Stanley Cup Final Games 1-3 Breakdown and The Shocking Vegas Decision (Show 10)

Sean is here to break down games 1-3 of the Stanley Cup Final. Is this the best start to a Final ever? Which team's psyche is in the best shape? Is there a goalie controversy for Carolina? Then he talks about his predictions for the remainder of the series in the Doggy Bag segment. It's Biscuit Breakdown! Consider yourself served!

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Music by Inplusmusic and Alex Grohl

Transcript

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It's time for biscuit breakdown, where hockey is the only thing on the menu. And welcome back, everybody, whoever you root for, wherever you live, whenever it is, it's hockey time. Welcome back to Biscuit Breakdown. I'm your host, Sean, and we are in the heart of the Stanley Cup final, and man, oh man, has it been absolutely bunkers. Before we get into all that, be sure to follow me wherever you get your podcasts. Um hit that subscribe button, send it to a hockey friend in need, help me out, give me a five star rating and review. Thank you to all the people that have already done so. Um if you'd like to follow me on Instagram, I am biscuitbreakdown, um, Twitter, Biscuit Breakdown without the O. Or you can send me an email, biscuitbreakdownpod at gmail.com. I would be very interested to hear from all of you relating to the Stanley Cup final or summer hockey news regarding free agency trades, uh mock trades, anything you want to send in, that would be fun to talk about. I will be glad to discuss it here on the show. Thank you very much. Alright, it's time to get into our fresh out the oven segment. You hear that bell ringing, the oven is going off, and the biscuits are fresh from the oven, and there's a lot to talk about. Um game one, two, and three are officially in the books, and they have been crazy, as I was just saying. It started with an absolute bang in game one as Nikolai Ehlers scores for the Carolina Hurricanes only twenty-five seconds in to game one, and the roof was officially blown off. Everybody's going nuts. Carolina means business. Vegas gets punched in the mouth as soon as the bell rings, essentially, and uh we were off and running. And then he scored again about 12 minutes later to make it 2-0 Carolina, and uh did Carolina win that game? No. They had the two-goal lead, and uh it turned into a crazy game. Vegas scored the next three goals after that, and then Carolina ties it up on a nice shot by Jordan Stahl, their captain at three, and he scored um I think it was sixteen years or seventeen years apart from his latest Stanley Cup Finals goal. He scored a goal in the 2009 Stanley Cup final with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and here he is back in the final, seventeen years later, and he gets a goal in the final to set the record for the longest streak in between Stanley Cup final goals, so that was pretty impressive. And then Vegas makes it four to three, but Carolina still wasn't dead yet. Shane Gostaspeer ties it up at four with eight minutes left in the game, and then with only three minutes left in the game, a brilliant behind the back pass by Colton Sissens sets up Tomash Hurdle in the slot who makes no mistake and buries it, and puts Vegas up five to four, and they were able to hold on to win on an excuse me shot block by Mitch Marner, who some people have been debating was he trying to get out of the way, was he actually trying to block it? Well, he blocked it with the shin pad and it fired into the corner, um, and his whole team was congratulating him at the end because it looked like he prevented a shot from being on net, and Vegas rolls on to a 1-0 lead after winning that game 5-4. And I also saw a crazy stat like saying that the team that wins game one of the final wins the series 77% of the time. I thought that was pretty wild. Uh didn't think the number would be that high. I thought it would maybe be in the 60s, but we'll see if that proves true. And then on to game two, it was Vegas getting out to a 2-0 lead on two goals by Brett Howden, who's been red hot lighting the lamp these playoffs. But did they win the game? No. So the past two games, game one and two, the team that got the 2-0 lead did not end up winning the game. Carolina stormed back and tied it at 2, and then the game went into overtime. They get a power play in overtime, and Seth Jarvis, one of their young stud wingers, hits a one timer into the back of the net on the power play to tie the series at one and give the Hurricanes a split at home, a much needed split at home. They could not afford to go down two games to none and then hit the road for Vegas, hoping to win two there because that's probably not going to work out. So they got the much needed split, and they were off to Vegas with a 1-1 tie, feeling much more relieved. And then bring on game three, which was another loony bin, loony tune affair. It was all Vegas for the first two periods. The first period was one of the most boring periods I ever watched, especially for a Stanley Cup final. The teams were both playing so defensively that no one could get a shot on net. It was boring as hell, and honestly, quite lame. But then second period comes around and Vegas just catches absolute fire. They score four goals, three of which were from Mitch Marner, who is the newest Golden Knight. Um, you know, we've talked about him on this show. He signed the eight-year deal, he's finally out of Toronto, he's feeling good, he's feeling relaxed, he's not feeling all the pressure, all the hatred from the fans for failing in the playoffs. He's got good um surrounding players, so he's um excelling, basically. And he benefited from a little bit of a well, not a little bit, he benefited from a major blunder from the Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Sean Walker, who really burnt the biscuit. Um he was trying to prevent the puck from going towards uh his netminder, Freddie Anderson, but what he did was basically redirect the puck right into the net past his goalie. Uh not gonna win any sort of brownie points with the netminder or his teammates or coaches or Carolina fans. Now, obviously he didn't mean to do it, but he just had a little bit of a brain fart and did not deflect it where he wanted it to go, or he either should have let it go completely, or I don't know. What he did was the complete opposite of what he wanted, and the puck goes into the net. Mitch Marner gets credited with the goal because he was the last Vegas golden knight to touch it, and he was sending it towards the net, but it would have missed. Sean Walker made sure that it did not miss, and uh Vegas was feeling it. They were up four to nothing heading into the third period, and guess what? They almost lost the game. And it would have been the first time in a hundred and twenty-nine scenarios that a team was able to come back from a four-goal deficit and win in a Stanley Cup final game. So basically, Carolina pulled a rabbit out of their ass like a Vegas magician and was able to score four goals in the third period because the Golden Knights went to sleep. They basically thought the game was over, they started to sit back, they're like, Oh yeah, we got this in the bag. This game is history, we're going up two games to one in the series, we're feeling good. And the credit to the Hurricanes, they never gave up. They scored three goals in a 39 second span, which is basically unheard of in an NHL game, especially a playoff game, but they basically had Vegas not knowing whether they should eat a piece of broccoli or send a postcard. Their minds were scrambled eggs at that point. So all of a sudden it's four to four, and Vegas is like, oh man, what are we gonna do? How are we ever gonna be able to win this game? They had no momentum. They were playing like a bunch of idiots, basically, and all of a sudden it's overtime. And in overtime, anything can happen a strange bounce, a lucky break, and Carolina is six and oh heading into overtime. So they could not have been feeling any worse. Somehow they found their game in overtime, and both teams were playing well because they knew that they were only one shot away from grabbing a victory and taking a two to one series lead. And so no one scored in the first overtime, and it heads to double overtime. It's getting real serious, and the bodies are getting tired, and you know that whoever is gonna lose this game is gonna have a huge emotional letdown, which can affect their psyche heading into the next game. And so in double overtime, it was Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore scoring a lucky goal. He pulled that slot machine and got 777 as he banked the shot off of the end boards, and then it hits the goalie, Brandon Busie, and banks into the net. Now, you might have noticed I just mentioned Brandon Bussey, and you might be saying, Who the hell is Brandon Bussey? Well, at the start of the third period in game three, coach for the Carolina Hurricanes, Rod Brendemore, he did the old goalie switcheroo to try to wake up his team, and guess what? It actually did work. And also it had another effect that I think he was going for as well. He was saying, Well, it's 4-0. I'm gonna rest my starting goalie because this game is probably uh screwed, and I'll give my backup a little bit of action and rest my starter, and then all of a sudden his team made a miraculous comeback, and Brandon Bussies in the net trying to hold down the fort and help the Hurricanes win. He played well, but ultimately they did lose in double overtime. Now, I will tell you this Carolina can definitely handle this loss better than Vegas because Carolina was down four to nothing heading into the third period of this game, and if it were not for a complete and utter shitting of the pants by Vegas over a 39 second span, they would have lost this game in regulation and it would have been a much more devastating blow to their psyche considering that they got completely dominated on defense, but that wasn't the case. They made the miraculous comeback and they ultimately lost in double overtime. So I feel like for them, they can spin this psychologically and say to themselves, you know what, we played like dog shit the first two periods. We didn't really deserve to win that game anyway. We lost, let's compartmentalize it, let's focus on game four, let's rest up these two days, and let's go out there and tie the series and head back to Carolina. Now, if Vegas were to have lost that game the other night, I feel like that would have been completely devastating to their psyche because they had the lead in game two, they ultimately lost it in overtime, they had a major lead here in game three, and they almost blew that, which would have been a historic collapse of the likes that no team has ever done before, and they would have been sitting there saying, Oh my god, we could literally be up three games to none in this series, but now we're down two games to one. So thank God for them that they pulled out the victory in double overtime because if they had lost, I think they may have lost and blown the series. And so now we sit here waiting for game four with Vegas leading the series two games to one. The last few things that I want to say before we get into the doggy bag predictions segment is there are some people that are saying that Carolina is potentially in a goalie controversy right now, considering the fact that they pulled Freddie Anderson at the end of the second period in game three, and Brandon Bussey played the third, he played the overtime, he played the double overtime, and I think that is all just BS. I don't think there should be a goalie controversy. I don't think Rod Brindmore should um bench Freddie Anderson. He's been playing really well these playoffs. Sure, um he didn't play that great in game three, giving up four goals, they weren't all his fault, and you really got to look at the team in front of him. So I think you should stick with your guy, stay with your starter, because otherwise you are going to um mentally destroy him by benching him, and then all of a sudden you're putting in this rookie that did play well this year, but the rookie will find himself starting game four of the Stanley Cup final. He might be nervous, he might play like crap, and then what are you gonna do? You're gonna look down to the end of the bench and say, Hey Freddie, um actually we're gonna put you back in. We need you now, man. We need you. You're gonna throw him in and expect him to just be able to turn it back on? I don't think so. Um if it were me, coaching the Hurricanes, I would stick with Freddie Anderson. I wouldn't overthink it, because if in game four Anderson sucks again, maybe lets in one or two shaky goals, then you pull them and say, you know what, kid, you're in, you're gonna be the hero. You played well at the end of um, you know, game three, you kept us in it, you allowed us to make that major comeback. Now is your time to shine. Go out and save our bacon again. So we'll see what happens there. It will definitely be interesting. Um two quick things to shout out about Vegas. Shout out to Cole Smith for setting the Stanley Cup record for a Stanley Cup final game with 14 hits. Dude was out there throwing the body left and right, fourteen hits is now the all-time record for the most hits in one Stanley Cup final game. Um ice bags for that guy and for anyone that he was running into. And last but not least, it was reported today that Vegas hosted an open practice before game four, and I think that is incredibly stupid. Are you kidding me? An open practice, packed house, fans going crazy. What the hell was Coach John Tortorella thinking? The guy is anti-media, he gets fined, he gets a draft pick taken away from the Golden Knights um after they beat the V the uh Anaheim Ducks in game six back in the um what was it, the second round. He didn't want to talk to the media, um, and now all of a sudden he's just allowing the fans in on a practice before game four of the Stanley Cup final makes absolutely zero sense because you know, I feel like you're putting the cart before the horse, you're getting the players all excited a little bit, uh, they don't need that, they need to be mentally focused. Um, and also if you're practicing in front of fans, are you really gonna practice your power play and your penalty kill? Because that's a little bit, you know, secretive stuff, and you're just gonna allow them to see that. There could be Hurricanes fans that have snuck in, and you got Carolina spies, you know, taking notes on what they're doing and then reporting it back to the team. You know, there's videos, there's photos, who's practicing with who as far as lines and line combinations, and what the fuck are you thinking, John Tortorella? I really want to know. Um never in my right mind would I've assumed any team would be having an open practice in the Stanley Cup final, let alone John Tortorella. That really blew my mind today. Alright, it's time to change it up and move into our doggy bag prediction segment. Some things that you can leave here with, take home with you, and gobble on later. Alright, we are going to stick with our prediction of Vegas winning the Stanley Cup in game six. I still think that will happen. It's still possible for that to happen at time of recording, with Vegas being up two games to one heading into game four. So we'll see if I am correct there. I am also going to add to my prediction. Um I forget if I said it last show, honestly, but I think Mitch Marner will win the con Smythe. I feel like it's his to lose. He's leading the playoffs in points. He scored a hat trick in game three the other night in a span of six minutes and ten seconds, which set the record for fastest hat trick in a Stanley Cup final game. He is just completely rubbing it in the face of all of the Maple Leaps fans. Um the fact that he is on the Golden Knights, I'm sure they are just having a lot of sleepless nights in Toronto right now. So I think Mitch Marner will secure the Conn Smythe, the most valuable player in the playoffs. Um maybe even if Vegas loses, could he still be the con Smythe like Connor McDavid was a couple years ago when they lost to the Florida Panthers? Um McDavid in 2024 was absolutely bananas that postseason and still received the MVP despite the Oilers' loss in game seven to the Panthers. But anyway, um my other prediction was that I think the last goal of the series will be scored by Vegas Golden Knights forward William Carlson on an empty netter in game six, which will send the Vegas Golden Knights and their organization and all the fans and attendants and everyone around Vegas into a pure party paradise. So those are my predictions. Sticking with Vegas and six, Mitch Marner winning the con Smythe, and somehow, some way, William Carlson will score the last goal of the series on an empty netter. Thank you for tuning in to Biscuit Breakdown. Um be sure to send this show to a hockey friend in need. There's a lot of hockey shows out there, and um I think there's room for one more, so send it to a friend, a coworker, a colleague, um, a family member, anybody that you know that would enjoy hockey, that would enjoy this show, and I would sincerely appreciate it. Be sure to follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. Um if you could rate five stars and leave a review, I would really appreciate it. You can find me on Instagram at Biscuit Breakdown, Twitter, Biscuit Breakdown without the O, and Gmail biscuitbreakdownpod at gmail.com. This has been Biscuit Breakdown. Consider yourself served.