Considering that the Washington Capitals entered the post-season as number one overall seed, their disappointing first round exit versus the Montreal Canadiens was certainly one of the biggest playoff upsets in recent years. In fact, the Caps had a terrific regular season, finishing at the top of the Eastern Conference posting a 54-15-13 record. Yet, Alex Ovechkin and company all the sudden find themselves watching the playoffs on TV instead of competing for the Stanley Cup.
Although the San Jose Sharks experienced a similar disaster in 2008-09, the seven game elimination of the Caps remains a mystery. After all, the franchise from D.C. outplayed their opposition all year long, putting up incredible numbers at the offensive end of the ice as they recorded a total of 318 goals in the regular season. Likewise, franchise cornerstone Alex Ovechkin had one of the best years of his career, scoring 50 goals and adding 59 assists for a total of 109 points. Moreover, Nicklas Backstrom added another 33 goals and 101 points to help Washington rally to the top of the league.
However, ultimately, the Capitals failed to continue their dominance in the playoffs as they fell 4-3 to the Montreal Canadiens who struggled throughout the year and experienced significant problems even making it to the post-season. Albeit a legit goal of forward Mike Knuble was falsely waived off in the Caps 2-1 game seven loss, said incident can hardly account for Washington's lack of performance. Thus, the Capitals' front-office will have to analyze carefully what went wrong during the off-season and possibly become active on the free agent market to avoid another disappointing season next year.
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