How The Montreal Canadiens Can Upset The Washington Capitals In Round 1

After a rollercoaster regular season, the Montreal Canadiens stunned the hockey world by clinching a playoff spot, snapping the franchise’s three-year postseason drought. While this marks a successful campaign for the team and its young core, the Habs must avoid a “we’re just happy to be here” mindset as they face the Eastern Conference’s top-seeded Washington Capitals in the first round. No doubt, it’s a daunting challenge, but there’s every reason to believe Montreal can pull off the upset.

As the saying goes, “Anything can happen once you’re in the dance.” With that, here’s a quick outline of how the Canadiens can take down the Capitals in this best-of-seven series.

Samuel Montembeault Showing He is One of the Most Underrated Goalies In the NHL

If the Canadiens are going to beat the Capitals, not only will they need to keep up with Washington's high-powered offense, but they will also need to find a way to keep the puck out of their own net. Luckily, at least in my opinion, they have one of the most underrated netminders in hockey with Sam Montembeault. According to Moneypuck, for goalies who played a minimum of 50 games this season (a fairly large sample size), Montembeault ranked as a top-five goalie in many of their advanced stat categories, including a top-three finish in goals saved above expected with a rating of 24.6, finishing just behind Winnipeg's Connor Hellebuyck (39.6) and Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy (29.2).

Aside from Lane Hutson and Kaiden Ghule, the Habs d-core leaves a lot to be desired, and there is no chance they would be anywhere near the playoffs without Montembeault. Since the Four Nations Faceoff, Montembeault has a record of 13-3-4 with a .912 save percentage in his 20 starts.

While Habs fans should not expect the type of goaltending we have been used to having during the team's postseason runs over the last decade with Carey Price, I do think Montembeault can rise to the occasion and help Montreal stay in games against this talented Capitals team.

The Power Play Needs To Get Going Again

On paper, the Canadiens should have one of the better power play units in the NHL with their first unit of Lane Hutson, Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, Juraj Slafkovsky, and Patrik Laine. However, over the last ten games, the team is struggling to capitalize, going just 3 for 23 (13%) over that time frame. On the flipside, the Capitals penalty kill has also struggled over their last ten games going just 24 for 31 (77%). When Laine came back to the lineup in December, it seemed to sparked this unit and made it one of the league's best. If the Canadiens are going to take down Washington, they will need take advantage of this getable Washington penalty kill and return to their own winning ways.

Why Can't Nick Suzuki Be The Best Player In This Series?

Listen, I am not here saying he is the best player in this series because it's tough to ignore what Alexander Ovechkin has done this season. I am just saying, would it be crazy if Nick Suzuki was the best player on the ice in this series? For one, he was the leading point scorer on either team throughout the regular season, finishing with 89 points, and is no doubt one of the best two-way centers in hockey. Suzuki has the speed, skill, defensive instincts, and an improved shot that helped him reach 30 goals for the first time in his career this season. If he continues that level of play, I don't think it would be insane to call him the best all-around player in this series, and he can then lead the Habs to an upset.

They Aren't Even Supposed To Be Here; Go Out There & Play Loose

As stated earlier, nobody expected the Canadiens to be here. At the start of the year, the goal was to be in the mix, but I don't think many people predicted this team would be an actual playoff team. After qualifying this year, they are officially the youngest team to make the postseason in NHL history, with an average age throughout the roster of 25.8. While there was some pressure near the end of the regular season to clinch that final playoff spot that they almost let slip away, now that they are in, that pressure has gone away, and they can just go out on the ice and lose. I expect Lane Huston and Ivan Demidov to try to show off their skill set, Juraj Slafkovsky to make his presence felt, as well as Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki to play the way they did, if not better than what we saw from them in 2021, when they helped the Habs reach the Stanley Cup Final.

With nothing to lose at this point and all the pressure on the Capitals, go out there, play loose, have some fun, and see what happens.