Subscribe
Follow Us
The Washington Capitals have the greatest goal scorer in the history of the game in Alex Ovechkin and they dominated the Eastern Conference this season. The Montreal Canadiens made the playoffs as the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference when they won their final game of the regular season.
On its face, this is a series that the Washington Capitals should win in four or five games. They have been a well-coached and opportunistic team under Spencer Carbery all season. The Canadiens can't match the Capitals in depth or talent.
But don't assume that Washington will cruise into the second round of the playoffs. It was just two years ago that the Boston Bruins set the NHL regular-season record for wins and points and came up against the 8th-seeded Florida Panthers. Florida only made the playoffs that season because the Pittsburgh Penguins lost their last game of the season at home to the Chicago Blackhawks — the team with the worst record in the league.
Florida lost three of the first four games of the series, but won the last three to upset the Bruins. Two of those victories came in overtime with Carter Verhaeghe beating Jeremy Swayman on TD Garden ice with the series-deciding goal.
If Florida could beat a record-setting Boston team, who is to say that the Habs can't upset the Capitals?
Canadiens will not be intimidated
The Canadiens may have struggled in the final 10 days of the season before they finally clinched their playoff position, but this team played extremely well after the 4 Nations Face-Off for head coach Marty St. Louis. They have the offensive talent to take the action to the favored Capitals.
The Canadiens have three young stars at the top of their statistical leaders who are capable of playing very well against the Capitals and throughout the playoffs.
Nick Suzuki has become a marvelous player who led the Habs in scoring with 30 goals and 59 assists for 89 points. He also finished with a plus-19 rating and he connected on 17.4 percent of his shots.
Cole Caufield has become a legitimate sniper on right wing. He scored 37 goals and 33 assists while nailing 10 power play goals. Young defenseman Lane Hutson is a premier puck carrier and a dynamic performer. He scored 8 goals and set an NHL record for most assists by a rookie defensemen with 60.
Powerful winger Patrick Laine gave the team a jolt when he came back from an injury. He scored 20 goals and 13 assists in 52 games, and 15 of his tallies came on the power play.
Caps need much more than Ovechkin to succeed
The brilliant Ovechkin scored 44 goals and was clearly motivated all season by his chance to become the league's No. 1 goal scorer. Now that he has passed Wayne Gretzky and gotten his name to the top of the record book, it's all about winning the Stanley Cup for the second time in his career.
He cannot carry the Capitals on his back. He will need plenty of help from Dylan Strome, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Tom Wilson and Alexei Protas. Strome led the Capitals in scoring with 82 points, but he is not a superstar. Can he step up into a dynamic role in the playoffs?
Wilson has the strength and desire to take over a game and he is coming off a 33-goal season. Much of his game is intimidation, but it is doubtful that the Canadiens are afraid of him.
Look for Montreal to play solid defense on Ovechkin and Strome and stand up to Wilson
Upstart Canadiens pull off the upset
There may be a game where the Capitals find their offense and put some distance between themselves and the Canadiens, but they won't be able to do it throughout the entire best-of-7 series. Washington has struggled down the stretch with a 4-7-1 record and they will find that it's not so easy to turn it on again.
Washington has had a great regular season but dialed it down in the final weeks of the season. Meanwhile, the Canadiens have been fighting for their lives throughout the second half of the season. They will pull off the upset and end Washington's season.
