The Washington Capitals have defeated the Montreal Canadiens in five games. They advance to the second round, where they’ll face the Carolina Hurricanes. That’s going to be a bananas series, but first things first: Caps in 5 gang, sound off! Where you at?
Alex Ovechkin scored what might be the platonic ideal of a faceoff set play goal to make it 1-0. Jakub Chychrun received an airbending pass from Pierre-Luc Dubois to make it 2-0. In the second period, Tom Wilson won a net-front fight during a power-play to make it 3-0 after two periods.
Three minutes into the third, a freak bounce beat Logan Thompson, ending the shutout, credited to Emil Heineman. Brandon Duhaime got the empty-netter, and the Habs were done.
Caps win 4-1! The Washington Capitals have eliminated the Montreal Canadiens!
- Just seven short years since the Caps’ last playoff series win, in 2018, when, famously, Andre Burakovsky first saw boobs. Not much has changed since 2018, geologically speaking but not in any other way speaking.
- Clean is how everyone described Alex Ovechkin‘s first-period power-play goal. Dylan Strome won the faceoff cleanly, sent the puck to Ovechkin cleanly, Ovechkin’s shot was clean, and it beat Dobes cleanly. That goal was pristine. It belongs in a museum. The British are plotting to steal that goal already, probably.
- With four goals, Ovechkin is tied for the second most postseason goals by a 39-year-old. He’s played five games. Habs legend Jean Beliveau is the only geezer ahead of him. Beliveau scored six goals in 20 games, which is 15 more games than Ovi’s played so far. Need I remind you that this man had his entire leg amputated and replaced with a cadaver graft just a couple weeks ago.
- Pierre-Luc Dubois got busted for an unwise neutral-zone interference penalty on Ivan Demidov in the first period. Spencer Carbery was fuming. Nothing could temper that temper. Nothing… except – perhaps? The sickest pass of the whole series.
- PLD sees Chychrun rushing down so he slowly moves up from behind the goal line, drawing aggro from four Habs, including top-liner Cole Caufield, who lost a step to Chychrun. Beautiful. All is forgiven.
- There’s a pattern I noticed. In all of their wins, the Caps started games by commanding five-on-five play, but then slowly ceded control to the Habs. That sure as hell happened again as the Habs fought for their loffs-lives down three goals in the third period. The 2024-25 Canadiens were not, generally, a strong possession team. The 2024-25 Hurricanes are a puck-possession colossus. Buckle up.
- Russ Thaler said the Caps hadn’t clinched a series on home ice since 2015. I believe him. That must have been the Kuznetsov gay sev OTGWG to down the Islanders. That was a good one. That’s in the canon. Is this too?
- I won’t say if I think Jake Evans deserved the holding penalty he received for tying up with Andrew Mangiapane. What I will say is that it’s good he – one of Montreal’s premier PKers – wasn’t around when Tom Wilson and company raided the low slot for that goal.
- Aliaksei Protas played for the first time since April 4, when he suffered a skate-blade cut to his foot. Carbery put him on the fourth line, but that didn’t mean he was being eased back into action – he saw a lot of minutes against good players. His wasn’t the default line to counter Suzuki, but they did get one a big defensive-zone faceoff against them, and it went well.
- That fearsome Suzuki line with Slafkovsky and Caufield finally got split up about halfway into the third. I suppose Martin St Louis got desperate and needed to shake things up against some respectable counterplay.
- With Protas back, Taylor Raddysh got the healthy scratch. Unrelated to the scratch, Raddysh testified remotely as witness in the Team Canada sexual assault trial. The two things aren’t connected, but it would feel wrong not to mention something that important happening.
- Sure am glad Logan Thompson stayed healthy.
Great series, I’m told. Lots of people enjoyed it, I’m assured. Lots of passion and drama for fans to delight over, allegedly. For me, personally, Caps playoff hockey has become my private humiliation ritual, where I feel bad and sad for two and a half hours, punctuated briefly by half minutes of cheering at my television.
It’s clear now that the Capitals have broken me as a man. Obviously, they just delivered their best series performance since Caps Year, and I’m still thinking about how the Habs power play moves the puck. I don’t need this information anymore. It is no longer welcome.
For now, everything rules. If I just think about five-on-five play in the first two periods of four of the five games, they look like Cup Contenders, and they’re going to do great against Carolina. Oh god, that series. I’m so excited (lying, faking).
The NHL has the option now to do the evilest thing possible: start the Caps-Canes series before the rest of the first round finishes. If they do this, that’ll be the final straw. I will start disliking Gary Bettman. Instead, let’s chill, watch a bunch of non-Caps teams pummel each other, and enjoy a beautiful springtime.
