Habs Weekly: A Quick Ending at the Hands of Washington

After getting the win in the third game of the series last week, the Habs weren’t able to hold serve at home, paving the way for their season to come to an end in Washington in Game 5. 

The Week That Was

Apr. 27: Capitals 5, Canadiens 2 – Somewhat surprisingly, Logan Thompson was back for this game despite a scary-looking injury in Game 3 while Samuel Montembeault’s torn groin took him out of consideration.  Despite the mismatch in goal, the Habs held the lead after 40 minutes thanks to a pair of power play goals including the go-ahead marker from Cole Caufield with just 1:28 left.  However, they weren’t able to hold it in the third with Andrew Mangiapane firing home the winner with 3:37 left before the Capitals added a pair of empty-netters.

Apr. 30: Capitals 4, Canadiens 1 – Montreal got off to a strong start in this game, especially notable given their penchant for slow starts but couldn’t get on the board.  Eventually, Washington started to take control after Alex Ovechkin opened the scoring and the Habs were on their heels for the majority of this one.  But they at least tried to make it interesting in the third while Emil Heineman tipping one home early but that’s as close as they could get with Thompson shutting things down from there.

StatPack

Skaters:

#	Player	GP	G	A	+/-	PIMS	SOG	ATOI
8	Mike Matheson	2	0	0	-1	2	4	25:02
11	Brendan Gallagher	2	0	0	-5	0	4	15:36
13	Cole Caufield	2	1	0	-6	0	5	18:44
14	Nick Suzuki	2	0	0	-5	0	4	21:57
15	Alex Newhook	2	0	0	E	0	2	15:26
17	Josh Anderson	2	0	0	-1	2	6	15:10
20	Juraj Slafkovsky	2	1	0	-5	2	1	18:40
21	Kaiden Guhle	2	0	0	-3	2	2	22:02
28	Christian Dvorak	2	0	0	-1	4	1	16:37
40	Joel Armia	2	0	1	+1	2	1	12:25
45	Alexandre Carrier	2	0	0	E	0	3	18:26
48	Lane Hutson	2	0	2	-5	0	5	24:06
51	Emil Heineman	2	1	0	+1	0	2	7:58
58	David Savard	2	0	0	E	0	1	12:50
71	Jake Evans	2	0	0	E	2	2	16:58
72	Arber Xhekaj	2	0	0	E	2	2	11:25
91	Oliver Kapanen	2	0	1	E	0	1	6:22
93	Ivan Demidov	2	0	2	-3	0	1	16:00

Goalies:

#	Player	Record	GAA	SV%	SO
75	Jakub Dobes	0-2-0	3.11	.882	0

Team Leaders:

Goals: Cole Caufield (3)
Assists: Lane Hutson (5)
Points: Lane Hutson (5)
+/-: Joel Armia (+2)
PIMS: Josh Anderson (20)
Shots: Cole Caufield (24)

News And Notes

– Patrik Laine’s upper-body injury was a broken finger sustained in the second game of the series.  He was skating before Game 5 so he likely would have been available had the series gone much longer.

– Martin St. Louis was named as a finalist for the Jack Adams Award as Coach of the Year.  The other finalists are Winnipeg’s Scott Arniel and Washington’s Spencer Carbery, a pair of teams who won their respective conferences.  Meanwhile, if you’re wondering, the finalists for the Calder Trophy will be named on Monday where a certain Montreal blueliner will likely be a finalist.

– With Ivan Demidov getting into all five playoff games, he collected a $25,000 performance bonus in his contract.  He also had an additional $30,000 had he played in 10 playoff contests.  The $25,000 will be added to Montreal’s bonus carryover penalty.

– The Habs have sent Oliver Kapanen and Cayden Primeau to Laval.  Notably, Jakub Dobes was not sent down despite being eligible after being papered down at the trade deadline.

Last Game’s Lines:

Caufield – Suzuki – Slafkovsky
Anderson – Dvorak – Gallagher
Newhook – Evans – Demidov
Heineman – Kapanen – Armia

Matheson – Carrier
Guhle – Hutson
Xhekaj – Savard

Upcoming Free Agents

With the season now over, let’s look ahead to free agency.  The following players are on expiring contracts at the end of June.

RFA: Jakub Dobes*, Sean Farrell, Rafael Harvey-Pinard*, Emil Heineman, Noel Hoefenmayer*, Gustav Lindstrom*, Cayden Primeau*, Xavier Simoneau*, Jayden Struble*, William Trudeau

*-arbitration-eligible

UFA: Joel Armia, Alex Barre-Boulet, Christian Dvorak, Brandon Gignac, Connor Hughes, Michael Pezzetta

Of the arbitration-eligible players, it wouldn’t be surprising to see several of them let go to avoid going to a hearing where the Habs could get stuck paying the player more than they like.  Speculatively, Harvey-Pinard, Lindstrom, and Primeau are the ones likely in some jeopardy of being non-tendered for that reason.

In terms of the RFAs who finished up with the Habs, it should be bridge deals across the board for Dobes, Heineman, and Struble that shouldn’t cost too much.  Assuming they’re willing to go into LTIR once again with Carey Price’s contract (or if they’re able to unload the final year this summer), they should have enough cap space to go after a free agent or trade acquisition of some note.

Final Thought

One of the common complaints about the first round for the Habs was the officiating.  There were a lot of missed calls and quite a few bad calls.  However, Washington could largely make that same case as could 14 other teams playing in the opening round.  It’s hard to do a what-if proposition when a lot of plays went uncalled for pretty much every team.  Could a timely call or two have made a difference?  Sure.  But would that have swung the series?  Probably not.

Out of the five games, there was only one where Montreal was the better team for the bulk of the game.  That was the middle one, the game they won.  In the others, they were the better teams for portions but not as often as Washington.  And considering they were the eight seed, that’s to be expected.  But the better team won in the end.  It’s not the fault of the refs, the Habs, or anything else like that.  Sometimes, the better team just wins and this is one of those.

But while it’s disappointing to see them go out quickly, it’s also encouraging to see that they could hold their own in the series, especially with the younger players largely leading the way.  That’s something to build off of, now that they know their core pieces can handle the pressure.  It’s a tough way to go out being one of the first teams eliminated but all things considered, with the expectations heading into the season, it wasn’t too disappointing of a conclusion in the end.