The Washington Capitals took care of business at Capital One Arena on Wednesday night with a 4-1 win in Game 5 over the Montreal Canadiens to advance to round two. The Carolina Hurricanes await the Caps.
First playoff series win since 2018
With the Caps on the power play, Dylan Strome won a face off at the 9:12 mark and the puck went to Alex Ovechkin off the draw as he shot it in for his fourth goal of the playoffs. For Srome it was his sixth assist of the postseason.
At 11:15 Jakob Chychrun doubled the lead with his second goal of the playoffs. Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tom Wilson had the assists with their second and third, respectively.
2-0 was the score after one as the Caps led in shots 11-9 in the opening 20.
At 16:59 of the second period, Tom Wilson struck on the power play for his second goal of the spring. John Carlson had the primary for his first assist while Strome added his seventh helper on the secondary.
3-0 was the score after two with the Caps leading 9-6 in shots in the second period. In the third the Caps were outhshot 14-8 and 29-28 overall but Logan Thompson stood tall in goal with 28 saves.
At 2:40 Emil Heineman got the Canadiens on the board. At 19:34 Brandon Duhaime put it away with an empty net goal for his third goal of the playoffs. Connor McMichael set it up for his second playoff assist this spring.
The Canadiens had the ege in face off percentage 56.7 percent to 43.3 percent. The Caps went two for three on the power play which is good for 66.7 percent while the Habs went 0 for 2 on the man advantage.
Montreal outhit Washington 44-29. The Caps had 23 blocked shots compared to the Habs nine. Montreal had five giveaways while Washington had 11. Montreal had two takeaways while Washington had one.
"We knew it was going to be the toughest game of the series to win. We knew that it would have to be our best. I thought we played really well. It never goes 100 percent your way through 60 minutes and when that happens, you've got to fall back on your principles, on your system, on 'LT.' He was great tonight once again. Power play and PK did a great job. On to the next one. "Pierre-Luc Dubois
Ovechkin added, "Right now, we're focusing on Game 1, Round 2. So, yeah, we won a series and we're going to enjoy it tonight, and tomorrow it's a new day and it's going to be a new series. So, we have to be smart and we have to move on and go game by game."
This was a good game and a good performance by the Caps. Finally for the first time since 2018, the Caps have advanced to the next round. Spencer Carbery deserves all the praise for helping turn this team and culture around.