Capitals eliminated from 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs
By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com
For the second year in a row, the Capitals, the official boogeyman of the Bruins for about a decade now, have been eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
This time around, Washington’s early exits came at the hands of the Islanders, and battled back for a Game 4 win before they dropped Thursday’s Game 5 by a 4-0 final at Scotiabank Arena.
And once again, it was New York’s team defense that powered them to the next round, with the Capitals held to just eight goals over five games. Game 5 was a team-defense clinic, too, with Barry Trotz scheming up a masterful plan that made it downright impossible for the Capitals to generate much of anything through the neutral zone and in the New York end. Ever
It was just impossible for the Capitals to get much of anything from someone other than Alexander Ovechkin, who scored four of the team’s eight goals in this series, but was held to just three shots in 20:34 in their Game 5 loss.
This may have been the last game with goaltender Braden Holtby in a Caps uniform, too. The 30-year-old Holtby, who struggled with a career-worst .897 save percentage in the regular season, is a pending unrestricted free agent and has 2015 first-round pick Ilya Samsonov challenging him for the starting gig. The Capitals have just over $10 million in cap space, and have three defensemen and Ilya Kovalchuk also coming off their books this fall.
But what does this all mean for the Bruins?
With New York’s round-two ticket punched, the B’s list of possible second-round opponents has been cut down to two.
Should the Flyers, currently up 3-2 in their first-round series with the Canadiens in their first-round series, finish off Montreal, the Bruins will play the Lightning in the second round and for the first time since 2018. If you include their round-robin contest, Tampa Bay took four of their five head-to-heads with the Bruins in 2019-20. The Lightning punched their ticket to the conference semifinals with a five-game series win over the feisty Blue Jackets, which included a five-overtime contest, on Wednesday afternoon.
But if the Canadiens can rally and pull off a comeback against the top-seeded Flyers, the Bruins and Islanders will meet in round two, and give the sides their first playoff meeting since the 1983 conference final. Boston has won five of six meetings against the Isles since Trotz took over as the team’s head coach in 2018, and have outscored them 19-7 over that six-game sample.
The Flyers and Canadiens will play Game 6 on Friday night.
Ty Anderson is a writer and columnist for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Yell at him on Twitter: @_TyAnderson.
