Jim Turner

Turnersportsdesk.com

April 21, 2010

It should surprise no one that when the Caps simplified their game and paid attention to the details they earned their biggest win. The Caps went into enemy territory and pulled the heart right out of the chest of the Habs by adhering to the following basics of playoff hockey:

• Be smart with the puck and smarter without it
• Weather your opponent’s initial surge of emotion on the road
• Move your feet
• Hit early and often
• Go to the net and create your own 2^nd/3^rd scoring chances
• When in doubt shoot
• When in doubt go to the net

The Caps played a boring road game which was the best possible outcome they could have wished for. For the first time in this series they made the Habs play their game for an extended period of time. In fact the Habs were so off of their game that they lost their composure in the 2^nd period completely, trying to start fights etc. The Caps proved they have enough talent to play only portions of games and win them during the regular season  but that allows them to fall prey to lazy non-playoff hockey ala game #1 of this series. It would be wise for the Caps to use this past game as a building block for the rest of their playoff games. They played well but they can play even better.

The Caps power play is the last part of their overall game that is still stuck on fancy right now. The simple remedy is to take more shots. Every goalie in the playoffs is pretty good and can usually stop the first shot. The Caps are still trying to beat the goalie with one clean shot instead of taking as many shots as they can while crowding the crease to make the opposing goalie uncomfortable making saves and preventing rebounds.  

The bottom line for the Caps is to keep it simple in every aspect of their game. The playoffs are a grind and playing a simple game saves precious energy. Smarter hockey also saves precious energy and we saw that Monday night. For the first time it appeared Montreal was swimming upstream with iron flak vests on. The teams that are winning are adhering to the stuff they learned in pee-wee hockey. Those are the things that will win the day when it is all said and done.