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Canadiens Postgame

Canadiens Comeback Effort Cut Short By Ovechkin Dominance

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montreal canadiens washington capitals

The Montreal Canadiens were in Washington on Monday, facing the Capitals in Game One of their first-round playoff series.

As the eight seed, the Habs were in for a very difficult match-up, especially when you consider the Caps are the top team in the Eastern Conference, but if we’re being perfectly honest, few realistically expected the Canadiens to qualify for the playoffs in the first place.

In other words, this should serve as crucial experience for a team that is not quite done with their rebuild.

Montreal pushed the game to overtime, but a second goal from Alex Ovechkin secured a 3-2 win for the Capitals.

Let’s dive into the highlights!

Intensity Abound

The Capitals set the tone early with their physical play. The Canadiens are the team that threw the most hits during the regular season, almost five more per game than the Capitals, but they were losing the war of attrition in the first period.

More than anything, the Canadiens were reacting to every play, which led to many high-danger scoring chances for the Capitals, however, Samuel Montembeault stood tall, invoking memories of Jaroslav Halak in the process.

But all good things come to an end, such as Montembeault’s shutout effort, for example.

The Capitals took advantage of a first-period powerplay to open the scoring, and as you’d expect, it was Ovechkin who broke the ice in the series.

A Crack In The Foundation

Despite the criticism send Montembeault’s way this season, he does rank among some of the best goalies in the NHL from a statistical perspective. If there was one issue that continues to plague him is his lack of rebound control. The issue did not come to the forefront in the first period, but Anthony Beauvillier took advantage of a rebound to give the home team a well-deserved 2-0 lead

You’d be hard-pressed to argue Montembeault was entirely at fault for the goal against, especially since both Jayden Struble and Lane Hutson could have done a much better job covering Beauvillier.

Reality Check

The Capitals were clearly the best team after 40 minutes. The Habs did a much better job in the second period, cutting the number of allowed chances in half while generating a few of their own, a noted improvement compared to the first period.

But we also have to be realistic here.

The Capitals are a Stanley Cup contending team, while the Habs are dipping their toes in the icy waters of playoff hockey for the first time in a few years.

I will give the Habs credit for doing a decent job defending the rush. That’s where Washington does most of its damage, and where Montreal struggled during the regular season. The Capitals were still allowed to gain a lot of speed in the neutral zone, but the defensive pairings closed the gap a lot better than usual, which limited the chances off the rush.

Playing the puck is tempting in that situation, but that’s where things go awry. You have to play the body, as evidenced by David Savard midway through the second period. Keep close, limit shooting time, and then quickly close any gap that develops is the only way to mitigate the damage from a team like the Capitals.

The one play that really stood out from a negative standpoint was late in the second period, when Nick Suzuki was mauled by three Capitals players after a whistle. No one quickly made their way to defend their captain, and that’s far from an encouraging sign. Suzuki puts everything on the line for his players, and you’d expect them to return the favour.

The Canadiens could make life a little easier on their players by adding more physical elements to the mix (Ahem, Arber Xhekaj), however, team toughness is just that, a situation that’s built on the hard work of several players, not just one tough guy.

Xhekaj or not, the Montreal Canadiens can do a much better job in physical battles.

The Referee Situation

Many fans were up in arms about some of the borderline plays from the Capitals that would have been penalties in the regular season. The hit by Ryan Leonard on Ivan Demidov was a clear miss from the officials, as was the early cross-check to Brendan Gallagher’s face, but such is life in the playoffs.

The referees didn’t do the Habs any favours, but it’s very hard to blame everything on the zebras when you generate very few quality scoring chances, even more so when you’re getting shutout after 50 minutes of play.

Cole Goal

Even though Montreal generated almost no second-chance scoring opportunities, forward Cole Caufield took advantage of a few good bounces to finally put the Habs on the board.

It’s the same theory as a rebound when you consider the situation. The reason rebound goals are so frequent is that the goaltender is not set. In this case, Thompson was not set due to the several deflections that occurred before the puck landed on Caufield’s stick.

There was no hesitation from Caufield, unlike many of his teammates that had open shooting lanes earlier in the game.

O Captain

If there was one player you’d expect to respond with a huge goal at the biggest moment of the game, it would have to be Suzuki.

And as per tradition, the Montreal Canadiens captain led the charge when his team needed it most.

It’s a little ironic that Suzuki showed fantastic patience prior to scoring the game-tying goal, especially since I just finished discussing the importance of taking quick shots, but every situation is a little different, and I have no issues bowing to Suzuki’s cerebral approach to the game.

If Suzuki had immediately taken a shot, like most players in the league, the Capitals would have won in regulation.

Remember how we identified the Suzuki vs. Dubois match-up as one of the most important details of this series? Well, let’s just say Suzuki and friends dominated the first go around.

They controlled almost 80 percent of the shots, high-danger scoring chances, and expected goals at 5v5.

In other words, Dubois was left in Suzuki’s dust during the first 60 minutes of the series.

Ovi-time

By the time the overtime period started, the Habs had done a great job finding their legs, but experience tends to win out versus youthful exuberance, at least in the first few meetings, and that’s why no one should be surprised that Ovechkin ended the game by scoring a crucial overtime goal in the playoffs.

Game Two of the Montreal Canadiens – Washington Capitals series takes place on Wednesday. The puck drop is scheduled for 7 pm ET. All Montreal Canadiens statistics are 5v5 unless otherwise noted, via Natural Stat Trick.

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