Logan Thompson turned in a tremendous performance on Wednesday night at Capital One Arena, making save after save in the third period to protect a precarious one-goal Washington lead. With Montreal’s Sam Montembeault also stopping everything sent in his direction over the back half of the contest, the Caps needed every single one of those Thompson saves to emerge victorious in a 3-1 nailbiter.
Wednesday’s close shave gives the Caps a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series as the scene shifts to Montreal for Friday night’s Game 3 at Bell Centre.
As he did so often in the front half of the season, Thompson simply refused to give up a goal that would put Washington behind late in the game.
“I thought he was the difference tonight in the third,” says Carbery. “There are a couple things in play. He wins us that game in the third period, and Montembeault was fantastic in the first 40 [minutes], minus the first three minutes; I think we were in our zone for the first few minutes of the game. But other than that, I thought he was phenomenal.
“And so again, you’re playing with fire if you’re not able to capitalize and execute, and to find a way to get that game to 2-1, 3-1, 4-1. You let a team stay right there within a goal, and we obviously do a really poor job of managing that game in the third period.”
Thompson finished the night with 25 saves, and 14 of those stops came in the third period when the Caps were outshot 14-5 and out-attempted by 34-16.
According to sportlogiq.com, the Canadiens had the puck in Washington’s end for 9:54 of the third period, and they possessed the puck there for 3:01. The Caps were in Montreal’s end for 6:08 of the third and generated just 1:13 worth of time there with the puck on their stick.
“I thought he was awesome, incredible,” says Caps center Dylan Strome, who has factored on four of Washington’s six goals in the first two games of this series. “He shut the door when we needed it most. I think about that bit tip save in the third, off [Christian] Dvorak’s stick, a great toe save.”
Thompson’s save on the Dvorak tip that Strome mentions was similar to a Montembeault stop on Strome midway through the second, a save that prevented the Caps from taking a multi-goal lead.
In addition to denying the Canadiens on some high danger chances late, Thompson also made some timely – if routine – saves against the ever-dangerous Nick Suzuki line, and those stops prevented that trio from authoring some of their marathon shifts in which they can wear down the opposition.
The first and third periods of Game 2 were free flowing, with few whistles and face-offs; there were only 11 face-offs in the first and 14 in the third; half of the game’s 50 draws came in the second period, when all the scoring – save for Connor McMichael’s empty-net goal at 19:58 of the third – took place.
Early in the middle period, Montreal jumped out in front when Dvorak managed to tuck a puck under Thompson’s outstretched right pad. Dvorak’s goal gave the Habs their first lead of the series at 1:16.
Less than two minutes later, Thompson made two stops a second apart, denying both Juraj Slafkovsky and Cole Caufield from point blank range to keep the Caps within a goal of the visitors.
Washington was a team of quick responses and quick strikes during the regular season, and it dusted off each of those traits in the aftermath of the Dvorak goal.
First, the Caps pulled even on a McMichael goal, one that came about as the result of a fortuitous bounce. McMichael carried out to the front from behind the Montreal cage, and he fired a shot from in tight, one that Montembeault stopped. The rebound came right back to McMichael, and he tried to backhand a feed across the crease, but it clanked off the skate of Habs defender David Savard and bounded in at 3:47, squaring the score at 1-1.
“I was skating behind the net, and I noticed I had a little room to take it,” recounts McMichael. “First shot didn’t go my way, and I honestly thought someone was [at the] back door, so I tried throwing it, but like I said, it was a lucky bounce.”
The Capitals seized momentum in the aftermath of that goal, and they grabbed a 2-1 lead exactly a minute later when Dylan Strome buried his own rebound at 4:47, exactly a minute after the McMichael marker.
“I just got lucky; it came right back to my stick,” says Strome of his first goal of these playoffs. “He’s a big goalie obviously, he gets set pretty quickly.”
And even though they went shorthanded less than half a minute after Strome’s go-ahead goal, the Caps managed to keep the momentum and kept the heat on, generating a pair of high danger scoring chances while shorthanded. The Habs had both of their power plays in the middle period – the Caps had one, in the first period – but Montreal couldn’t generate a high danger chance on either of them; they were limited to a single shot.
“I think we just had a lot of momentum in that game, once we answered back,” says Carbery. “And so there’s a pivotal moment, we just take the lead, it’s 2-1, and now they get a power play. And that can swing either way; they can have a great power play, potentially score, now it’s 2-2, and we’re back to square one. Or you can have a really strong penalty kill in that situation, and now you carry the momentum. And that’s exactly what we did.”
Washington held onto the momentum it generated, and it was able to maintain it through the middle frame. The Caps carried a two-goal lead into the in Monday’s series opener, and they couldn’t hold it. Tonight, thanks to Thompson, those two goals the Caps managed to score on Montembeault – a minute apart early in the second – were enough.
“Washington, it’s a really good team,” says Habs coach Martin St. Louis. “They make it hard to attack; they defend really well. But I felt that we had pockets where we did attack. We didn’t capitalize, but we generated.
“The margin of error is so slim. Both teams pressured the opponents in both games and forced the other team to execute through that. Both teams have struggled on the other side of that. We have, they have. It’s just, can you maximize those touches, those scoring chances?
“They’ve done that better than we have so far, but I believe in the group. I thought both goalies were great tonight. It’s a fine line between winning and losing.”
That it is. And Thompson is the reason the Caps are on the right side of that line tonight.
“You definitely get confidence from it, especially when I thought Monty was having a hell of a game on the other side of it,” says Thompson. “The first two periods, I thought we had a lot of chances, and that makes for a lot of pressure on the other goalie, when he’s keeping them in it.
“It definitely gets you back in the game, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a back-and-forth game, and those are the type of games you dream of playing in as a kid, and yeah, it went our way tonight.”
