Importance of sticking to a game plan on display in Eastern Conference Final

The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2025-26 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher.

In this edition, Dan Bylsma, former coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Buffalo Sabres and Seattle Kraken and assistant with the New York Islanders and Detroit Red Wings breaks down how the Carolina Hurricanes and Montreal Canadiens will approach Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final at Bell Centre on Monday (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, HBO Max).

Looking ahead to Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final with the best-of-7 series tied 1-1, I don’t think the Carolina Hurricanes or the Montreal Canadiens will want to change much from how they played in Game 2 on Saturday, which Carolina won 3-2 in overtime.

The Hurricanes play a high-pressure offense and a high-pressure defense, and the great thing is they're capable of doing it consistently for 82 regular-season games and into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They've had a ton of success playing that way.

But you can counter a high-pressure offense and high-pressure defense if you can get pucks by them, and that leads to good chances. That’s what happened in the Canadiens’ 6-2 win in Game 1.

The Hurricanes were off a little bit in their high-pressure defense, and a little bit late stepping up in the neutral zone, and when you are a little bit late, that can produce high-quality offensive chances against.

Whether that was from Carolina being off for 11 days and just being a little late on its pressure, I think part of it was Montreal being ready for it and knowing where the opportunities were going to come from.

Juraj Slafkovsky’s breakaway goal was a set breakout, and the Hurricanes were a little late on their pressure from the defensemen and tipped it to Nick Suzuki in the middle of the ice and he laid it for Slafkovsky, who had late speed. His late speed was not covered by the forwards, and it’s a breakaway.

The Canadiens had numerous chances like that and they capitalized, and that put the Hurricanes behind the eight ball in the first period in Game 1.

In Game 2, the Hurricanes got back to the game they've played for years of being a pressure offensive team, a pressure checking team, a pressure defensive team and did a better job of it. That's why the end of the game was a little bit scary.

It had the ring of Game 7s that the Canadiens won in the first two rounds against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres. They were playing a bend-and-don't-break type of game and staying close and being opportunistic.

The Hurricanes were playing a really good game, got the lead, and when the Canadiens scored to tie it with seven minutes or so left, it was really important for them to get to overtime. Then, Nikolaj Ehlers’ overtime goal was an exact replica of how Montreal got opportunities against Carolina's defense.

It was a set breakout, a long play to underneath speed, unchecked Ehlers' speed, and he gets some time and space and scores.

Still, I don’t think the Canadiens played poorly in Game 2. They stayed on the game plan. They stayed with playing good defense, limiting a high-shot volume team to not as many opportunities in and around the net, and they were one shot away from winning that game and being up 2-0.

Carolina is a high-shot volume team, an offensive-zone team that can put a lot of pressure on you. Maybe all the shots aren't high probability, though, and coach Martin St. Louis has Montreal playing good five-man defense, protecting the house.

So, I would be confident in staying with that type of defense, staying with continually trying to generate those opportunities by playing north, playing behind their defense in the neutral zone to get the opportunities that are going to come. I could probably pick out five or six situations in Game 2 where Montreal had those opportunities. Maybe they didn't lead to a scoring chance, but the situations were there.

One thing that I would look at on video for Carolina is once it gets in the offensive zone and maintains possession of the puck, Montreal is going man-on-man defending. When you are playing man-on-man and the puck goes low to high, or the puck is possessed high, the defending players either are looking to front shots from the point or they're just watching the puck.

That means they’re not tagging a player; they're not holding onto a player. They're watching the puck, and the player behind them can get lost.

There was a chance in the first period, a quick play from the corner, and Jordan Staal had a break from the dot to the goal. He hit the post. That’s how to beat man-to-man; you beat your man away from the puck to the net.

Then, there were three or four other instances where a Carolina player was standing in and around the net, and the defender was 10-20 feet away. If the puck had gotten to that guy at the net, he's all alone.

I would show those clips to my team and say we have these opportunities to get the puck to the net or to the guy at the net for offense.

Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour made a good adjustment in Game 2 putting Staal’s line against the Canadiens' top line of Cole Caufield, Suzuki and Slafkofsky. That's a little tougher to do when you are on the road without the last change, though not impossible.

But it’s not a calling card of the Hurricanes for Rod to say, “I am going to go try to match Jordan on the road and make those adjustments and changes in game to try to do that." I think they feel really good about their team and that they all can play against Montreal's top line. 

Sebastian Aho’s line had been really good up to this point, maybe not in Game 1, but they're fully capable of playing against another team's top lines. So, I think Rod is going to feel comfortable with the way their team responded in Game 2.

A strength of the Hurricanes is how they play as a 20-man unit, how they play offense, how they play defense. I think Brind’Amour can reiterate it after Game 2 and say, "Here is X, Y, and Z why Game 1 didn't go well, why we were a little late, why were a little off. In Game 2, we were back on that, and we’ve just got to continue that now that the series is tied.”