ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — When Alex Ovechkin hosted Washington Capitals teammates for his 39th birthday dinner in September, he made it clear his focus for the next several months was on Stanley, not Wayne Gretzky.
“He was talking not about the record, but he was talking about having a good crack at the Cup and making it to the playoffs and getting the team there,” winger Tom Wilson recalled.
Ovechkin broke Gretzky's NHL career goals record late in the season, and the Capitals defied expectations by finishing atop the Eastern Conference. They now turn their attention to the next challenge, opening the playoffs against the Montreal Canadiens and looking to win a series for the first time since hoisting the Stanley Cup in 2018.
“That’s why you play six months working out for this kind of moment,” said Ovechkin, who scored 44 goals to get to 897. “That’s why you work all year hard to be able to be in this position, be in this situation."
The Capitals are favored to win the 1-8 matchup in the East, though that's based on their body of work over the course of the 82-game regular season. They lost eight of their final 12 games while getting Ovechkin the record and resting players with the East's top seed wrapped up.
The question now is whether Washington can transform back into the team that had things working so well through the first three-quarters of the season.
“It’s not as simple as just kind of flipping a switch,” Wilson said coming off his first 30-goal season. “A lot goes into it. But we’ve built habits. We’ve built our game all year. We have a system that we know we can depend on, and we have confidence in it.”
Montreal draws confidence from its surge down the stretch, winning seven of 10 to get in. The Canadiens' top line of captain Nick Suzuki, 37-goal scorer Cole Caufield and 2022 No. 1 pick Juraj Slafkovsky is an imposing trio, and they added electrifying top prospect Ivan Demidov for their final two regular-season games.
“They’re a very skilled team,” said Capitals center Dylan Strome, who set career highs with 29 goals, 53 assists and 82 points. “They’ve got some younger players that had, obviously, breakout years. Caufield and Suzuki, those guys can really score, Slafkovsky, and obviously bringing in Demidov, I think they’re an elite offensive team, and if we don’t check well and we don’t play hard, good defensive hockey, it’s going to be tough.”
Capitals questions
Washington won't have injured forward Aliaksei Protas, who missed the past six games with a skate cut to his left foot, and defenseman Martin Fehervary (undisclosed lower body) for at least Game 1 on Monday night and perhaps longer. Spencer Carbery, who is favored to win the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year, is reluctant to share any information about their absences.
Likewise, Carbery isn't saying who will start in net between Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren. Thompson has been out since taking a shot off his mask April 2 at Carolina, with Lindgren shouldering the load down the stretch, but appears to be healthy and good to go.
“Our goaltenders have been good all year,” Strome said. "We have confidence in them. It’s on us to give them the best chance to be great goaltenders, and we’ve got to play good defensive hockey. If we do that, I think the rest will take care of itself.”
Defending is the key. After being the third-best defensive team in the league through 65 games, allowing an average of 2.58 goals, Washington gave up 3.59 in its final 17.
Difference-making Demidov
The Capitals got their top prospect in the lineup late in the season when Ryan Leonard joined them after Boston College was knocked out of the NCAA tournament, and he's even more important now with Protas out.
But the hype around Demidov in hockey-crazed Montreal — in English and French — reached the level of a livestream capturing the 19-year-old landing in Canada off his multiple flights from Russia. Considered the best young player not in the league already, he had a goal and an assist in his NHL debut and could be an X-factor in the series.
“Really bleeping good,” Caufield said. “His drive, his compete level, obviously his skating and puck handling have been really fun to watch.”
Coach Martin St. Louis, a Hall of Fame player after going undrafted and helping Tampa Bay win the Cup in 2004, likes the reinforcement he got, specifically because Demidov might be able to help the Canadiens' power play, which was the second worst in the league down the stretch at 3 for 29 (10.3%).
“I have a bunch of cards I can use,” St. Louis said. “We got Demidov now; it’s a new card. I don’t know exactly how I’m going to use all these cards, but we have plenty.”
___
With files from the Canadian Press.
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
Stephen Whyno, The Associated Press
