Semyon Varlamov wasn’t really to blame, but the Caps’ effort wasn’t good enough to put away Montreal last night. Photo by choofly.

Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau stopped just short of actually naming a laundry list of guilty parties after his team lost the chance to wrap up their first round series against the Montreal Canadiens on home ice Friday night.

Not even the officials were spared. Boudreau wasn’t pleased when a faceoff during the game was put to the right of goalie Semyon Varlamov rather than his left, and told reporters afterward that the refs “had the whole rule wrong.”

But he wasn’t letting his charges go without reprimand after the 2-1 loss. And how could he? With the Canadiens scoring before ninety seconds had elapsed in Game 5, the Capitals never saw a lead on the scoreboard Friday. Within six minutes, the home team was down by two goals.

“We have Game 5 in our building, and we play like crap for the first ten minutes, and the game’s over,” an upset Boudreau said. “We’re not getting 20 guys playing. We’re getting 13 and 14 guys every night, rather than everybody coming to play. Tonight we had five or six passengers again.”

Boudreau later focused his ire. “When you have players that are supposed to be scorers and they miss really good looks, it’s like a checker not doing his job, in my mind. They’ve got to score those goals.”

Obviously, the conversation drifted to forward Alexander Semin, who, despite a 40-goal regular season, has yet to score in the playoffs.

“How many goals and assists did he get?” Boudreau fired back. “But he did put in a better effort, I thought, than he’s put in the three, four previous games.”