Today’s comes courtesy of vet Habs’ defenseman Hal Gill, who assisted on Dominic Moore’s series clincher and blocked half a dozen of his team’s preposterous 41 shots in their upset of Alex Ovechkin’s Caps last night. Gill finished with 36 blocks doing an outstanding job along with committed teammates of disrupting the league’s No.1 offense. He had quite an interesting take on the series. One R.J. Umberger probably agrees with:

“I imagine it’s tough for them. They had their eyes set on bigger things, I’m sure. I think they thought we were kind of a bump in the road. That’s hockey, that’s playoffs. I think we played better as a team then they did.”

He’s right. In the postseason, regular season stats are meaningless. Playoff games are a different animal. Unless you’re willing to go all out with every teammate pushing in the same direction, you won’t succeed. It’s about T-E-A-M. The Canadiens outexecuted the Capitals, functioning as one unit. Something Billy Jaffe alluded to while calling out the dreadful Washington power play for improvising too much. Such overthinking isn’t a great recipe. Everyone needs to be on the same page. As was pointed out on NHL Network’s postgame, watch the way Detroit runs their man-advantage compared to the Caps’ organized chaos. It’s much more simplified with every player knowing their roles. They know when to pass, shoot and make it difficult on the goalie.

Time for a philosophy change in D.C.