This one really hurt. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

I have to admit, I didn’t expect to be writing this story in April. As a crowd of reporters waited outside the Capitals locker room for post-game interviews following last night’s Game 7 loss, it felt like waiting for the dentist. We could hear the cheers from the Montreal Canadiens as they celebrated their 2-1 win on their way to the dressing room.

And they had reason to. The Canadiens led for most of the game after Mike Green’s cross-checking penalty in the first turned a 4-on-4 into a 4-on-3 in Montreal’s favor. Marc-Andre Bergeron got the power play goal to make it 1-0, and Dominic Moore followed up with Montreal’s game-winning goal in the third.

To put it in perspective: Caps winger Matt Bradley said last night’s loss hurt more than last year’s Game 7 blowout loss against Pittsburgh.

It wasn’t that the Caps didn’t have chances to come back on Wednesday night. They outshot (42-16) and outhit (27-13) the Canadiens, and had three power play opportunities. Alexander Ovechkin found the net early in the third, but the goal was waved off because Mike Knuble was deemed to have interfered with the goalie on the play — the call from the ref was actually “man in the crease.” The number one seed Capitals finally scored a gritty goal late in the game when Ovechkin and Alex Semin fed the puck to the net and Brooks Laich tapped in the rebound. But that was it.

“I was sitting on the bench thinking for sure we were going to score another one,” Bradley said later.

Head Coach Bruce Boudreau said top line guys Nicklas Backstrom and Alexander Ovechkin and usual point gurus Alexander Semin and Green were almost beyond remorse in the Caps’ locker room; Green finished the postseason with only three points, and Semin had two.

“Nobody tried as much as Alex and Nicky,” Boudreau said, though he gave the two best player nods for the deciding game to John Carlson and Hershey callup Karl Alzner.