receive some degree of retribution, the code dictates that the heavyweight can’t go after the middleweight. that there needs to be a match in weight classes. I was on George Lorac’s show as I am every Friday and I brought up the fact that maybe Jackie should go after him and George immediately was like, “No, no, no. It can’t be Jackie.” It’s like, “Why? Play the code.” God damn it. Yeah, George Under the Code. Well, can I can I submit Obviously Jackie aderes to it, too, because he didn’t go after him at all and he had opportunities, too. He did. But there’s another element to it. It’s that Nick Cousins was playing on Tim Stutz’s line and it was a lot more likely that Strugel being paired with Hudson would end up on the ice at the same time than forcing a matchup where you would have Jackeye against the line. So there was also that element but there was I guess the code relevance of it is that they were on the ice at the same time occasionally. Um and frankly Struba wasn’t on the ice that often with Cousins. It was mainly Dobson and Mat because he was on that line and they’re going to match Dobson and Matson against Titla. Uh but it’s just the the interplay before the game, the sort of said unsaid kind of thing like Jackie knowing that it’s not his place to go after Cousins and it’s more Strugal that needed to take care of it. And in Cousins’s mind, apparently Gallagher and Carrier were the guys who were supposed to take care of it. Um which is cowardly to say the least. But um anyhow, it got settled and yeah, it was definitely part of the the entertainment value of that night and Strugal saying that there’s almost no better feeling when you land a guy flush the way he did. And so um and good for him. You know, he had a rough uh well, I wouldn’t say a rough game, but he had a rough moment in the previous game against Seattle. He took that penalty, was feeling pretty bad about it, and so this was a great way for him to to sort of redeem himself, and he played a good game otherwise. So um and did it in a smart way. Did it in a way. Didn’t chase after him. Didn’t let it distract from the importance of the game. And when it when the occasion presented itself in a tie game, no one took an extra penalty, especially not Strugal. You know, I think the way the whole team handled that situation knowing it was simmering under the surface, but not allowing it to distract them from the game um was a sign of maturity, you You know, and Arborjack attempted fate, pointed at the scoreboard yet again when Curtis McDeran wanted to fight him at two nothing. Didn’t learn his lesson from when he did it with Reeves. What were they leading the leafs by? Three nothing, four nothing, I think it was three nothing. So, I mean, that’s why you say no to that fight, but don’t point at the scoreboard, Arbor. And sure enough, the Sanders came back. And so, the next time he has an opportunity to point to the scoreboard, Arber Jack, I should just not point to the scoreboard. going to say no, look at the score, but don’t make any visual gestures, don’t point up. Um, that’s now twice that that’s happened. And both times the Canadians lost that lead. So, yeah, I would say it’s probably like bad luck goals were more the, you know, the re the reason why it it was the game eventually was tied more than him pointing at the scoreboard. But I get your I get your point. I get your point. Ask ask the head coach what he thinks of tempting fate and superstitions and hockey gods and all that stuff. You know, it’s uh it’s but he was correct. That was not the time to fight Curtis McDermott, particularly because it was two nothing and the Canadians had all the momentum. There was no reason to give it back to the Senators by potentially losing a fight to Curtis McDermage, which of course Jack it’s probably not in his mind that he would lose that fight, but it’s just not a time to give the opposing team a boost of energy. uh when they were kind of, you know, they were on the mat a little bit at that point. So, I was uh chatting with uh Cole Coughfield this morning after practice and uh you know, regarding those blown leads and stuff like that, he said that uh we don’t we don’t want to keep doing that. Obviously, uh we we need to be we need to extend our leads when we have them. He said, “I I think we’ve done a good job as a team cleaning up our second periods.” And he’s he’s true because it it was a topic it was a talking point two weeks ago and I think that they’ve been better uh despite the fact that they gave up some goals against the Suns. I think that they’re getting their second periods are getting better. Uh but they have not they played with fire but have not gotten burned with all those blown leads because of the way that they managed to come back and and they’re so dominant um on the in in overtime in part because of Kfield himself. But nonetheless, I mean despite the fact that the the results are there, the the the Canadians are in a great spot in the standings. The other day we were talking about, you know, would would a coach uh keep his lines and keep his lineup the way it is as long as the team is winning and would wait for something bad to happen or a certain pretext in order to change things. But uh on Monday we saw a proactive change coming from Martin Sui who’s decided that he would uh move around a little bit his his bottom two lines putting Brendan Gallagher back with Kirby Doc and uh and Zakari Bzuk and Joe Valeno is now pairing is now paired with Jake Evans and Josh Anderson. It’s it’s an interesting move. I like it. Uh I I like it for for Gallagher and honestly let’s start with that. Um do you feel as though you know there was an this wish at first to by putting Gallagher with Evans and Anderson that they would create a momentum line, they would be the responsible line defensively and whatnot. to which extent have they been able to do that or not since uh you know since they were paired together because I I feel as though and and today Marty obviously again this is a winning team so they’re not he’s not going to express too much anger or anything of that sort but he’s been left a little bit wanting more I think from the Evans line because it it hasn’t in for what it’s meant to do they haven’t been tremendous. So, I think that it was a good opportunity to move things around today.

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