The regular season is over. It’s finally time for playoff hockey. Let’s look at how we got here and who the Capitals are up against.
Record: 51-22-9
Last 20 games: 11-8-1
Standing: 1st in the Metro, 1st in the Eastern Conference, 2nd in the NHL
Goal leader: Alex Ovechkin (44)
Assist leader: Dylan Strome (53)
Mr. Clean: Taylor Raddysh (nine penalties in 80 games at 12:22 TOI)
GLB’s Star of the Season: Alex Ovechkin (awarded based on my 75 games of postgame stars)
This has been a season of ups and downs. I’ve mentioned it multiple times on social media, but the Hockey Guy on YouTube noticed a distinct pattern in the Capitals’ play around game 70, and it held true through the end of the season: the Capitals went on alternating ten-game streaks of being great and mediocre. Check it out:
Ten-Game Streaks
| Games | Record |
|---|---|
| 1-10 | 8-2-0 |
| 11-20 | 5-4-1 |
| 21-30 | 8-1-1 |
| 31-40 | 5-3-2 |
| 41-50 | 8-1-1 |
| 51-60 | 4-3-3 |
| 61-70 | 9-1-0 |
| 71-80 | 3-6-1 |
| 81-82 | 1-1-0 |
It’s uncanny, right? As soon as I saw him point it out, it’s like everything clicked into place. It perfectly explains why fan (and my own) sentiment starts trending upward only to crash a bit and then rise again. It explains why when you take the team’s temperature quarterly, like I have on here, it always looks good. Half the time, they’re winning eight or nine out of ten games. Half the time, they’re winning maybe four or five. The bad segments trended worse over the season, finishing with only seven points in games 71-80, but the good ones kept on getting better, with 18/20 points earned in games 61-70. If the pattern holds, which I don’t expect it to, then you could say they’re due to win seven or eight out of their next eight games. That’d basically mean a fast track into the conference finals, so I’m hoping hard that it does hold somehow.
The last couple weeks, while emotionally bolstered by Alex Ovechkin becoming the NHL’s all-time goals leader, were not a great end to the season. Washington suffered their worst loss of the season in Columbus, losing 7-0 (!). They lost six of their final ten games, with none being less than a three-goal gap. You don’t generally like to see your favorite team entering the postseason cold, but history has shown it doesn’t really matter. The regular season as a whole doesn’t really seem to matter once it’s over. You could be the best team in the league and get beat in the first round, you could be the wild card that barely sneaks in and advance, you could be an afterthought and end up hoisting the Stanley Cup. You can’t tell who’s going to sink or swim until it starts happening. To shout out another YouTuber, Pinholes Graham just released an excellent video talking about how numbers really can’t tell you who’s going to win it all. No matter how into the weeds you get with it, there’s nothing that can reliably indicate who can get the job done. Seeding, play style, streaks, late season performance, nothing. So don’t dwell too hard on the recent (awful) losses and play the Caps have put on the board. Their games stopped mattering a long time ago. April 21 is the start of the real stuff.
In fact, the games matter so little that I don’t know if it’s worth delving into the positives and negatives we saw on the ice in the last 20ish games. We could talk at length about how the Capitals seemed to forget how to handle and control the puck for a while there, or how both the goaltenders started to let in uncharacteristically easy goals, but unless we see those things happening in this upcoming series, they truly don’t matter. History won’t remember the Blue Jackets and Sabres whooping on the best team in the East before missing the playoffs. History remembers 895, and history will remember what happens in the Cup chase we’re in the middle of right now. Let’s just skip to that. What should we be looking for and afraid of when the Washington Capitals face the Montréal Canadiens?
By the Numbers: Capitals vs. Canadiens
| Statistic | Capitals | Canadiens |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 51-22-9 | 40-31-11 |
| Season series record | 2-0-1 | 1-2-0 |
| Goals leader | Alex Ovechkin (44) | Cole Caufield (37) |
| Assists leader | Dylan Strome (53) | Lane Hutson (60) |
| Hits leader | Tom Wilson (233) | Juraj Slafkovský (194) |
| Power play percentage | 23.5% | 20.1% |
| Penalty kill percentage | 82% | 80.9% |
| Shots for/against per game | 27.6/27.2 | 25.6/29 |
| Shooting percentage | 10.64% | 9.52% |
| Goals for/against per game | 3.49/2.79 | 2.96/3.18 |
| Goaltenders | Logan Thompson (31-6-6, .910 SV%) | Sam Montembeault (31-24-7, .902 SV%) |
| Charlie Lindgren (20-14-3, .896 SV%) | Jakub Dobeš (7-4-3, .909 SV%) | |
| Clay Stevenson (0-1-0, .868 SV%) | Cayden Primeau (2-3-1, .836 SV%) | |
| Notable injuries | Logan Thompson (upper body, could return game 1) | Kirby Dach (out for entire postseason) |
| Martin Fehérváry (lower body, could return game 1) | ||
| Aliaksei Protas (lower-body skate cut, could return game 2-3) |
The Montréal Canadiens barely made it in. They ended the season on a bit of a skid, while the Columbus Blue Jackets started surging behind the amazing play of goaltender Jet Greaves. It all came down to each team’s last games of the season, where Columbus did everything right, but Montréal got bailed out by the Carolina Hurricanes trotting out AHL lines and gifting them the win they needed to keep the second wild card spot. We were only a two-goal swing away from this being a preview of Capitals-Blue Jackets. It wouldn’t have been any easier a series, but it kinda reminds you of last year and how the Capitals themselves just barely squeaked into the wild card. They ended up getting thoroughly destroyed in four games by the Presidents’ Trophy-winning New York Rangers, but they were also a lot more hurt than the Canadiens are.
The Canadiens are only missing Kirby Dach from their lineup. He’s been out since February, and won’t be returning at all this postseason after undergoing knee surgery. Dach may end up being a bit of addition by subtraction for Montréal. He was a team-low -29 in only 57 games, while ranking outside the top ten in goals and assists. The Capitals are currently without Logan Thompson, Aliaksei Protas, and Martin Fehérváry, although two of those may be set to change as soon as game one. Protas still has barely touched the ice in practice since taking a skate cut to the foot, but the other two, while reports from Spencer Carbery have been expectedly cagey, seem to have a more favorable prognosis. In terms of importance to playoff success, a healthy Logan Thompson has to be the biggest factor. He’s inarguably Washington’s best goaltender, and I would say more than any goalie in the league, he’s been able to steal games that should have and otherwise would have been losses. Charlie Lindgren has shown that he has an ability to step up, both last year when he stole Darcy Kuemper’s starting position and this year when he had to take the starting job while Logan Thompson was out with a separate injury. As he started his career a Canadien, he may have just a little bit of extra motivation to show out, but it’s hard to envision a deep run from the Capitals if the depth chart is just Lindgren and Clay Stevenson for an extended period of time. Stevenson, an All-Star and Calder Cup champion with the AHL’s Hershey Bears, looked pretty good in his first-ever NHL game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, despite being put in bad positions by a weakened defense and not-so-motivated offense. It won’t be the end of the world if he sees playoff action, but it may be the beginning of the end.
Who to watch out for when it comes to Montréal’s offense: Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Patrik Laine, Lane Hutson…Ivan Demidov?. Team captain Suzuki is the Canadiens points leader and a far-and-away plus-minus leader at +19, a great two-way center who can score it and dish it to the wingers and play good defense on the other end. Zukes is still young at 25 years old and is one of the speediest forwards in the league when the situation calls for it. On his right, you have Cole Caufield to worry about. Nearly putting up 40G this year, they call him Goal Caufield for a reason. He scored in each of the three meetings between Montréal and Washington this season, twice being assisted by Suzuki (Nick also scored twice himself in those three games). He’s a true sniper, a good puck handler, and an underrated facilitator as well (two assists in the season series and 33 on the season). Not to be overlooked is Juraj Slafkovský, the top line left-winger who plays with Suzuki and Caufield. He’s got 18 goals this season, but a solid 33 assists. Only one of those came against the Capitals, but good top lines step up across the board in situations like these, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the three of them fighting hard for points. Look for Pierre-Luc Dubois and his shutdown second line to match up against them regularly and try to kill their scoring before it can really get started, and some Dowd line appearances on defensive zone face-offs. Patrik Laine is a bit of a man-advantage merchant. He played 52 games this season, scoring 20 goals and 13 assists in them. 15 and 4 of those came on the power play. He isn’t much of a factor 5v5, so I would expect to see the Capitals’ first and third lines against his second line; Ovechkin and Mangiapane will try to take advantage of his below-average defensive abilities. Then you have Lane Hutson, the eventual Calder Trophy winner. The most impactful rookie in the league bolstered Montréal’s blue-line offense as soon as he first touched the ice. With 60 assists in his 82 games, Hutson has shown he’s already NHL-ready when it comes to setting his teammates up in opportune positions. He’s been setting team rookie records left and right, and will be a force to be reckoned with. Washington may have Jakob Chychrun and his booming shot, but Lane can create scoring chances like a veteran center. Ivan Demidov is the big question mark in this series. He’s 19, has played a whole two games in the NHL, and has one goal and one assist to show for it. Coming from Russia’s KHL, a weaker league overall with higher sscoring, there may be a big adjustment when he has to go up against NHL playoff defense like what Washington will throw at him. He’s a great puck handler and shooter, but maintaining that will be crucial for Montréal if they want to have a multifaceted offensive approach that can’t be easily keyed in on.
Defensively, the Canadiens will be leaning on the aforementioned Suzuki and Hutson, as well as Kaiden Guhle and Alexandre Carrier. They’re three of the vanishingly few Montréal players who have a positive plus-minus, and Guhle and Carrier have solid physical numbers (124 blocks/104 hits and 120/44 respectively). Overall, though, they’re not a strong defensive team at all, giving up a lot of goals (especially at even strength) and struggling shorthanded. Washington will (should) be looking to shoot a lot at Sam Montembeault. With their high shooting percentage and the oft-bending and breaking defense of Montréal, they should be able to put up enough points to overcome anything the offensively-minded Canadiens can throw at them. Over 30% of Montréal’s shots are blocked, fourth most in the league, but they block the second-most per game at over 17. If they take a page out of Edmonton or Carolina’s book and aim for over 30 shots every game, guys like Ovechkin, Dubois, Strome, Wilson, and hopefully Protas should be able to break through the blue-liners with relative ease (as long as they’re healthy and playing with the chemistry we know they can play with).
With only three matchups between the teams this series and only one playoff meeting ever (2010, Habs won in 7), it’s not an easy series to predict at all. I’ve seen educated opinions going for the Capitals, going for the Canadiens, thinking it’ll end in four or five games, thinking it’ll go to seven. I personally think things will be much clearer after the first game, but for right now, I’m (extremly cautiously) optimistic about Washington’s chances. Montréal won’t make it too easy on them no matter what, and I don’t think there’s strong sweep potential in either direction. I’m gonna go Capitals in 6, allowing for a couple games where the Canadiens’ offense turns into an onslaught that the Caps won’t be prepared to best those nights. Let me know what you think of my analysis and your series prediction in the comments below, on Bluesky or Twitter, or join us in the official Washington Capitals Discord server.
Q4 Key Matchups Review
March 18 vs. Detroit Red Wings: W 4-1
March 22 vs. Florida Panthers: W 6-3
March 25 @ Winnipeg Jets: L 3-2 (OT)
March 27 @ Minnesota Wild: L 4-2
April 2 @ Carolina Hurricanes: L 5-1
April 10 vs. Carolina Hurricanes: W 5-4 (SO)
April 12 @ Columbus Blue Jackets: L 7-0
April 13 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets: L 4-1
Season Key Matchups Record: 15-5-3
