1. Familiarity and Contempt
When the Caps (as defending Stanley Cup champions) last faced the Hurricanes in the playoffs six years ago, a dozen players featured in the series who also figure to play significant roles in this one, including a “swap” of blueliners:
Played for Caps in 2019: Carlson Dowd Eller Orlov* Ovechkin Wilson Played for Canes in 2019: Aho Martinook Slavin Staal Svechnikov van Riemsdyk*
— Luke DeCock (@lukedecock.bsky.social) May 1, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Ovechkin tallied four goals and five assists in the seven games, Wilson three and two, Eller one and two, and Dowd a goal; Carlson had five assists, Orlov four. On the other side of the matchup… eh, who cares. Point being, these teams know each other real well. Including those seven games, Ovechkin has faced Carolina exactly 100 times in his career (56 goals, 60 assists); Jordan Staal has seen the Caps 79 times as a ‘Cane and a Penguin (hell of a combo). The rest of these guys have been through plenty of these head-to-heads and know what’s coming.
Oh, and they also played the regular season game with the most penalties in the League this year (including eight misconducts and 114 PIMs in the last 7:02 of regulation) just a month ago, sparked by Jalen Chatfield’s dirty take down of Connor McMichael.
So yeah, there’s no love lost here. Buckle up.
2. Luck of the Draw
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: faceoffs don’t matter… unless they do. In aggregate it’s best not to over-emphasize a few percentage points in faceoff percentage and lose the forest for the trees on a player. But individual draws? This time of year? Yeah, they can matter. Bigly. Just ask the Habs on that Game 5 opening goal.
That was cool.
Anyway, what we’re really talking about here is non-neutral zone draws, and in the first round, the Caps had 84 faceoffs in the Montreal end of the rink and 100 in their own end, so 45.7 percent of their non-neutral zone draws were in the offensive zone. For Carolina, in their series against New Jersey, that number was 51.4%. These include special teams, so number of power plays, effectiveness at getting frozen pucks, etc. all play in (the Caps had 24 power play faceoffs and 24 shorthanded; Carolina had 37 and 23, respectively).
And how’d they fare in those key in-zone faceoffs? Some big picture numbers:
Nothing really sticks out here other than perhaps the Caps’ crappy shorthanded faceoff percentage (then again, Montreal was a robust 54.2 percent… but lost a big one in Game 5). But what about individual matchups? Here (via NHL.com and some elbow grease) is how each Caps pivot fared against current Canes this year:
There’s a lot there and the samples are tiny. But there are a few things that might jump out, like Jordan Staal being tough to beat in the (Caps’) offensive zone… and Jesper Kotkaniemi less so. Sebastian Aho might be a handful in the dot at the other end, though Nick Dowd did alright against him. Etc.
As the two coaches plan for this series and the matchups they think will favor them, you can be sure that they’re also looking at faceoffs (whether or not there’s any “there” there). And we’ll be sure to keep an eye on it, as well, but almost all of these matchups are within a win or two of a coin flip… even though every single one has a winner and a loser, and that can make all the difference.
3. Southbeast
When the NHL realigned ahead of the 1998-99 season (in the wake of the Caps’ other Stanley Cup Final appearance), the Southeast Division was born, made up of the Caps and ‘Canes, Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers. A season later, the expansion Atlanta Thrashers were added to the mix, where they’d stay until the dissolution of the division in 2013 (despite having moved to Winnipeg two years earlier).
It’s a division the Caps won seven times, as many times as the other four clubs combined. There were some lean years in the “Southleast” to be sure, but the Division did claim two Cup champs (Tampa in ’04 and… another one, can’t recall). And look at where these graduates have gone since. The Caps won the Presidents’ Trophy twice, Tampa, Florida and Winnipeg (née Atlanta) once each, so five times in the 12 years since the Division disbanded; the Bolts have won two Cups, the Caps and Panthers one apiece (with Tampa finishing as runners-up twice and Florida doing it once).
And here we are in May of 2025, with the two regular-season Conference Champs (Winnipeg and Washington), Florida, and Carolina still alive, the latter three already in the second round. Only Tampa – bounced by Florida in the first round – is out. Only one of the “Original Six” even made the postseason this year, and Montreal… well, we know what happened to them. Maybe it’s time we start talking more about the Original Five… Southeast Division teams.