Mike Knuble was hardly the only Cap stifled by Jaroslav Halak last night in Montreal.(AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Ryan Remiorz)
Canadiens 4, Capitals 1:
For playoff hockey fans, it was easy to be impressed with the play of Montreal Canadiens goalie Jaroslav Halak last night — in a must-win game, in front of over 21,000 demanding and fired up fans, Halak produced a once in a lifetime performance between the pipes, standing on his head to even the series and force a Game 7. For fans of the Capitals, though, it was enough to induce nausea. Halak denied Washington’s potent offense over and over and over again in a classic postseason performance from the man who had been pulled from a game in the same building but one week ago. Halak’s lengthy highlight reel included a fantastic glove save midway through the second period, denying wide open nets at least twice and a nifty save on really good chances by Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Ovechkin who split the Montreal defense more than once.
If the Caps are going to pull this series out and avoid one of the biggest stomach punches in Washington sports history, they’re going to need to play hard from the moment they step out onto the ice in Game 7. The Caps obviously didn’t heed their coach’s criticism about starting games poorly — Mike Cammalleri scored twice in the first ten minutes to put the Caps into an early hole again. The Caps are being outscored in the first period during this series 8-3; the rest of the way, Washington is up 18-10. One gets the feeling that if the Capitals would have come out like they meant it from the start of this series, we’d already be talking about facing Philadelphia. Oh, and scoring a couple of goals on the power play — on which, Washington is mired in a 1-for-30 slump — would probably help a little bit too.
Despite the first period issues, the Caps completely outplayed the Habs for long stretches of the game, outshooting them 54-21 and setting franchise playoff records for shots in a regulation game and shots in a period. But Halak was just playing out of his skull. What can you say? A hot goalie trumps all in the NHL playoffs. If you’re Washington, you tip your cap and pray that Halak surely won’t play like that again in Game 7.
Cubs 4, Nationals 3: The Nats overturned a 3-0 deficit to force extras at Wrigley, but Brian Bruney walked in the winning run in the bottom of the tenth. Starters John Lannan and Carlos Silva both delivered tidy little starts, but Lannan was hurt as four of the five hits he allowed went for extra bases. The Nats just couldn’t string a consecutive series of hits together; Cristian Guzman went 0-5 in the three hole was the main culprit — hitters in Washington’s 1, 2, 4 and 5 slots went 9-19, but Guzman couldn’t provide that extra hit which would have resulted in a valuable extra run.
