Capitals, Canadiens meet for second time after 1st wild series in 2010

MONTREAL -- Many suggest that the Eastern Conference First Round between the Washington Capitals and Montreal Canadiens is a mismatch.

Over seven games or fewer, the Metropolitan Division champion Capitals will play the second wild card Canadiens, fifth in the Atlantic Division, with the series winner advancing to the second round.

Those forecasting a mismatch might want to look back to the first round in 2010, the one and only time these teams have met in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The No. 8 Canadiens were going to be little more than cannon fodder in the No. 1 Capitals’ march to their 2010 coronation, the ultimate jewel in the crown of the Presidents’ Trophy winner.

Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak and defenseman Josh Gorges foil a scoring chance by Capitals’ Eric Fehr and Alexander Semin during Game 5 in Washington.

Seven games later, the stunned Capitals were packing up and the Canadiens were headed to Pittsburgh, upsetting the Penguins in seven games before finally running out of gas, falling in a five-game Eastern Conference Final to the Philadelphia Flyers.

If this season’s Capitals-Canadiens series, beginning Monday at Capital One Arena (7 p.m. ET, MNMT, ESPN, SN, TVAS), is even a fraction as nutty as 2010, we’re in for a treat.

In the hours before Game 1 on April 15, 2010, Canadiens defenseman Jaroslav Spacek declared, “The excitement is over!”

In at least his second language, perhaps the native of Rokycany, Czech Republic, meant the regular-season’s grind was over. Or the physical and mental and emotional marathon of playing six exhausting months of hockey was done, for the reward of ... playing even longer.

Alex Ovechkin celebrates a Game 4 goal at Montreal’s Bell Centre.

The 2009-10 Capitals didn’t mop the ice with the Canadiens in every statistical category. But there were a few of almost scary note:

Washington’s league-leading 208 5-on-5 goals were only seven fewer than the Canadiens scored total that season.

The Capitals had the NHL's best record at home and away, where Montreal was 21st and 16th, respectively.

Washington scored 318 goals, 108 more than the Canadiens. That difference equaled the entire offensive output, less one goal, of Montreal’s final 37 games.

That said, the Canadiens largely had contained Alex Ovechkin during the future NHL goal king’s four regular-season games against Montreal -- Ovechkin had scored just once with three assists, taking 24 shots on goal with another 35 not making it to the net.

Capitals players mob Nicklas Backstrom after he completed his hat trick in overtime of Game 2 in Washington.

The Canadiens won 3-2 in overtime in Game 1, the Capitals replying with a 6-5 overtime victory in Game 2. The series shifted to Montreal, the visitors rolling to easy 5-1 and 6-3 wins, leaving the Canadiens in a shallow grave with the need to win three consecutive elimination games to advance, two of them on the road.

And they did exactly that: 2-1 in Washington, 4-1 in Montreal and 2-1 in Game 7 on Capitals ice.

The scores were just part of the story in this series; you had to duck to avoid being hit by the bizarre, by the alleged scandal, by the plain, simple loopiness.

And by the mind-blowing work of Montreal goalie Jaroslav Halak in three elimination games.

A massive part of the Canadiens' series win was written in their bruises. The team blocked 182 shots in seven games, including a series-high 41 in Game 7. Defenseman Josh Gorges was a welted human wall.

Coaches Bruce Boudreau (l.) of the Capitals and Jacques Martin of the Canadiens.

"No one gave us a chance,” Gorges would say. “Everyone expected them to walk right over us. When it got to Game 7, everyone was asking why it's taken them so long to clean us up.”

The defense, at times, was a fortress in front of Halak, an obstacle into which a muzzled, puzzled Washington offense drove puck after puck.

Forty-one Game 7 Capitals shots perished in the pads, gloves and belly of the Slovakia-born netminder, who made 131 stops on 134 Washington shots in Games 5, 6 and 7 for a ridiculous save percentage of .978.

Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak made 53 saves in Game 6 to keep his team alive against the Capitals.

“I thought we had a good chance to win the Stanley Cup this year,” Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau said. “I would have bet my house that they wouldn’t have beaten us three games in a row, and that we would have only scored three goals in almost 140 shots.”

The puck hadn’t even been dropped for Game 1 when the simmering pot was at full boil, Canadiens center Tomas Plekanec considering a question about what the underdog’s biggest challenge might be.

“They have three good goalies,” Plekanec said of Washington’s Jose Theodore, Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth. “But obviously they weren’t as sharp this season as (Buffalo Sabres’ Ryan) Miller and (New Jersey Devils’ Martin) Brodeur. We just want to shoot the puck from everywhere and see if some shots go in.”

Not exactly fighting words, though Theodore bristled when Plekanec’s quote was read to him in Washington.

“Tomas who? Jagr? I thought you mean Jagr,” he said, confusing sniper Jaromir Jagr, who then was playing in the Kontinental Hockey League, with Plekanec, best known for his face-off work and penalty-killing.

Canadiens center Tomas Plekanec rushes the puck during Game 2 in Washington.

Boudreau sniffed at the perceived insult, saying that he’d take Theodore’s 20-0-3 record through the season’s final 23 games “over those two guys.” The coach was speaking of Miller and Brodeur, not Halak and fellow Canadiens goalie Carey Price -- but don’t let the facts get in the way of a good sparring match.

Halak would play the first two games of the series, yield the net to Price during Game 3 and watch Game 4 from the bench. With the Canadiens one loss from summer, coach Jacques Martin went back to Halak and was rewarded with brilliant performances in three straight games.

But there was plenty of fun before that.

Ovechkin, who would score five goals in the series, caused a stir after the 6-5 come-from-behind win in Game 2 when he claimed that he’d seen Halak trembling nervously after the Capitals’ first goal.

Washington defenseman Mike Green shrugged about his opponent after his team’s easy Game 3 win.

“When everyone plays like that, [the Canadiens] don’t have much out there. Really, they don’t,” he told Washington reporters.

P.K. Subban carries the puck during Game 7. It was Subban’s second career Stanley Cup Playoff game, his fourth career NHL game.

Boudreau then claimed he’d seen Martin lurking around Capitals practice before Game 4, adding “Spygate” to the headlines.

That game took an even more bizarre turn. As he traditionally does when his dressing room is across the ice from the Capitals bench and he’s not among the starting six, Ovechkin roared the width of the rink, slammed on the brakes and took his seat. His hard stop kicked some snow on the shins and pants of an 8-year-old pregame flag-bearer standing between the doors to the Capitals and Canadiens benches.

The uproar was off the charts, Canadiens fans saying that Ovechkin’s “territory-marking” sprint was reckless. The suggestion was that with a lost edge, the Capitals captain could have turned the kid into a smudge on the boards.

Needless to say, the youngster was a YouTube sensation and a hero with classmates. Two years later at a Montreal charity auction, Ovechkin met the boy and signed a photo of the “event.”

“I told the kid, ‘I don't mean to spray you, or anybody. That’s what I do everywhere,’” Ovechkin said after the two had met. “I told him, ‘Listen, kid, I don’t mean to do something bad to you, but right now you’re a pretty famous guy.’”

Montreal Canadiens legend Jean Beliveau is seen on the scoreboard during the playing of "O Canada" before Game 3 at Bell Centre.

Defenseman Spacek was felled by illness as the series wore on, so wildly popular 20-year-old P.K. Subban, with two NHL games to his name, was called up from the team’s American Hockey League affiliate for Game 6.

Subban played 10:02, had two hits and three blocked shots. Packing his bag to charter to Game 7 in Washington, where his dressing room seat would be a folding chair outside a washroom, he considered sudden death on the road.

“Who knows? Maybe Obama will show up,” he joked of the U.S. president.

Subban would play 14 games that postseason and be with the Canadiens full time in 2010-11.

Montreal’s three-game rally to eliminate the Capitals remains one of the most improbable series in franchise history.

Now, for the second time ever, the teams prepare to meet again, No. 1 Washington again heavily favored against No. 8 Montreal.

Now, as they were then, the games will be played on the ice, not on paper.

Top photo: Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak and Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin shake hands after Game 7 of their playoff series.