 |
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Mother Nature played her own neutral zone trap on the Washington Capitals in the small hours of Thursday morning and U.S. Customs did what the Montreal Canadiens could not, check them to a standstill.
The Caps couldn’t land because of fog at the metropolitan airports here as their charter returned after Wednesday’s 6-3 win at the Bell Centre for a 3-1 lead in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal.
They wound up being rerouted to Baltimore and then had to cool their jets on the tarmac for three hours while U.S. Customs officials, who had gone home from the night, were summoned to clear the Caps.
“Anything to declare?”
“Hmmm, the Habs don’t have a prayer of winning this series because every time they get a lead, we just skate around that guy wearing 44 and score a short-handed goal?”
“No, I meant more like, are you bringing back anything of value?”
“You mean like the knowledge it’s not too hard to drive that Price kid nuts in nets?”
The Caps didn’t get home until 5 a.m., cabbing it from Baltimore.
The inconvenience is easier to take when you’re up 3-1, right?
Caps coach Bruce Boudreau gave the players the day off Thursday with only a few showing up at the team’s practice facility.
The Habs, meanwhile, flew in Thursday afternoon, the skies clear if their minds were not. They are no doubt still thinking about what might have been in this series and how they have themselves to blame - and some opportunistic play by the Caps - for facing potential elimination Friday night in Game 5.
Carey Price’s frustration was evident Wednesday, flinging the puck at the celebrating group of Caps after Jason Chimera had made it 4-2 and then trying to whack Caps forward Nicklas Backstrom from the bench area after he had scored the empty-netter to make it 6-3.
Price said he wasn’t trying to hit the Caps with the puck.
“That’s hockey,” he said, “Let ’em know you’re there.”
The first unsportsmanlike conduct penalty he took hurt his team because there were still eight minutes left in the game and the Habs were only down two goals.
As it turns out, teammate Mike Cammalleri was harder on him for his petulant actions than the Caps.
“When we act out in these ways - and we’ve all done it, we’ve all been part of it - it’s the mentality as a group and it’s about us being accountable to one another. It’s not one guy, it’s not two guys, it’s our maturity level as a group, maybe,” said Cammalleri.
“It’s not okay to be doing that. To beat these guys, we have to focus 100 percent of our energies and anything that distracts us from that will be working against us.”
Boudreau was willing to forgive Price and give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Well, I could picture his frustration. He is a pretty reserved man from what I’ve seen on tape. He was probably very frustrated with the way things happened,” he said. “I don’t think there was a lot of malicious stuff. The flip wasn’t very hard and I think with the stick on Nicky, he would have liked to have hit him hard, but (it was) sort of, “Ah, what is it I’m doing?’”
Like Cammalleri said, frustration isn’t something the Canadiens can allow at this point.
They have got to be perfect for three games, because just about every time they’ve made a made a mistake, the supremely talented Caps have made sure it has wound up in the Montreal net.