Breaking down his strategies for the Habs to beat the Leafs:
1) Have Weber & Chiarot take advantage of the fact the rule book is enforced even less than usual in the playoffs and cross-check the **** out of Matthews & Marner, and have Edmontonson & Anderson do the same to Tavares & Nylander.
Well, yeah, sure. Counting on being able to do anything short of murder to the Leafs stars in the playoffs and not get called for it is always a sound strategy. If that's the way they want to go, Foligno, Hyman, Simmonds, Thornton, Muzzin & Bogosian (if he plays) are all large humans that can play that kind of game to varying degrees too.
2) Have Carey Price miraculously transform back into Jesus Price.
For this to be a real difference-maker, they need Campbell to play considerably less well than he has in the regular season. Or they need the Leafs to turn to Freddie Andersen.
And the chances seem slim that Jesus Price will return again.
3) Play at a "higher pace" than the Leafs because they roll their lines pretty evenly.
We haven't really seen any indication that the guys on our top two lines are dragging their asses towards the end of the game because they're playing first line minutes. And if one of those lines isn't going as well or is wearing down, you can lean harder on the other one.
Plus...I like our third or fourth lines way better than theirs, and going by this theory our third and fourth lines should be able to play at an even higher pace because they'll be playing less than Montreal's third and fourth lines?
4) Give the top-4 on D most of the ice-time, because the third pair sucks.
Ok, that doesn't seem good.
5) Brendan Gallagher has magic leaderbeans, since the Habs were 17-9-9 with him and 7-12-1 without him.
Gallagher's a good player, no doubt. But I'd bet the coaching change and Jake Allen's horrible April & May had more to do with the change in the team's fortunes than Brendan Gallagher's absence did.