It is truly the most wonderful time of the year. It is finally time for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
This was one of those years for the Washington Capitals where it was kind of hard to watch games for the last little bit of the regular season. We've known for a long time now they are going to the playoffs. They've known it as well. It just felt like one of those situations where everyone is waiting for this thing to end so we can finally "get going" again.
And we are just about ready to start going 100% again. The Caps are going to lock horns with the Montreal Canadiens in round one. Try to not let memories of 15 years ago creep in. This should be a series win. Washington is a much better team. I think they will prove that somewhat easily in the coming days.
But that doesn't mean this will be a boring series, and I think there are things, or players to watch going into this series. That is what we are going to talk about here, right now. So who are three players to keep an eye on vs the Canadiens of Montreal?
Alex Ovechkin
Well this one is easy right? The Capitals have been Alex Ovechkin's team for the past twenty years. He's always been the guy to watch, that is not changing here at all. However, the reason to watch him I think is changing.
It's not a slam dunk that Ovechkin will be a hugely impactful player. If you're asking me I think he will be fine. But, yes, whether you want to or not, we need to talk about his age.
When you hit a certain age you go back into the "prove it" category of your career. You have to prove you can do it as a young player, you have to prove you still have it as an older player. After last years playoffs I think Ovechkin has to prove it.
In last years playoffs vs the Rangers Ovechkin had zero points in the four game sweep. He only had 5 shots in that series as well. He was very ineffective to say the least. It went beyond points. Last season it just didn't look like he could keep up.
Last season was last season. It was incredibly different. Different team, Ovechkin was basically Superman to get the Caps into the playoffs in the first place, maybe that hurt him when that series finally started.
The question Ovechkin will have to answer every year from now on is "has he lost a step?" Can he keep up with playoff hockey? Can he chase around the younger players. And there are indeed younger players on the other side who will likely have a ton of jump in this series. Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Lane Hutson, and now Ivan Demidov.
Do I think he will be okay? Yes, I personally do. But I think blindly believing something, anything, is kind of ridiculous.
Was last years team far inferior to this years team? Yes. Does Ovechkin have a ton more help this year compared to last? Absolutely.
But you can't just blindly think he'll be okay because he's Ovechkin. Age will get everyone and everything. Maybe this year it gets him in the playoffs, maybe not. For that reason (and plenty more) Ovechkin is someone to keep an eye on.
Ryan Leonard
Now this one I think will be a bit of a surprise. But this is my list, so, I guess deal with it.
The reason I am interested in watching the rookie is kind of simple. When you heard about Ryan Leonard's game it sounded like it translated to the NHL better than some other prospects. Well, that game should also translate to playoff success, at least in my opinion.
Leonard did not have a ton of success, at least in terms of scoring in his short NHL tenure this season. He had just one point, that being a goal, and that goal being an empty net goal. He doesn't have a goal or a point in a manned net in the NHL yet.
I think he could be an impact player in this series. We've seen how he plays. He's not afraid to mix it up and go into the hard to get to areas of the ice. That's playoff hockey.
It also looks like he'll be playing further down in the lineup. Kind of a good thing and maybe a bad thing. The good is he won't have to worry about going against the top defensive pairings or defensive forwards on Montreal, or any team. The bad being he won't have as much offensive support. Like playing with Ovechkin, or Wilson, or McMichael, or Dubois, etc.
It looks like Leonard could start the playoffs on a line with Lars Eller and Andrew Mangiapane. That's not a line that scares you offensively. What will he be able to do with those guys? We'll see. Quite frankly when you look at a line like that it kind of feels like you need the guy with 9 games of NHL experience to lead that line offensively.
I think Leonard is a really exciting player to watch. I think his game can be a playoff style game. Will that lead to instant success in the playoffs? Well, that is the question. But it's a question I am really excited to get the answer to.
The goaltending
And now we go to the cheating part of our program. This is a "3 PLAYERS to watch" thing we're doing here and now I'm talking about an entire position. But I think it's more than warranted.
I'm not going to go into too much detail here. That isn't really what this is about. If you want more detail on why I think the goalies need to be watched you can go ahead and click right here.
Bottom line, they did not play well for half of the regular season. If they simply struggled for the last two or three weeks to end the season I think I am not concerned at all with the position. But they were excellent to start the season, and since the start of February it was towards the bottom of the league.
I think we can all agree Logan Thompson is "the guy" right? He was the one who played better all year and even when he struggled, he was still better than Charlie Lindgren who was also struggling. The problem here is now he is injured.
It seems like we will see Thompson at some point in this series. As early as game one possibly. But what will he look like? How confident will he be? Not only in his game, but in his body. I'm going to say the most obvious thing here, the playoffs are the most important time of the year. It's not the most convenient time to try to get confidence back.
I've said this a lot down the stretch about the Capitals goaltending. If the Caps play up to their potential and they get average goaltending I think this will be a very hard team to beat in a playoff series. If they play up to their potential and they get good to great goaltending I think this team is almost impossible to beat and should clearly be Cup favorites.
But, if this team gets the goaltending they have gotten for the past 2+ months of the season I think this team is beatable. I think the standings show that. Washington was 17-11-3 in their last 31 games. Fine. Good. Nothing special. A couple of teams that ended up missing the playoffs had better records than Washington in that time.
Another team that had a better record in that time? The Montreal Canadiens. It was miniscule, but Washington had 37 points, Montreal had 38.
And if we're going to talk goaltending, Habs goalie Sam Montembeault had a top ten save percentage since the start of February at .906%, sixth best. Thompson had the 24th best save percentage since the start of February at .877%.
It's something to keep an eye on. Hey! The Capitals have a history of going into the playoffs with subpar goaltending. They did it in 2018. I'm pretty sure that playoff year ended fairly happily. Maybe we do it again in 2025.
But, until it's proven, watch out for the goalies.
I'll throw out a quick honorable mention before we go. Pierre-Luc Dubois. He had a terrific season. He has had good playoffs before, He is from Quebec. He has said in the past he would love to play for the Canadiens. Overall I think there are more interesting players to watch in this coming series. But Dubois will be really interesting as well.