According to Marc Denis, Kirby Dach should stay; Corey Perry is out of line; and TVA Sports comes out on top

Maxime Truman
According to Marc Denis, Kirby Dach should stay; Corey Perry is out of line; and TVA Sports comes out on top
Credit: Getty Images

I think that if I ever run into Gary Bettman at La Cage, I'll take the opportunity to send him a message: games should never be played every three days during the NHL playoffs. It kills momentum and throws you off your rhythm…

Marc Denis: Kirby Dach in the lineup
Marc Denis may no longer be analyzing the Habs' games on RDS (during the playoffs), but that doesn't mean he's on vacation.

This morning on TSN 690, Denis shared a take that won't be universally agreed upon. In his view, Martin St-Louis shouldn't change his lineup.

“Since it's the first home game, I'm totally comfortable with keeping the same lineup. I wouldn't change my lineup (if I were the coach). But that's just me, my opinion.” – Marc Denis

In short, according to Marc Denis, Kirby Dach deserves another chance to prove he has what it takes to help the Habs take a 2-1 lead in the series, even though he made a big mistake in overtime. Notably because of the change… and the fact that the team could rally around Dach following the comments he received on social media.

Yes, replacing Dach and Kapanen with Gallagher and Veleno could make sense, and yes, Marc Denis understands that these options could be logical, but he wouldn't make any changes for Game 3 if he were in charge.

We won't agree on that one, Marc, even though rallying around Dach could bring the team even closer together.

Corey Perry, the outlier

Renaud Lavoie and Jean-Charles Lajoie discussed the Canadiens–Lightning
series from various angles on TVA Sports (JiC
).

One of those angles caught my attention this morning while watching the clip isolated by the folks at TVA Sports: according to Renaud Lavoie, referees don't apply the same standards depending on the identity of the player making the play.

“Corey Perry—if we put a camera on him, every time he's on the ice, he does something illegal […] there are double standards in this league: Nikita Kucherov pretended to take a slap shot at the linesman because he wasn't happy […] that's the danger. The Lightning are so good at ‘faking it' that the officials can't keep up and don't want to raise their arms every time.” – Renaud Lavoie

On one hand, I agree with Renaud: the officiating hasn't been perfect since the start of the series. However, the Canadiens have had their share of power plays. If they had capitalized on the one awarded late in the third period on Tuesday, we wouldn't be talking about the referees this morning.

As for Perry, it would be fun if he took it out on someone other than Lane Hutson or Alexandre Carrier…

Renaud vs. Niquet, my two cents
We saw Olivier Niquet mock TVA Sports and its numerous commercials earlier this week on Radio-Canada…

 

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A post shared by Olivier Niquet (@oniquet)

Then, we saw Renaud Lavoie give him a taste of his own medicine yesterday at noon on X.

Which side am I on? Both!

Yes, there are too many commercials on TVA Sports… but I don't think it was up to someone (very) well-paid by our state-owned corporation (fully subsidized by our taxes) to point that out. Much less to laugh at it condescendingly.

Niquet is privileged to be able to make a living from such segments paid for by the public, and should have shown a little restraint regarding the difficulty of making a private, traditional sports TV channel profitable in the economic reality of Quebec in our digital age.

That's it.

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