Caps 5, Montreal Canadiens 1
The Caps went to Montreal searching for the team that tore its way through the NHL’s regular season. It didn’t take long for them to find it. Scoring four times in the second period, including a shorthanded goal from forward Boyd Gordon, Washington then watched as the Canadiens imploded in frustration. It all added up to a thorough 5-1 victory at Bell Centre on Monday night and a 2-1 lead in this Stanley Cup playoffs first-round series.
Gordon, a healthy scratch in Game 2 on Saturday night at Verizon Center, was back in the lineup at center on Monday. With Montreal on the power play early in the second period, he and teammate Mike Knuble took off up ice for a shorthanded rush. Gordon poked his own rebound past Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak for the game’s first goal just 66 seconds into the period and set the stage for the 24-year-old netminder’s departure. It was Gordon’s first shorthanded goal since Dec. 30, 2008 and his first playoff goal in 23 career games. Brooks Laich beat Halak at 4:42 of the period and linemate Eric Fehr added another less than four minutes later. That gave Washington a 3-0 lead and brought Montreal goalie Carey Price into the game.
By the end of the period Alex Ovechkin had scored his second goal of the series and Canadiens forward Tomas Plekanec took an interference penalty and then was hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct call. Montreal put a little pressure on early in the third period when Plekanec scored on the power play at 2:25 to cut the lead to 4-1. But the Canadiens couldn’t convert on two subsequent power plays and a Matt Bradley tally with 45 seconds left finished them.
“We have 15 minutes to enjoy it and then forget it,” Ovechkin told reporters in Montreal afterwards.
The lineup changes were the big story. Bruce Boudreau chose rookie goalie Semyon Varlamov over Jose Theodore, who was pulled two shots into Saturday’s Game 2 win. Varlamov finished with 26 saves, including a few biggies in the first period as Montreal’s speed starting giving the Caps problems. He is now 3-0 in his career at Bell Centre with a 1.63 goals-against average and a .940 save percentage. Gordon had played well in Game 1 before sitting on Saturday. It’ll be tough to take him out again after that performance. Not only the goal, but winning his first 10 face-offs and finishing the night 13-for-15 in the circle. He and teammates Eric Belanger and David Steckel — the healthy scratch tonight — are 69-for-95 on combined face-offs (72.6%) in three games. The third line also shined with goals from Fehr and Laich — dropped down a notch from his normal spot on the second line. Brendan Morrison, a scratch in Game 1, moved down to center that line and looked dangerous, too. He had one assist.
The Caps continue to make life difficult for the Montreal goalies — plural this time after Halak was pulled. Just like in his old Philadelphia Flyers days, Knuble was a constant presence in front of the net. He was right with Gordon on that first goal and was even whistled for a goalie interference penalty in the third period. Fehr did a pretty nice Knuble imitation on Laich’s goal, standing in front of the net and blocking Halak’s view. Later, he drove the net hard and slammed home a rebound for the goal that drove Halak from the game. Fehr plays out of his mind in Montreal with four goals at Bell Centre this season and six against the Canadiens overall. Even Bradley’s late goal came after three whacks at Price (21 saves, 23 shots) in the final minute.
As much pressure as Montreal put on in the middle of the first period — after a choppy start — the Caps blueline held its own. Tom Poti finished a +3. Montreal had 10 shots in the first and then managed just eight in the second and nine in the third. It’s the second game in a row the Caps have held the Canadiens under 30 shots. Mike Green and Jeff Schultz played a better game, too. They were both +2 along with rookie John Carlson. Montreal’s lone goal came on the power play. About the only negative was an ugly 0-for-7 on the power play. The Caps are now 0-for-14 in three games and 0-for-21 overall if you include the final two regular season games. That’s by far the longest drought of the season. Yet Washington is still up 2-1 in the series. That would make me extremely uncomfortable if I wore bleu, blanc et rouge. So on to Game 4 on Wednesday night. The Caps can either put a chokehold on this series up 3-1 or have to come back to Verizon Center with it down to a best-of-three scenario. But they looked like a team in control on Monday night — even if the coach wasn’t ready to admit that.
“The only thing I feel is that we’re up 2-1,” Boudreau said. “Tomorrow is a new day. When we lost the first game the next day was a new day. I’m certain they’ll be the same.”
