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Division clinched: Caps beat Canadiens 2-1

By Chris Cerullo

 5 Comments

April 4, 2019 9:33 pm

All sorts of Eastern Conference playoff implications were on the line Thursday night, one being that the Caps could seal a fourth straight Metropolitan Division victory with a win against a desperate for points Montreal Canadiens team.

Lars Eller got on the board against his former mates to start things off, but the lead was short-lived as Shea Weber struck on a power play to end the first frame. Nic Dowd restored said lead with a quick wrister over Carey Price’s left shoulder.

Metropolitan Division Champs for the fourth straight time.

Caps beat Canadiens 2-1!

  • Very, very ugly first period metrics wise for the boys in red. Habs won the five-on-five shot attempt battle 25 to 11, scoring chance battle 15 to 5, and the high danger chance battle 9 to 1. Sure looked like a desperate team.
  • Mountain Dew Baja Blast is still not very good and nothing any of you say will change my mind. There are like nine other flavors under the same soda that are better.
  • The Caps third line of Carl Hagelin, Lars Eller, and Brett Connolly is just the best.
  • If you didn’t see the Andre Burakovsky Paisano’s commercial at least 64 times, did you really watch a Capitals hockey game?

  • Better second period for the Caps and they pretty much dominated the last ten or so minutes of it. Third line led the way and a goal from Nic Dowd gave the Caps a lead heading into the third.
  • The power play sucks and they haven’t done anything to change that in like months. What exactly are the coaches hoping for? A plan from the heavens?
  • Andre Burakovsky was the main man on the Dowd goal, hustling to disturb a Canadiens breakout and then setting up Dowd in the slot. Unfortunately, Andre got banged up a couple times in the period and eventually went down the tunnel into the dressing room. He returned for the third, whew.
  • Carey Price came up absolutely huge with a few bonkers saves to keep this game from being 4-1 Capitals in the second and by extension keeping his team in the postseason hunt.

  • The third period was a little turtley and a lot dump and chasey. There’s your grade A analysis.
  • I cheated on Chipotle today and had Ian’s favorite Qdoba for the second time ever. Honestly was ten outta ten, would eat again.
  • Anyone else get some playoff jitters tonight? It’s coming for us all again.
  • Caps went signature playoff disruptive defense in the third that we got very familiar with last spring/summer. It looked fantastic in my eyes.

The final game of the regular season comes against the New York Islanders at Capital One Arena on Saturday.

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Canadiens

Headline photo: Patrick Smith

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