The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Montreal Taking a 3-2 Lead, Game 6 on Saturday Night, and the Canadiens Goaltending

Episode Date: May 16, 2026

Marco D'Amico joins Jeff Marek to discuss the Montreal Canadiens taking a 3-2 series lead, the transformation of Jakub Dobes, the atmosphere in Montreal on Saturday night, and moreSHOUTOUT 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.

Marco, how are you, bud? Thanks so much for being on board. Please don't tell me that you enjoyed that. Oh, man. There's a whole history of tomato that we can get into, but this is a hockey podcast. But hang on. Hang on with the famous Sergio Mamezzo tomato sauce.

I don't know if he's still in business, but Sergio Memezzo's family used to make deep. He's not, ah, it's too bad. You know, John Bartley used to always bring me, when John was doing Montreal games, you'd always bring me me a messo tomato sauce. But okay, anyhow, we move along. Before he came on, as you just heard, I said,

the best place to be anywhere in the world on Saturday. If you're a hockey fan, the best place is going to be the Bell Center. It is a Saturday night. There is nothing like it. You know what happens to the city. You live there. It's so vibrant. And for a close-out game where everybody's in love with this hockey team,

there is going to be no better place on the face of the hockey world than the Bell Center, true or false. Like, set the scene. Yeah, definitely, again, I try to be as fair as possible because there are some barns out there. Like, Lenovo is fantastic for Carolina. Like, they are really loud. But the Montreal Canadiens, it's not even just the building. It's the seven blocks around the building and the sea of fans that you're going to see there.

There is going to be shots. I'm warning you right now. There's going to be shots of Centennial Plaza. there's going to be shots of Delamultang and the journeying areas. It will be packed. There will be no cars going. It will just be people and a sea of red. And there's nothing like it.

And then you transpose that energy into the building, knowing that they can close out the series and they have the momentum. And it's three games out of four where they score five or more. Yeah, there's a lot of momentum going into this. And this team has been starved. or at least the fan base has been starved for a nice lengthy playoff run that they could all attend on a regular basis. I think 2021 was,

you know, a little bit of its own thing. This is the real deal. And I think they're ready to go. They're ready to go. Are they, by the way, speaking of it,

are they ever going to come clean about how many fans they put in the building during COVID? Are they ever going to like, I would look at the attendance and oh, man, if this is true, my aunt's my uncle, no chance.

Are they ever going to come clean about that one, Marko? do you think? Nope. Like most numbers in the city of Montreal, I doubt that they're ever going to come clean about them. Just floated. Just floated.

One of my favorite things of Montreal is the Tams. And if you've ever, I didn't know if they've started it yet, but if you've ever been, if you're watching a listing, it's one of the great experiences in Montreal. It's Sunday afternoons. It's going to probably have that same sort of spirit,

that party sort of vibe. But the thing about it, it's not just going to be like a couple of hours before the game. Think about Montreal's this all day. Like it's a full day because the closest thing you have to like Sunday football. Like that's Montreal.

And it is all day long for the Saturday night experience. Yeah, it's going to be a long weekend as well. So you know the families are going to come out. You know, I have a couple of my friends that are actually in town for stag parties. So the timing is actually kind of ridiculous. Oh, geez. There's all kinds of things happening. This is like the best time for playoffs.

And then you imagine that next week is the Canadian Grand Prix. So like this is the time to be in Montreal. And I, you know, there's a lot of excitement. There's a lot of anticipation. And, you know, the tailgating is going to probably start quite early. I don't know if it's going to be as early as some NFL games. Like I know that some of them started like 9 a.m. But it'll definitely be close to that because I know that there's going to be TV trucks

and journalists stationed out there probably as early as noon. We should mention as well, the Montreal Victoire up won nothing in their Walter Cup final as well. So everything coming up Montreal right now. Let me get to some hot buttons here. I was like many people who thought, Okay, Dobish is getting the hook. Again, and Marty deferred afterwards and said, look, I don't have much to do with the goaltenders.

Like, that's, ultimately, it is his decision. We all saw the presser after the game. But what did you think of the decision to keep him in there? Obviously, it comes out brilliant, but man, that one could have gone sideways. That one could have really gone sideways from Montreal. Yeah, it could have. And honestly, I don't blame anyone that was watching that game for thinking that maybe he should be, he should be yanked.

but at the same time, this is the goalie that brought you this far. And we saw last night at the end of the game with the flip-flopping of goaltenders can do, look at just Buffalo with Alex Lion and UPL. Like, now who do they go to in game six, right? Like there's that mystery where... They'll go to Lion. I would assume so.

I would assume so, but not a very confident go to Lion type thing. Whereas with Dobes, you knew that there was bounce back ability. Even if he let in another goal, you knew that it was going to be a battle for Buffalo to put in another one after that. And I said it on this show before, I'll say it again. You can potentially argue John Tortorella, but the hiring of Marco Marchiano as goalie coach

is perhaps the most clutch personnel change off ice than an organization has made this season. Well, describe what he's done too, because I'm one of the people, and there's a few that believe that goalie coaches, and we can start with a lair, both of them probably belong in the Hall of Fame. Like I do think that there needs to be some,

because you look at how the Allaire brothers completely, a lot of it is, of course, with Patrick Gua, completely changed how the position has played. Like, I don't know all other sports outside of hockey as well as I know hockey. But one thing I do know about hockey is no position has changed more profoundly for the better going back to the early 90s, early to mid-90s. and this is a sport that was played, you know, was going as far back, you know,

in Halifax in 1875, 1880, nothing has changed as profoundly as netminding. You go back and look at goalies in the 80s, in the 70s and the 60s, like, no disrespect, fellas. It was awful. It was terrible. Like, it took so long to figure out how to play the position

and the allaires were one of the first to crack the code. But what has, you know, what has happened with the goaltending in Montreal this year? Describe it. Well, I think there was, first of all, there was a difficulty in being able to find consistency in terms of who was going to play with the Montembo, that it would be Dobesh, that it be Fowler. And then I think there was also just kind of like a technical aspect where maybe a new message needed to be had. And Marco Marchiano was the goalie coach for the Laval Rock at the ABAHL farm team. He worked with both Jacob Dobesh and Jacob Fowler.

So on their technical aspects, on the mental aspects, and both of those goalie, thrived in the American Hockey League. That's why they got called up to Montreal when they did in respective seasons and went on runs. The only thing is, once the rigors of a full season start adding up, like it's one thing for a goalie to come in

and play five to six games. It's another thing entirely to play 15 to 20 to 25. And I think as that player moved up, so too did the preparation needs. And I don't think they were necessarily getting it with Eric Ramon or they weren't getting it to the optimal ability where he was able to pull the best out of his goaltenders.

Marchiano comes in, very familiar with his guys, knows how to push their buttons, knows how to get them to elevate, and has, I would say, a more optimized vision in terms of their structural technique. And you saw it with Jakub Dobesh, less aggressive in his movements, less emotionally involved.

Now he's chirping guys like it's a sport, you know? And specifically, when he comes to challenge players, he's now more aggressive as opposed to playing deeper into his neck. that affords him the ability to stop those pucks. He 6-5 takes up a lot of room. And it puts confidence in his defensive core to be able to play in front of him knowing that he's going to be there

to stop the odd mistake they make here or there. I've long maintained the two most difficult jobs in Canada. And it goes in this order. Number one, prime minister. Number two, starting net minder for the Montreal Canadians. There's the actual technical side of all of it too. but like the mental pressure of being the starting goal, especially when Montreal is good,

it's even more pressure because the expectation, you got a hat with like Ken Dryden's mask on it. Like you look at the history of, you know, net minders in Montreal and how they've changed. We just talked about Panetta a couple of seconds ago. Like the history of Net McCarray Price, of course, like one of the best of all. Like there's such a long, rich history of gold tending that no matter who's in there,

they're going to feel that weight. and that just adds more pressure onto the performance. How does Dobesh handle that in a close-out night here? Yeah, I mean, it's impressive because there were questions as to how he would handle pressure at the beginning of the season. And we remember that situation in New Jersey after that loss and overtime. Like he wasn't having it. But whereas now he's not letting the game get to him.

He's playing in his own little bubble. and he's taking it. He's almost playing mad in certain situations, which I think is a little bit more helpful to him. And he's really good at tuning out when he needs to tune out, but oftentimes we see goalies tune everything out. And I feel like what he's done is he's allowed more of that selective emotion. Whereas when the crowd is raining down cheers on him, he feeds off that.

But at the same time, when he's getting chirped left and right by the Josh Jones and the Zach Benson's or, you know, previous series, the Brandon Hagels and the Nick, Kita Kutjavs, he was just getting into that heat and just jumping in with them. And so I felt like although he hasn't blocked off his emotions entirely, he's compartmentalized them well so that he could utilize them in those pressure moments. And going into game six, you know, you think back to game six against Tampa Bay when they tried to close it out.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out. But that game was basically a shutout from both goalies until they got to overtime. So I have no doubt that he'll be able to elevate in that kind of a situation again. Now it's going to be up to the Canadians to store a goal. in front of them. Speaking of scoring goals, finally there is a number beside DeMidoff's name.

One. Big relief for him. Certainly big relief for everyone on the bench, everyone behind the bench, the fans in attendance. This is, I know it's only one goal and it's a power play goal, but nonetheless,

that was massive, right? The goal that, it's rare that the goal that makes 6-3 is a massive goal that could have repercussions for the following game. But we're talking about a guy that's been snake bit all playoffs long until the third period. Thoughts on to meet off here. Statement game. Statement game.

But we'll always look at these in kind of isolated formats. But I felt like he's really elevated in this playoffs, especially the last three games. It's been coming. You've seen it coming. You've seen him attack the open. you've seen him drive to the net. You know, the penalty he drew on Rasmus Dahlia was him driving to the net.

Jake Evans' goal was basically his, if the puck would have just slid a couple more inches, but he was able to tap it in anyway. It was the decision-making in his game. The skill has always been there. But what makes Ivan Damedov, to me, I guess, a little bit more of a unique hockey player, is he combines the skill of an all-world elite player

with the willingness to get his nose dirty of a third liner or a fourth liner. Like you really does mesh the two. And that full credit to Martin Saint-Louis, because he wasn't that kind of a dog, as you would say, at the start of the season. It's something that he slowly started to develop. And you see it now.

On his line, the last two, three games, it may have started with Alex Newark as the line driver, but it is now firmly Ivan Demidov as the line driver. And even on the power play, he was taking shots, he was going to the net, he knew exactly what he needed to do. The hesitancy was gone.

the willingness to get, you know, hit to make a play was there, and he fearlessly would go inside out to try and beat Buffalo to the inside and eventually be able to make some plays in front of UPL at the time or Alex Lyon. So if you're the Buffalo Sabres right now, like if you're Lindy Rough right now, you're telling your guys Saturday night, you need to, like we need to survive the first 10 minutes. The first 10 minutes, it's going to be, and I want to get to the torch here in a second, And it's going to be the torch.

It's going to be cold play. It's going to be the anthems. It's going to be that first 10 minutes and the crowd just going bonkers. So if you're the Buffalo Sabres, first thing you need to do is endure those first 10 minutes. So after that, if Buffalo is going to jump back into this thing and send it to a game 7, how do you beat Montreal at this point? So I's with the top line. You know, and that's if they don't make any lineup changes.

to begin with, but the, the tuck and Thompson combination has been playing way too periphery, way too periphery for me. And, you know, those are big boys, especially tuck. Tuck is one that loves to drive to the net off the rush. Thompson had that glorious breakaway chance where Dobesh was able to beat him, you know, to outweighed him. I would have liked to see him, or I guess Sabres fans would have liked to see him maybe get a little bit more elevation on that puck, especially with Dolbisch being on his stomach, but it is what it is. To me, they have to go back to basics. They have to drive pucks to the net.

They have to bring those pucks. They have to create chaos because, you know, Thompson, you may have four points in the series, but most of his points have come off acts of God off the stanchions or backboard pucks that have come to his stick with an empty net to shoot into, right? Like, you have to create your own offense. And whether that's changing it up, whether that's dropping Krebs down to the third line,

moving Benson up to their, line to get them going or vice versa with tuck and don't i think there needs to be some movement i mean costa helenus has been a fantastic add to this team since coming in i thought he was excellent the two games he played maybe it's moving thompson to the wing and putting helliness there like they have options but they got to get creative there because that top line is just not doing it in terms of being able to sustain offensive pressure and get to the high danger areas it seems to only be it seems to only be Benson and Don that can do that on regularity. Okay.

It's become a great riddle. It's become a great element here in the playoffs. Who's going to carry the torch? So, Ganey, Patrick Waugh, Larry Robinson, P.K. Sue, like, you can just keep going, right? Like, do we have...

Again, you know what I'm waiting for. Like, but Dan Belvoir does it. Like, forget it. It's over. That'll be the loudest. that we've heard since that like 23-minute ovation for Rocket at the forum. Any idea which direction they're going with on this one? Or who would you like to? Who would you like to see? Yeah.

Well, I think the criteria is it has to be a Stanley Cup winner, I think, is what it's been of late. If the criteria is beyond that, then I think the player that would blow the roof off the join is Carrie Price. Yeah. I think Carrie Price would take it all down because you have so many, there's there's just so it's it's a legitimate passing of the torch like it's just like here's a player whose contract is expiring in what seven weeks to yakub dovesh like here is the torch

you know hold it high um no pressure no let's put more pressure on the goal on the goalie here's carry price i mean listen the first interview i ever did with yakub dovesh he told me his favorite goalies were carry price and basilefski and the reason why you like carry price is because he was cool, common collective and always used to tell people to chill out. So if there's one guy that can come in with a torch and be like, you got this buddy, I think Kerry Price is the kind of guy that can give anybody confidence. That's remarkable. I still do wonder about Patrick.

I wonder about Larry Robinson. I mean, I love, like literally. I think if they go classic, yeah, they would go Patrick. Ganey, Bob Ganey is like. You know me. Ganey is, Ganey is the one I want. 23. 23.

the one I want. I still remember, like, it was one of the most unique things that I had ever seen in my life. We can pause on Ganey here really quickly. When Patrice Breezebaugh was getting killed by Montreal Canadiens fans, the turnovers and all that, and the Habs fans were not having it. And I've never seen, I'd never seen a general manager do this. Bob Ganey actually went out and said, if you're going to boo my guy, don't come. I've never heard a general manager say, don't come to the games. And then there's Bob Gainney, like how much he will stand up for his defense.

Like if you're going to, if you're going to boo, Patrice, uh, Breeze bot, don't come to the games. Like, wow. I've never heard a man of any team tell fans not to buy a ticket. Or if you have a ticket, don't come. Like that was like that's, but that's gaining, man. Like march to the beat of,

uh, of his own drummer. Um, all right, listen. Sat is fantastic. Saturday. It made a trophy for him. Um, Saturday's going to be fantastic. And the best thing about it too is, it's all eyes on Montreal on Saturday. Like the whole.

hockey world. It's the only game. Not splitting and nothing. Oh, we got to get to after it? No, the whole thing. Saturday night, 8 o'clock Eastern, can't wait for it. Marco, you're the best. Thanks, as always, for stopping by and spending time with me. I hope you're invoicing Zach at this point because you're on every time Montreal wins for good reason.

I'm good with just doing this for the fun of it, but thank you so much for having me, Jeff. Thank you, Zach. And obviously, the next guest you have on needs no introduction. He's absolutely fantastic and he's going to talk to you about more of the analytics that I try to during this segment. So thank you so much. Have yourselves a great day.