Photo credit: Francois Lacasse

The Washington Capitals’ final road game of the season was a demonstrable blowout. The Montreal Canadiens, purportedly a good hockey team, played like a troop (sorry, troupe) of clowns led by their porous ringleader Carey Price. The Habs got just one past Braden Holtby, and the Caps served wings and discount pizza to their loyal fans.

Caps beat Habs 5-1.

• Alex Ovechkin opened things up early with a five-on-five goal from his favorite powerplay spot. It was lazy-looking goal, but still good for Ovi’s 29th, still the league’s best. Better than all the rest.
• Troy Brouwer followed up a few minutes later with an outside shot, possibly tipped in by Mike Ribeiro, whose name I totally spell right all the time now without even checking it yeah. Those two goals comprised an electric start by the Caps– tilting the ice and making Carey Price like a decent backup goalie on an off-night who just happens to be debilitatingly attractive to some of the population around me as I write this.
• Troy Brouwer, despite struggling a bit on a talent-lite second line for much of the year, is producing like he’s in his prime. His second goal was a serene wrister from the circles, but hey it worked. And all of a sudden I’m regretting promising to wear zumbas to a party if Brouwer gets the hat.
• Daaaamn, that was a pretty power play goal. It took half the game for the Caps to go a man up, but they made it count when Ovechkin set up Backstrom a the back door for a goal so pretty the war room in Toronto pretended it was under review so they could watch it some more.
• The Capitals’ penalty kill rehabilitation tour continued in Montreal, where the PK unit withstood a whole bunch of man-down time terrifically, limiting the Habs to a handful of shots, maybe one or two real scoring opportunities, and a whole lot of effete French swear words.
• In a game where the Caps dominated puck possession, Aaron Volpatti saw more pucks go against his team than the other guys. That ain’t good and I still don’t get it. Hashtag Wolski for Masterton.
• A third period power play gave Alex Ovechkin his 30th goal of the season, and other sentences I did not think I’d write this year. I really do think Ovi is a real Hart contender, and I’ll explain why in the next day or two. For now, let’s just revel in the universally acknowledged and peer-reviewed fact that Ovi rocks your face.
• As the game pressed on, more and more attention was spent on Braden Holtby and his ability to refuse every shot sent his way. In the end, Patches was the first and only Canadien to best Braden. Whatever, s-words are silly anyway.

Joe B Suit of the Night

I wanna thank the PuckBuddys and Nellie’s for hosting a terrific viewing party. A good time was had by all, and enjoying a game like this is so much better when in the company of friends.

This win was big. Like literally big. I mean, not literally literally big, but definitely figuratively literally big. The Caps hold on to their lead of the Southeast, but Tuesday’s game against the Jets will still be literally gigantic.

Crash the net.