(8) MONTREAL CANADIENS vs (1) WASHINGTON CAPITALS<\/strong><\/p>\nThe scariest thing about Washington over the last two seasons is that it\u2019s proven to be far more than a one man team. Sure, Alex Ovechkin is the best pure goal scorer on the planet, but he has a tremendous supporting cast. His centerman, Nicklas Backstrom, topped 30 goals and 100 points; defenseman Mike Green scored at better than a point-per-game clip for a second straight season; Alexander Semin potted 40 goals; overall, seven different Washington players scored 20 or more times.<\/p>\n
The Caps fill the net better than any team in recent memory and they\u2019re poised to assault the Habs. Andrei Markov is a stud on Montreal\u2019s blueline but the rest of the group, featuring Paul Mara, Hal Gill and Jaroslav Spacek, is slow as can be. Their experience is a plus but I\u2019m not sure they can keep pace with Washington\u2019s relentless attack. ![\"Sports](\"http:\/\/affiliates.commissionaccount.com\/processing\/impressions.asp?btag=a_3953b_677\")
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It appears Jaroslav Halak will get the starter\u2019s role in goal for Montreal in this series. He certainly earned the job this year, posting a .924 save percentage and five shutouts, but he seemed to tire a bit down the stretch, perhaps because he\u2019d never faced a workload so big. He allowed three or more goals in each of his final three starts.<\/p>\n
If Halak doesn\u2019t bring his \u201cA\u201d game, Washington could sweep Montreal.<\/p>\n
That said, the Habs may score more than expected in this series. Washington\u2019s pedestrian 2.72 team goals against average placed it in the middle of the pack in the NHL this season. Though Montreal struggled to score for most of the year, it has a lot of speed up front with Mike Cammalleri, Brian Gionta, Scott Gomez and so on. The Caps blueline is beatable. Mike Green and Joe Corvo both play more like forwards than defenseman. Also, Washington\u2019s goaltending is a question mark. Last year, Jose Theodore gave way to Simeon Varlamov in the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Any chance that happens again?<\/p>\n
Even if Montreal does find a way to score, however, it will likely lose plenty of 5-3 or 6-4 games in this series. It simply can\u2019t hold a candle to Washington\u2019s firepower. I see the Habs stealing one game at the Bell Center, one of hockey\u2019s best places to play, but that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
Prediction: <\/strong>Capitals in five.<\/p>\nCLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT SPORTSBOOK.COM\u2019S NHL HOCKEY BETTING LINES FOR THIS WEEK’S MATCHUPS!!!!<\/h3>\n
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\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 7 game series between the Montreal Canadiens and the Washington Capitals opens on Thursday night, here’s the odds and our prediction for the series. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[10330,27701,27694,27730,27731,27732,27733,27679,21458,27729,27691,27692,27674],"class_list":["post-21194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhl","tag-10330","tag-2010-stanley-cup-futures","tag-2010-stanley-cup-playoff-picks","tag-canadiens-capitals-lines","tag-canadiens-capitals-picks","tag-canadiens-capitals-predictions","tag-canadiens-vs-capitals-series-preview","tag-canadiens-vs-capitals","tag-hockey-betting-picks","tag-montreal-canadiens-vs-washington-capitals-predictions","tag-stanley-cup-playoff-picks","tag-stanley-cup-playoff-prediction","tag-stanley-cup-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21194"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108176,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21194\/revisions\/108176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}