Welcome to the playoffs of the Stanley 2025 Cup, readers.
Tonight, Washington’s capital and Montreal Canadiens are expected to compete in the playoffs for the first time since 2010, when the Canadians with a lower seeded, thanks to goalkeeper Jaroslav Halak, upset the most seeded capitals in seven games.
Capitals have lost their last five series in the playoffs and have been looking for their first playoff victory since defeating the Golden Knights from Vegas in five games to win the Stanley 2018 Cup. Meanwhile, Canadians have made their first appearance in the playoffs since 2021, when they fell in the Tampa Bay Lightning Cup final.
In three regular season games against each other, the caps came out in the lead 2-0-1 with a combined score of 12-8. Montreal won second place in the playoffs on the last day of their regular season, ending with a file of 40-31-11. They finished 20 points behind the best capitals in the East and their file of 51-22-9.
Capitals have an advantage of home ice in the series, which means that match 1 and match 2, and, if necessary, match 5 and match 7 will all be played in Capital Onena.
Team leaders – Capitals
Goals: Alex Ovechkin (44)
Help: Dylan Strome (53)
Points: Dylan Strome (82)
Power game objectives: Alex Ovechkin (14)
Digital disadvantage objectives: Protas Aliaksei (3)
More / less: Aliaksei Protas (+40)
Gagnie: Logan Thompson (31)
GAA: Logan Thompson (2.49)
SV%: Logan Thompson (.910)
Team leaders – Canadians
Goals: Cole Caufield (37)
Help: Lane Hutson (60)
Points: Nick Suzuki (89)
Power game objectives: Patrik Laine (15)
Digital disadvantage objectives: Joel Armia / Jake Evans (3)
More / less: Nick Suzuki (+19)
Gagnie: Sam Montembeault (31)
GAA: Jakub Dobes (2.74)
SV%: Jakub Dobes (.909)
Capitals injuries
The injury bug hit capitals in the last weeks of the regular season. Caps saw key players like Logan Thompson, Aliaksei Protas, Martin Fehervary, Jakob Chychrun, Matt Roy and John Carlson Miss Time in the last games before the playoffs.
The biggest question points before the series are the Protas and the Fehervary.
Protas, which recorded 66 points (30g, 36a) in 76 games this year, returned to the ice for the first time Sunday morning. The Grand Belarusian trained again on Monday at the team’s morning skate, but only in a contactless sweater. However, head coach Spencer Carbery did not rule it out of match 1 and expects to come back at one point in the series.
Fehervary has not patinated since his lower body injury against New York Icelanders on April 15. Carbery has not yet delivered a specific update to the defender and has replaced the 25 -year -old Slovaquian in the team’s programming with Alex Alexeyev.
Montreal has an almost complete health check. The only important injury of the team, knee surgery for striker Kirby Dach, occurred at the end of February. Dach should not come back until next year.
Logan Thompson vs Charlie Lindgren
The Capitals departure goalkeeper for match 1 is still undetermined, because Carbery refused to reveal to whom he will give the head. Logan Thompson is a full participant in training since last week and was the first ice goalkeeper of the ice during the skate on Monday, indicating that he could miss the fold to start the series.
The 28 -year -old net missed the last seven games of the season after suffering an upper body injury on April 2 – 19 days ago. Charlie Lindgren started five of these games with Thompson and won a file of 4-2 in April with an average of goals at 3.11 and a percentage of stops of 0.881.
Thompson ended the season with a file of 31-6-6, an average of goals at 2.49 goals, a percentage of stops of .910 and two whitening. After a hot start of the year, he fought on the section, displaying an average of 3.33 goals and a safeguard percentage of .877 in his last 15 games.
None of the guards are more experienced than the other in terms of action of the eliminatory series. Thompson and Lindgren played the first four games in the playoff series of their careers last year.
Redemption of Alex Ovechkin’s qualifiers
Alex Ovechkin will play in his 16th qualifiers for the capital after having recorded Zero Points in four first round games against the New York Rangers last year. The series was the first of Ovechkin in his career where he could not find the bottom of the net.
Ovechkin finished the 2024-25 regular season with 73 points (44g, 29a) in 65 games. He had three points (1g, 2A) in the two games he played against the Caniens.
In 2010, Ovechkin led the caps during his loss of seven games against Canadians with 10 points (5G, 5A).
The role of Ivan Demidov
The Montreal Canadians made an important addition at the end of the season when they brought Ivan Demidov prospect of the SKA Saint-Petersburg of KHL. The very tuned perspective shone during its beginnings in the NHL against the Chicago Blackhawks, recording two points, including its first NHL goal.
Demidov is expected to skate on the second line in Montreal with Alex Newhook and Patrik Laine.
The 19 -year -old winger told journalists before the start of the series that he was more a fan of Evgeni Malkin than a fan of Alex Ovechkin who grew.
Pierre-Luc Dubois against Nick Suzuki
Carbery will probably be trying to get the line of Pierre-Luc Dubois on the ice against Nick Suzuki’s line as much as possible. The Top Trio of Habs, also with Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky, was a problem for the caps this season, displaying 10 points (5g, 5A) during their three games against them.
Suzuki finished tied in the 13th place in the NHL in a global score (89 points), while Caufield finished on a stretch in 13th rank (37).
Dubois, who will play with Tom Wilson and Connor McMichael, was the response of the capital to most of the arrest matches this year at five against five years and excelled in the difficult minutes. With him on ice, the team saw 52.8% of shooting attempts, 54.9% of the expected goals, 55.8% of the chances of scoring and 57.2% of high danger.
Capitals did not score more goals for five with another player on the ice than Dubois (73) and had an advantage of 73-44 in the goals during his 1,147 minutes of ice.
Puck Drop for Match 1 is scheduled for 7:00 p.m. inside Capital One Arena. The game will be broadcast on ESPN and Monumental Sports Network.
