After Game 6, where Jaro Halak fell from the sky to stop 53 shots, Montreal was hit with a bizarre, out-of-season blizzard. A friend at work joked that the snow was falling because the Habs had tied the series and hell had frozen over.
I think I'm going to have to stock up on some canned goods, find a flashlight and some rifle ammo tonight, then. I mean, this is fucked, right? I just watched a series featuring Alex Ovechkin, Nick Backstrom, Mike Green and Alex Semin and Hal Gill was the most dominant player on the ice.
The Capitals are quickly becoming the East-side Sharks. They rule over the regular season, but their style just doesn't seem to fit into playoff hockey.
They were thoroughly shut down this last week by an overachieving Canadiens team. And while Halak played two of the most solid back-to-back games in recent memory, it was the system that really killed the Caps. Sure, the Caps had a lot of chances, but the Habs kept collapsing on them and really kept Washington's snipers to the outside. Hall Gill and Josh Georges and Markov got in the way of countless shots and knocked away so many pucks that the Caps couldn't get too many cheapies. Hall Gill was a difference maker? Fuck the heck?
As soon as the pressure came down on Ovechkin, he reverted back to his old World Junior self and disappeared. He just started floating around, waiting for the puck. I've complained about this all year. Loved Ovech. Loved him. Seriously. But after watching the Sedins over the past year and a bit and just how they work the puck around and thread pass after beautiful pass to each other in ways I've never seen before, I kind of lost a bit of appreciation for Ovechkin's game. His game is individual and it makes the team overly dependent on his rushes and his shot. Washington's whole game plan seems to revolve around getting Ovech or Semin the puck for a shot and then crashing the net. It's kind of boring and predictable. When the Caps were winning, Backstrom was flying and creating chances and Ovechkin was hammering people. Tonight, Ovechkin wasn't physical at all and he didn't skate unless he was getting the puck.
The Canadiens, on the other hand, capitalized on the few chances they had and boom! That's it. Six months wasted for Washington.
I watched the game on delay at a friend's place. I turned off my phone so I couldn't get any updates. And as the game wore down, I had to close the blinds to the street in the final minutes, because we were still a minute or two behind on DVR and we didn't want to get tipped off to the win from some massive, spontaneous street orgy. (At one point, we actually fast-forwarded a bit too far by accident and saw the Caps celebrating early in the third. We all got depressed because they were jumping around after a goal. We rewound the DVR to see what happened. And wouldn't you know it, the goal was disallowed. It was fucked up. That's some 21st Century drama, right there.)
Anyways, that game will definitely end up costing me like $200 over the next two weeks as I watch the game at pubs after work. But that's a happy $200. Plus, I couldn't ask for a better team to try to knock out Crysby and the Pens.
Montrealers are celebrating this one right now, though. If I had been downtown or if I didn't have to work tomorrow, I would be too.
Police sirens are ringing out across the city. Horns are blaring. People are screaming. A section of St. Catherines is shut down (or at least it looked that way from Berri-UQAM.) I don't think anyone can believe this just happened.
Right now, we're living in the land of HAL. Jaroslav Halak just burned the highest scoring team in the league (and probably earned a couple mills in the process when contract time comes around) and Hal Gill proved he's no longer a punchline.
Let's call it McGuire karma...
1:30ish mark if you're impatient...
Let's hope the run continues. (Only so we get more JOEL BOUCHARD HAIR!!!)
Can you say Canucks/Habs finals?
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