After their shocking Game 1 upset of the heavily favored Capitals on Thursday night, the Canadiens suddenly find themselves in control of their first-round series. They have some opportunistic power play offense and fine goaltending to thank for that, but perhaps the key to game, as SB Nation’s Eyes On The Prize points out, was shutting down all-everything Washington star Alex Ovechkin. Whether they can continue to do so might be another matter though:
Fans From Both Sides React To The Canadiens’ Game 1 Upset Of The Capitals
The Canadiens should not thump their chests in triumph at shutting down Ovechkin in this one. He in fact made it rather easy on Montreal to snuff him out. He fired wide at the Habs goal three times, with five blocked shots on his night's resume. A big story is that he had no shots on the Montreal goal, but I swear that if one looks closer, they will see a third period shot on net, tapped from about three inches from Halak's leg pad, fed from behind the net.
Ovechkin served up a Joe Thornton special in this one. He was uncommitted and uninvolved, rarely physical, and too often finding comfort in the perimeter. He was completely unlike himself and I lost count of how many times he fell to the ice, in battles or on his own.
Meanwhile, Caps fans over at Japer’s Rink took solace in the fact that despite facing a Habs teams seemingly firing on all cylinders, the Caps nearly pulled out the win in Game 1:
When the Capitals wound up drawing the Canadiens in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, it seemed like the consensus was Montreal stood little chance of making it a competitive series, let alone advancing to the second round.[...] Nonetheless, it seemed pretty clear that two potential wrinkles - a bad Washington penalty kill, and a hot goaltender for the Canadiens - could present problems for the Capitals. And they're exactly what did our guys in tonight.
By just about any metric, the Capitals controlled this game. They out-shot the Canadiens, 47-38, they out-hit the Canadiens, 37-24, they were 45-27 in the faceoff circle. . . but a bad Tom Poti clear after a bad Nicklas Backstrom penalty let the Habs get on the board first, and a stellar Jaroslav Halak made getting the offense's puck control and scoring chances to add up to anything on the scoreboard a challenge.
Ultimately the Canadiens did exactly what they needed to do to beat a better opponent, and I suppose in that there is a silver lining. Montreal played a perfect game for this situation, the Caps did not, and the Habs still barely came out on top. If we can take anything positive away from this game, it's that.
The Caps will get their chance to equalize the series in Game 2, at 7 PM on Saturday.
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