Where do I begin?
Game 3 provided a host of new plotlines: the electricity of the crowd, the energy in Montreal’s legs, Arber Xhekaj and Oliver Kapanen, Martin St-Louis’s new line combinations, Ivan Demidov on the top power-play unit, a bench-clearing brawl of a different kind, the emergence of the Canadiens’ secondary scoring, and even both starting goaltenders leaving the game with injury.
If a writer wrote this script, their editors would send it back for stretching plausibility.
But amid all this, there was one constant from Games 1 and 2: Nick Suzuki: a goal. Cole Caufield: a goal and an assist (and eleven shots on target). Juraj Slafkovský: a goal.
The Canadiens drive for the playoffs was largely spearheaded by their big line. Naturally, the Habs’ success in the post-season hinged on whether this trio could be the best line in the series across both teams.
After the first two games, the returns were mixed. Suzuki, Caufield, and Slafkovský were definitely the best line for the Canadiens, but they were held to a relative stalemate by the Washington Capitals’ own de facto top line of Tom Wilson, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Connor McMichael.
In the friendly confines of the Bell Centre, armed with last change, head coach St-Louis freed his charges from these shackles, setting them loose upon Dylan Strome, Alexander Ovechkin, and Anthony Beauvillier.
The result: 16-4 in shot attempts, 10-2 in shots on goal, and 86.3% of the expected goals — in a mere five-and-a-half minutes of five-on-five play.
Overall, the big line played a huge role in setting the Capitals back on their heels time and time again, finishing with a final line of 23-8 in shot attempts, 14-3 shots on goal, 78.6% expected-goal share, and 2-0 in goals over 11:55.
Credit also has to be given to the three that St-Louis tasked to take their place against Wilson, Dubois, and McMichael: Josh Anderson, Christian Dvorak, and Brendan Gallagher. Given the job to shut down the Capitals’ top line, the Canadiens veterans ran them out of the rink. Over the 10:12 where Dvorak went head-to-head with Dubois at five-on-five, the Canadiens out-attempted the Capitals 25-8, outshot them 9-3, and out chanced them 12-4.
The Canadiens went into Game 3 needing to show that they could do more than just rack up moral victories. What they got was dominance on the night, and perhaps a blueprint for more in the future.
With a stick-tap to Messrs. Bartlett and Cole:
They wanted to be in the mix. They wanted to be in the playoffs. They’re now in the series… and the series is a brand new one.
