Montreal Canadiens 3, Caps 2 (Overtime)
Not the way the Caps hoped to start the Stanley Cup playoffs. But the NHL got another early-round upset from a lower seed as No. 1 Washington fell in overtime on a Tomas Plekanec goal. The Caps were by far the better team in the first period, but trailed early and found themselves only tied at the intermission. Montreal made some subtle adjustments – quicker puck movement for one thing so they could at least set up a tighter forecheck. The Caps regained the momentum when Nicklas Backstrom scored 47 seconds into the third period, but couldn’t put the Canadiens away. When Scott Gomez made a dazzling move at center ice and then finished the return pass from Brian Gionta the game was tied again and it was on to overtime.
After the game, Bruce Boudreau called out star forward Alex Ovechkin, who didn’t have a point or even a shot on goal. Montreal certainly did a nice job on Ovechkin. They blocked shots. They got help from their backchecking forwards. But zero shots from the league’s two-time MVP won’t get it done.
“No. He didn’t play good,” Boudreau said. “They gapped up real well on him. But I don’t think Alex played good…I can’t put my finger on it right now. But when you get [47] shots on goal and Ovechkin doesn’t get any and you have four power plays there’s something…they took him away pretty good. But I just didn’t think he was very good.”
Not that Montreal is overconfident at this point. It was one nice night, after all. But the Canadiens at least proved to themselves that they could slow the sport’s most dynamic player. Ovechkin was last held shotless in a Jan. 19 win over Detroit at home. He was last held shotless AND pointless…uh…never. As far as I can tell. This was at least the third time in a month Boudreau was at least mildly critical of his star player in a postgame press conference – though this was as blunt as he’s been. Message sent, for sure.
“He had zero shots, but he had probably 10 blocked shots,” said Montreal defenseman Jaroslav Spacek, who also assisted on the game-winning goal. “He tried hard for it. The whole line played pretty good. They had a couple chances. I stepped up and closed [the] gap and that was probably the reason we had success…[But] he is waiting for his chance. You give him one little sniff and the puck will end up in our net. I think we played a focused game on him all game long. We didn’t give that line too many opportunities on the rush.”
Ovechkin struggling was one thing. But even with 47 shots on goal, Boudreau didn’t think his team did enough to generate traffic in front of Montreal goalie Jaroslav Halak. And for that many shots there weren’t a ton of great chances. Again, in the playoffs that’s not a recipe for winning games. There were a few unlucky breaks where deflections went wide or pucks landed just beyond their reach. But the Canadiens could say the same thing on several of their scoring chances, especially in the second period.
“And the quality chances we did have we shot wide,” Boudreau said. “Or we didn’t shoot at all. We had a 2-on-1 late in the third. We had a 3-on-2 in overtime and neither one we got a shot off. So Halak played good. But I don’t think he did anything that we didn’t think he was capable of doing.”
Jose Theodore was solid for Washington in goal. He made 35 saves and had a great second period when Montreal put together shift after quality shift. He was tested in overtime, too, and had zero chance on the Plakanec goal. Ironic, given the over-hyped flap between the two earlier in the week.
“Again, I never said anything bad about the Capitals’ goaltending,” said Plakanec, whose number on the whiteboard in the Habs’ dressing room was changed to 68 to reflect Theodore’s barb about Tomas “Jagr”. “I said they have very good goalies and they proved it. I would never say anything disrespectful to [Theodore]. If they took it that way that’s what happens….I wasn’t thinking about it. It was the first day that quote came up in the newspapers. Obviously, I didn’t like it, but we had a good laugh about it with the guys and [Theodore] had a good quote, too.”
