CANADIENS
Montreal

CAPITALS
Washington

Game Report

There’s a silly little narrative by some self-important types on Twitter that power-plays don’t matter anymore in the NHL.  Safe to say that they were hiding under the scoring table at the Bell Centre on Thursday night. Five of the eight goals in the game (excluding the shootout goal) were scored as result of a power-play.

The Capitals, sporting the best power-play conversion rate in the league, had three goals with the man advantage, two of them notched by Alex Ovechkin.  The Capitals captain now has 24 power-play goals for the season.  That’s more goals of any kind than every Montreal Canadien not named Max Pacioretty.

Even the anemic Canadiens power-play added a late goal to tie the game. And the opening goal of the game was scored just one second after Montreal’s man advantage had expired. Interestingly, both of these Habs goals were scored by defensemen.

The Habs actually out-played Washington at even strength. At least so said Michel Therrien, “We were the best team 5-on-5.” The possession numbers also favor Montreal.

Some were quick to point the finger at Carey Price, saying that the player who has carried this team all year long just wasn’t super-human enough.  Yet the potent offense of the Washington Capitals could only score  in outnumbered situations: three power-play goals mentioned above and a 2-on-1 break when P.K. Subban got caught after a bad pinch.

So what is Michel Therrien to do? He has already said that he won’t be tweaking the system.  His effort to prove the impact of Marc Bergevin’s trade deadline forwards has failed miserably.  Torrey Mitchell, Brian Flynn and Devante Smith-Pelly are at best, spare parts, and aren’t an upgrade on players already in the system.

And the Habs coach doesn’t even have a Saturday game this week to fall back on.  The Canadiens struggled last month but played on four consecutive Saturdays in March and won every game.  Problem is, they won just two of 11 games on weekdays during the month.

With the Hockey News, ESPN, and Sportsnet all predicting an early exit from the playoffs by the Canadiens, fans are starting to get impatient with the coach.

▲     Lars Eller, Tomas Plekanec, Carey Price, Jeff Petry, Alex Galchenyuk. Tom Gilbert

▼     Devante Smith-Pelly, David Desharnais, Torrey Mitchell, Max Pacioretty, Brandon Prust

1.  Alex Ovechkin  WSH
2.  P.K. Subban  MTL
3.  John Carlson  WSH

• “We were the best team 5-on-5. Obviously our penalty killing had a really tough time [Thursday]. I understand this is the best power play in the League but we’ve got to do a much better job than three goals.”
• “We did a lot of good things. We were aggressive on the puck carrier. We had scoring chances. But, our penalty kill really hurt us. It wasn’t good. We need to do a better job than that.”

P.K. Subban

• “I wasn’t good enough on Ovechkin. I made that play a million times where I close on a guy and I have my stick in the right position. At that point, it felt like it was a half-way breakaway. I kind of overplayed it a little bit and I can’t have him cut back in the middle. It’s a breakdown on the penalty kill. I wish I could take that one back. I would have played it differently. I don’t know if I can say I did a good job when a guy scores two goals in a game.”

Lars Eller

• “We were right with them at 5-on-5. If we play at even-strength, we put ourselves in a good position. Unfortunately, we spent too much time in the penalty box. That gave them a chance to get back in the game. They’ve got a sharp power play. They really took advantage when they got the chance.”
• “They’ve got a lot of weapons. They’ve got two lefty playmakers, three righty shots. It’s the perfect setup, two guys that can dish and three guys that can shoot. When you play short-handed, some way they’re going to have a 2-on-1. You try to give them the worst possible angle to shoot from. Sometimes, it’s not enough. Washington is good at taking advantage of that.”

Carey Price

• “They were patient. They waited, and they waited; they capitalized on the few chances that we gave them. Obviously their power play gave them hope and that’s a little disappointing result.”

Tom Gilbert

• “Their power play produced everything they wanted. We’ve just got to go back and look at what we did, work on our penalty kill and build off 5-on-5. It’s the best power play in the League and we let them back in the game. It’s just something we’ve got to be more disciplined about.”

Jeff Petry

• “I felt good out there, but I wish we could’ve ended up with the two points. Now, it’s a quick turnaround and we have another one [on Friday night in New Jersey]. We have to focus on that. We had a strong start to the game. I think we played well. We were good on the forecheck, but we took too many penalties that cost us.”

Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin

• “It’s obviously a huge accomplishment, but records are [made] to beat them. Sooner or later, someone will beat my record. It’s nice to be in history.“

Capitals coach Barry Trotz

• “We’ve been sort of hanging in that wild card race forever, but always within reach of that next level.  It’s good to jump over at least one team [Thursday], and hopefully if we can finish up the season real strong here we can put ourselves in a real good situation.”
• “We weren’t getting much 5-on-5. We weren’t supporting well enough, we weren’t getting to the paint enough. The power play had to be big [Thursday] for us. That was huge.”