The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Martin Biron on the Sabres Dropping Games 2 and 3, Goaltending and Lineup Changes, and more

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Martin Biron joins the show to break down what has gone wrong for Buffalo, how Montreal has found another level offensively and defensively, the biggest storylines from the series so far, and whether the Canadiens are starting to look like a legitimate Stanley Cup threat.SHOUTOUT TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼 Ninja: https://www.sharkninja.ca/ninja-crispi-pro-6-in-1-countertop-glass-air-fryer-rose-quartz/AS101CRS.html?utm_source=Meta&utm_medium=Paid+Social&utm_campaign=H1NinjaCrispi&utm_content=NinjaEN&dwvar_AS101CRS_color=cdb9b8Reach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@FNBarnBurner🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoffReach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the meantime, we expect game four between the Buffalo Sabres and the Montreal Canadiens to be anything other than rough and not friendly. Martin Barron knows that. He's been on both sides of it. And, you know, Marty, first of all, thanks so much for stopping by. I want you to kind of wear a couple of hats here because I open the show wondering about something specifically, and that is concussion spotters. Now, I remember a game Maple Leafs in Los Angeles Kings when Quick got hit in the head

and he was like livid and he wasn't going to come out. I thought he was going to stage. I understand that goaltenders don't want to. They don't want to go. They keep me in. I'm fine. I get it. But when I saw Malenstein last night on Dobesh and his head hits the post and he goes down,

the first thing he does is he grabs his head. I'm thinking of myself like, that's what a concussion spotter is for. Like am I missing something here, Marty? Like, is that not what they're supposed to be? That's their one job. That's their job. You're not missing anything. And I also feel that, well, maybe there is the playoff aspect of it.

But when it happened, I was like, oh, that's a big collision. And then I went back to look at it. And Malenstein, look, I know the guy. He's a really, really nice human being. And I do feel like he tries to avoid Dobesh by going up in the air. And then I don't, I'm not sure. I've slowed down. I don't think that Dobesh's head actually cut the post.

I think it was more like the upper shoulder neck, deltoid, whatever that cut the post. So when I rewatch that, I was like, oh, he's probably going to be okay. It looked really bad at first look. But then when you're taking all the angles, I was like, it's probably going to be fine. And the spotter had plenty of time because of the scrums to be able to review a lot of the clips, right? But I can tell you this. If Enric Longquist or Ryan Miller were in net at that moment, and if the buzzer came down and was like,

we need you to come back to the bench, we would have had an hour delay. Like he would have sat in the crease and said, I am not going anywhere. I agree. You dropped a puck and we're back at it. So I think you got to be a little bit of in between here. And I know the league's trying to do their best to protect players, but you've got to be careful in the playoffs.

Yeah, I was going to say further to one of those points, there's some really good ones there. Further to one of those points, do you think that one of the mitigating factors here is the stakes are so high? This is the playoffs. And if you're a concussion spotter, you feel it as much as an official, making a call in overtime.

And you've got to make the right call. Look, I'll go back to game one of the Buffalo Boston series. And Josh Norse goes into the wall at first, a little, like, kind of weird. And then he plays game two, and all of a sudden in game three, he's out. And he missed game three, four, five. Could he have come back? Maybe game four, game five, absolutely. But then you're starting to think, like, okay, was the fall the reason?

Obviously, the Sabres are not going to say what the injury was. and maybe there was something else. But I'm like, you know, these moments happen, right? Where you're in the playoffs, you may give the guys just a little bit morally way, a little benefit of the doubt. And by the way, I'm in our Sabres Live studio because we just finished our show. So it's kind of a weird position for me because I'm a Sabres employee. I cover the Sabres shot this season.

But I do some freelance work. And I cover the Montreal Canadians. I'm on the panel on TSN during the regular season. Yeah. I do Montreal radio. I do RDS. So it's kind of weird, like, you know, because I know, those two teams so well, but obviously I'm, you know, fully invested into what the Sabres and

being an alumni and ambassadors. So it's a weird place to be in. I try to be an analyst, but there's a part of me that's obviously like on the Sabre's side right now. And like, like you're like, like, I like, I like, I'm, I always say, be, say, I can never get from the hotel to the, I can never get from the airport to the hotel. I always say, like, I'm going to see how far my French will take. me into Montreal and I've never made it to the hotel. Because it's during the day. If it's at night after a few beers, you're all good.

The French is flowing, my friend. I'm trying, man. I'm trying. But it is interesting. At the end of all, and I want to drill down on what we saw last night, but as someone who remembers the Adams Division and as someone who remembers the French connection and as someone who remembers that Montreal dynasty as well and remembers like Ken Dryden going up against Don Edwards.

and French connection up against Lemares line or Jarvis and that great blue line of the Montreal Canadiens. At the end of all of this, and I'm glad that there's 84 games next year, so we're going to see four between these teams. Playoffs, that's how you make rivalries. This thing is back now. Like Montreal Buffalo is capital B back, right? Yeah, it is. And really, like, you look, they played four times this year. They had that.

It were 2 and 2. It's 2-1 in the playoffs. So, Montreal win a 7-game series so far, yes, but there's still a lot of hockey to be played. You know, yeah, it's been 15 years since the Sabres had been in the playoffs. But a lot of the people here remember 98. 98 was the precursor to 99 and the Sabres losing to Dallas in the finals. But 98, they played the Montreal Canadiens in the second round. They swept them.

The first time the Habs had ever been swept in the seven-game series on O'M Ice. So, you know, Matt Barnaby hat trick on game two. Mother's Day is looking for his mom in the stands. And then Michael Peck a second overtime game three, game four ended up being a sweep. 93 Montreal swept the sabres for nothing. And Montreal won the cup that year. Right. So there was still that rivalry that even though it was 30 plus years ago,

it feels like those two teams because of the division, because of the fans traveling from southern Ontario and Buffalo fans going to Montreal, it's been there. So now it's fun to see it in the playoffs. It's fun to sit in the second round. And it was funny because game one, it looked like the eye test would tell you Buffalo dominated game one. And then after the game, Lindy rough said,

we still have a few more steps that we can go through. It wasn't a perfect game. We had a good start. And that's good. Marty Saint-Louis wasn't all doom and gloom after game one. It's like there's more ice out there. We have to be adapting to the series we just finished seven games against Tampa, where there was no ice.

And, well, let me tell you, Montreal adapted really good in game two and three. They had 54 scoring chances, 24 in game two and 30 in game three, according to our statlet's numbers that we get here in Buffalo. That's huge. when you have 54 scoring chances in two games, like Montreal has found away with the more ice and Buffalo is going to have to defend better. It was fascinating.

I got a text from a friend of mine saying that looked more like the November Sabres than the March Sabres. And it's like, we know that there's a better team in there. It just seemed like, you know, watching this game and there was like a lot of like Norris on Bullduke and then Jack Eye on Carrick at the end. Like these things wash.

Like I tend, I think the older that I get, the more I'm just like, I'm not going to drill down in the minutia of tiny things other than concussion spotters. I always love getting in those. But so like I look at this one and I say to myself, okay, so now Buffalo knows that they're not going to run the Montreal Canadians out of the rank. Like there's still a much more disciplined Montreal Canadiens team in there. And here's the thing where it gets, it gets really interesting. Tage Thompson scores last night And I'm like All right

Here come the Buffalo Sabres Like they're gonna They're gonna put on us And Montreal didn't wilt a bit Like much like the Habs just shrugged it off Just like you know when a boxer takes a punch And just kind of shakes their head And like right back into the fight

And you think like Holy smokes how did he just take that punch Like Montreal like coal plays barely stopped playing And all of a sudden it's 1-0-0-0-sabors And Montreal is like No problem like this is as the playoffs go on a much different Montreal Canadians team. So how does Buffalo

react to that now? Like contributions up, like Valeno looked great last night. Yeah. Doc. New Hook. Yeah. Yes. It's so Buffalo has to defend. Like, I know they've given up 11 goals in the last two. And, you know, maybe this is the first team to get the four goals that wins the game, right? Like in Tampa series for Montreal and the Boston series for Buffalo, It was like whoever can score, their second goal is going to win the game.

Now it's like whoever can get to four is going to win the game. So Montreal has found that. Buffalo has to defend. You talk about maybe the hit, right? Like Tatech Thompson scores, boom, there's your punch. But a couple of minutes later, Suzuki was left all alone in front of Lion. And then you had Caulfield who had a great chance. Caulfield missing an empty net goal.

Slavkowski scores a power play goal. He's all alone. There's nobody around. And I think if you're Buffalo, this is concerning because defensively, you've been pretty good all year, not in the top of the league and the goal save, like expected goals against metrics and all of that. But you got good goaltending and you were good defensively. And now that is going to wait. Sabres were so good back pressure, back check against Boston. How many times did they get in a neutral zone? Stick lift, get the puck. We're counter attacking. Well, the Bolzuk goal yesterday was a point in case, like your back pressure is not good enough. Talk and Thompson were late to get to him. He's in the slot. There's a goal. That's a big goal. That made it 3-1 for the Montreal Canadians when Bullsuk scored. So I'm looking at all of this. And if Buffalo had scored and kept on playing and kept on jabbing and jabbing and jabbing in Montreal, would have been a deaf and story. Buffalo got one punch. And then after that, it was like they couldn't get to Montreal, and Montreal built off of that.

That was the, you know, the boxing mentality that was happening in that game. And I'm glad you brought up, you know, Suzuki alone in front of Alex Lion. Like there were a few, and Suzuki hit a crossbar, and there was a great save on Philip DeNoe as well. Like, Lion really played well. Like, Lion kept them in there in that first period. It could have been three to one, four to one going into the second. Yeah.

But here becomes the question. I probably should have led with this. And I always think to myself, like, whenever I follow a Buffalo goal to know, I was like, I wonder what Baran thinks. I wonder what Baran thinks. I wonder what Marty thinks. So who goes in net in game four? So I think that personally, I would probably go to Lucanen.

And there's a few reasons for that. Number one, I'm not a tandem guy. Like, I want a number one goalie, and I want to rely on that number one, and I want to back up, and I want to define roles. But it has not been the case in Buffalo all year. So now I got to kind of approach this as what's been the key to the success to the sabers. And it's been having a tandem. When one guy starts to not play as well, somebody else pick him up.

So in the first round, I actually would have stayed with Luken in game three. They went with Lion. They win the series. Now I think my gut instinct would say, lion's your number one. But that's not the way it is. And I think Luken has a little bit more upside into making that big save. and maybe stealing you a game. And if you're going to have those defensive breakdowns,

maybe Lukinen is better suited to come up with some big saves. And I actually think if you go to Lukinen in game four, it's not a pressured situation. Game 1 and 2 in the Boston series was more pressure on Luchanan than game four in Montreal in the second round will be. And Luchanan was nervous in game one, despite the fact they won that game four or three. And he didn't look great in game two.

But now he has a chance to say, We won that series, despite the fact I didn't start it good. And I called it before this series. I said, I think the Sabres will use both goalies in this series. And I think I would go back to Luka. And now, after game two of the Boston series, Lindy Ruff was quick to point out the rotation worked for us during the regular season. Now, last night, after game three, Lindy Ruff was quick to say Alex Lyon was great.

So is he letting us kind of know ahead of time? like he probably let us know after game two of the Boston series, Lion's going to go in. Maybe the messages we're sticking with Lion. I personally would probably go with Lucan in game four. Interesting. Would you make any other adjustments to the Buffalo City? Yes.

I know what would you do specifically? I mean, this is, listen, you're on the road. We saw Edmonton get in trouble against Anaheim on the road. They put, you know, McDavid and Dreisdahl together with the defense. defensively conscious, I suppose, because Barry Caputin, and that was easy to game plan against if you're, if you're Joel Quenville, and now we have a bunch of questions about the Edmonton. But if you're Lindy Rough here, you're on the road for game four. Like, what do you do? What do you're adjustments? I'll ask you this. What is the biggest concern for the Sabres, the top line not producing or their depth, which should be dominating Montreal's debt, right? So I think that's the answer that's going to lead to what decisions you're going to make. If you feel like it's the top line not producing, the easy one, for me would be, okay, let's put somebody else in the place of Peyton Crabbs. Peyton Crabbs has had a really solid season. He's not a top line winger, in my opinion, but that's how the Sabres have dealt with him

with Thompson and Tuck. So would you bring Zach Benson up there? Benson is played with Thompson and Tuck Dish, and Benson is probably the best forward right now in everything that he does and, man, the energy that that could bring to Thompson with Tuck. Or do you say we're going to bring Benson and Donne on the top line with the Thompson, we're going to move crabs and tuck off that top line, just like the Sabres did with the power plate. The power plate, they brought in Benson and Donne to the top unit with Tage Thompson.

So maybe they do the same thing here. I think if you feel the top line is where you have to focus, that's the changes you have to do. If you feel like the middle two lines is the focus, your depth, because the McLeod, Zucker, and Quinn line has not produced in a long time offensively. They're a good line. But Zucker played under seven minutes in game three. Because he's not on the top power play. He's not killing penalties. You kind of lost him.

So you need to maybe give a boost there. So can you bring Consta Hellenus? By the way, it's his birthday today. He's 20 years old. He looked good in Buffalo this year and he's looked good in the HL. It's a big spot for him to come in if you want to bring him in. But maybe you add an Hellenus to the middle six and see what it does. Maybe that gives you a better spot.

to your depth trying to counter because it's been Newhook, Doc, Dano, Evans. It's been like the middle and the depth of Montreal that has been the difference. So if you're Buffalo, you may have to counter and adjusting your middle depth there. And maybe Constellinous is a guy to come in. You know, see, this takes me back to trade deadline, Marty. Like, one of the things that I wondered about, like going into deadline, and listen, Buffalo, Buffalo made the moves, brought in Logan Stanley, brought in Sam, Carrick brought in in Luke Shan so it wasn't as if Yarmou Kekalena didn't do anything but one of the things that I really wondered about with Buffalo this year is were they going to look and kind of make

HL deals for guys that if the Sabres are going deeper you know what it's like guys are going to start to fall off and guys that can play in the NHL can step in now I still maintain the Noah Oslin losses is a really tough one for the Buffalo Sabers man like I love that guy he's quickly becoming one of my favorite players on this. And Yuri Kulik, to extend, like losing him to Blot-Klaught. Like, that's a big part too. It's massive. And that's why I thought there were going to be some of, like, significant, like, I was looking at Buffalo and

saying, like, I'm some genius. Oh, they're going to make a bunch of depth moves. Buffalo's, you know, the hottest team in the NHL. They're going to go far. They need even if it just seems like an American Hockey League move, that's for the playoffs, more depth, more depth, more depth. That's kind of what I expected, just for this scenario where do you need to have

some options to the To the previous point, I would say, like, my most important thing is, I want Tage Thompson shooting. Whatever I can do to get Tage Thompson, I just want Thompson in a position to shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot. Whatever combination gets him there, that's what I do if I'm Lindy Ruff. So it's interesting because you have the coaching's point of view and trying to put your best roster together now.

And then I wonder the Yarmou Kekhalin's point of view that is looking at next year's roster. And he's like, okay, next year we have Austin. We have Kooli. We probably have Helen News. We have these guys. So, you know, what does that mean for a Peyton Krebs moving forward? What does that mean for a maybe even a Jordan Greenway moving forward? He still has a year left in his deal with a limited notary clause. But I'm just saying, you're going to have to open up for some of the youngsters. Now, is this a, well, we're in

the second round. Might as well try to win now and maybe okay, well, you don't put Heleneuse in the lineup. Or is this a, why don't you? not because that guy is going to be part of our future and if we're going to be back in the playoffs next year and use that as experience for next year and look they're down to one in the playoffs it's not like they're down three nothing and you can start to see like okay it's going to be a golf season next week it's not that but i think there's a real battle between a head coach and a gm and looking at this year versus next year and so that's why the hell news thing is a little interesting um do you want to bring in tanner pearson on the fort line are you think

thinking of maybe bringing Michael Kesselring on the blue line instead of Logan Stanley, whose last couple of games has looked okay. He was sick in game six against the Boston Bruins. Kesselring played. He only played five minutes, but that's more minutes for Dalline and Byram and Samuelson and Power. So there is some changes that could be made. But then there's also that, you know, kind of, we have a diss or dad banner somewhere in the studio. But do you want to give your team confidence and say we're sticking with your group? Marty Sandui did after game one. He's like, no, you know what? I'm not making changes. I'm not bringing in Gallagher. I'm not bringing in Struble. We're fine. And that worked for Montreal.

Or are you like, no, you know what? We need some change. And I'm sorry, we've given you plenty of time. Now the last two games, it's not worked. So that's the challenge for Lindy Roth. And look, he's got plenty of experience. I'm pretty sure he's handled these before and he will continue to handle these type of situations, but it's a tough, it's a tough decision to make for a coach. I want to clone Dahlin and I want to clone Samuelson.

When they are on the ice, nobody scores for the other team, whether it's the Boston Bruins or the Montreal, Canadians. Everybody knows about Dahlene, but what a season Samuelson has had. As far as, like, they don't do, they don't do like a most improved player in the NHL, but if they did,

Mattia Samuelson, would be right up there. Like this has been an incredible season for him. Yeah, and I think it would come back with the most healthy or, you know, biggest health change because health is a big part of Matthias Samuelson. You know, the time and space that he takes off on the ice and being able to close out plays,

he's always had an excellent stick. He blocks shot. But he added offense this year, which was very surprising to me to see Matthias Samuelson over 40 points. Look, this season is the first time in the history. history of the Sabres that they've had three defensemen of 40 points or more in the same year. And you think of the defenseman that that team has had, right? You could go back to Zittnick and

Woolley and Schmellick and you could go back to Housley and Schoenfeld, whatever. Like, you've had some top and defensemen, but never have they had three with 40 or more points. They had Dahlane, Samuelson, Byram this year. And that's not even like Owen Power is not a slouch either. He just wasn't over 40 points. So I think Dahlene and Samuelson together have been really good. And maybe again, that's the thing. Like they've been going three pairs and try to put Stanley and Timmons together. Yeah.

Maybe going into game four, it's we're going to have Dalline and Samuelson for a shift. And then we're going to have Dahlene with Timmons for a shift. And then Byram with Samuelson, you can rotate these guys because, number one, they're all lefty on the top. The top four is all lefty. And number two, well, they can play left right and just go with anybody. So maybe that's the way to put more Dalling than Samuelson on the ice. Okay. Last question, Frey.

I want you to put on a sort of Montreal Canadiens Hat here. Now, I believe you, were you born in Quebec City or just outside? Yeah, flip it around. Get the swords off there. Flip it around. I was in Quebec City and Lax Saint-Shal, which is about 20 minutes north of Quebec City. So I'm guessing Nordiques fan growing up more so than. Huge.

Huge. Hated the Canadians. hated the Canadians. But I appreciate and I respect the Canadians and I love covering them. They're a team in Quebec and even my niece's nephews, my brother's kids

they're facetiming me before the game and one is like Sabres the other two are Canadians. Like it's all out war in their house. So I have a friend of mine. My friend Nancy is the same. She now lives in Arizona but she grew up just outside of Quebec.

Maybe actually in Quebec City. We're just texting about Michelle Goulet over the weekend. But here's the thing. that I'm wondering about. And you can contextualize this as a Quebecer. So now we see it. We've seen Sergeant Sivar.

We've seen Chris Nieland. And last night we saw Kirk Muller with the torch. Scores the Stanley Cup winning goal in 1993. It was a two to one goal and amazing. Give us a sense of what would happen at the Bell Center if for one of these games, you have to get deep, Madame Bellevue carried the torch in. What would happen in that? I think the place would explode.

I think the roof would explode. I think that she has had a significant of an impact and the ambassadorship of our husband, the great Mr. Jean-Bilevo. And listen, I'm talking, I grew up a Quebec Nordiques fan, but Jean-Bilevo was a Quebec haste before, right? Like he grew up in Quebec and probably would not have left. Quebec, and if they had an NHL team back in the days,

But even my dad, when we would talk about Mr. Belvo, he never said Jean Belivo. He always said Mr. Belable. That's how respect we all had for Mr. Belvo. And then after, obviously, with him and Mrs. Belvoir, but the roof would come right off the bell center. And I get, like, when you had, you know, you have all these legends carrying the torch in. I got to play a game in the Montreal Forum with the Buffalo Sabres. That was 18 years old, the last year of the forum, January of 96. And I got to go in to a regular season game that we won.

And it was Seymour Knox, the owner of the franchise in Buffalo, his last trip to Montreal. He passed away just a few months later. Like, I still have goosebumps when I talk about that trip to the Montreal Forum. So I respect it. I love the tradition. but if Mrs. Belvo came out with the torch and came through, I don't care that she's not a player. I don't care.

The place would absolutely go bananas. And there would be tears. Like that's the thing too. It would be a celebration. There would not be a dry eye in the place. I would see P.K. Suban and Madame Belivot go together holding the torch. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah.

It would be incredible. And now P.K. just finished his 10 million. dollar pledge to the hospital and all that like just that would be amazing those two together would be theater just the goosebumps about all of it okay uh game four is on the horizon okay enough of this i'm gonna start crying thinking about the thinking about the belavow family uh marty this is great uh great set by the way those those beersords you can probably put on eBay for like a few thousand dollars right now they've become such incredible collectors i have thanks as always we just showed a clip on our show of jessie pagula she's at the rome

Oh, where is she? Okay, yeah. She's in Rome. She was in the, she won the first set today. I don't know where she's at right now. But funny enough, on Friday, they brought beer sabers to the tennis channel set. And she drank out of a beer, saber, actual beer. And then what does she do the next match?

She goes six love, six love, our first double bagel of her career. So the beer sabers, big for her as well. There you go. A new tradition is born in Buffalo. Let's keep it rocking. Looking forward to game four. Marty, thanks so much for this. Always good.

Thanks for putting on two hats on this one as well. That's not the easiest thing to do. Often it's just like this. Hello, fellow kids. All right. Well done, Marty. We'll talk soon. Thanks, pal.

Thanks. That's so good.