Pondering and mulling over how Semyon Varlamov would fare if called upon in the playoffs seemed like an interesting prospect in the middle of March as the young Russian phenom struggled through the worst stretch of hockey in his professional career, but as soon as you remembered the impact he had on the Capitals during the 2009 playoffs, all the worries and woes from March quickly faded.
Realistically, at the time, March that is, the prevailing sentiment was that Jose Theodore had truly turned a corner and was indisputably the Capitals starting goaltender.
And who was there to argue them.
Yes, there are always those who would bring up the historical views of who Theodore truly was, but considering the Caps goalie had put together a record setting stretch of over 25 games without losing in regulation, it was hard to argue with those backing Theo as the starter for the playoffs.
Unknown to those who believed he could carry the team, but quite obviously not unpredictably, Jose was headed on a crash-course with the Capitals bench that no one would be too pleased about.
That said, that brings us full circle to the fact the Varly has once again replaced Theo as the Caps starting netminder thanks to Jose’s Game 2 collapse against the Canadiens.
Once again guiding the Caps through the first round, Varlamov is a much different goaltender this time around.
Last season, he was a rookie being thrown into the fire as a last ditch attempt to salvage a series gone horribly wrong.
This season, he was tossed into the net as the teams reliable 1B.
The biggest difference in the two versions of Varlamov is the fact that the kid is now confident.
Sure, he was confident when he played for the team last April, but nowhere near as confident as the guy who spent the season seeing what it was like at the professional level, not to mention learning the ropes at the Olympic level.
All of these wonderful things simply to say, Varlamov really is the Capitals guy.
The proof of why there is once again reason to believe in Varly lie in the statistics from tonight’s game.
Semyon stopped 11 of 12 shots in the 1st period, 20 of 21 shots in the 2nd and 5 of 6 in the 3rd.
The only reason Semyon saw so little action in the 3rd period is likely because his team-mates felt so bad for hanging him out to dry so they made a resilient effort to put the game away in the final frame.
But, other than the Caps desire to finish off the Habs in the 3rd period, the whole reason the Capitals can head home to the Verizon Center is thanks to Semyon Varlamov’s incredible heroics.
He made innumerable lightning quick glove saves and simply had the best timing he could have asked for on a night like tonight.
The Canadiens deserve full credit for nearly skating the Capitals out of the building in the first 40 minutes, but the luck of having a strong goaltender who is capable of stealing a game once in awhile truly held true for the Caps tonight as Varlamov kept them in the game long enough for Washington to regain the momentum.
Caps 6 – Habs 3 – Highlights
- Alex Ovechkin and Alex Semin were finally reunited and, with Nicklas Backstrom centering them, finally opened up enough ice to get Semin going.
- Mike Knuble could not have scored a timelier goal for the Caps. His short-handed tally, the Caps 2nd short-handed goal of the year(!) and 2nd in two games, was a true back-breaker and gave the Capitals the momentum they needed heading into the 3rd.
- Varlamov’s continual denial of Michael Cammalleri and Brian Gionta was a big reason the Canadiens weren’t able to maintain the upper hand as both Habs snipers registered 5 shots apiece, each scoring once.
- Another sign of relief for the Caps was the fact that they were able to finally get their power play going again. Ovechkin’s 1st period power play tally snapped a 3 game playoff drought that saw the Caps go without a goal for 16 straight power plays.
- Boudreau managed a decent game as he attempted to overcome the Canadiens waves of offense, limiting guys from too many long shifts, a rarity for the Caps bench boss.
- Mike Green skated a team high 22:47 while Eric Fehr saw only 8:44 of ice-time.
- Although out-shot 31-18 through 40 minutes, the Caps ended up being barely out-shot 39-38 thanks to their 3rd period onslaught of 20 shots on Carey Price.
- Along with the 38 shots on goal tonight, the Caps had another 22 blocked while 13 missed the net.
- For Varly’s part, he stopped 36 of 39 shots on the night, while his team-mates saw to it that 14 were blocked and 5 missed the net.
The Capitals head immediately back to Washington and will practice tomorrow at noon.
I would just like to say thanks to all of you who participated in our joint Cover-it-Live in game blog. We had a great roster of Caps and Habs writers, including many from HockeyBuzz.com(including myself, Kamal and Ek), HockeyIndependent.com(Jeremy Scriven), George Prax and Scott Lowe from TheCheckingLine.com, Andrew and Gary K. from OnFrozenBlog, Krafty from RocktheRed.net, Kyle Roussel, Rick from AllHabs.com and many, many more. It truly was a great event and brought together two very strong hockey communities for a much needed war.
If all goes well, expect us to try it again for Game 5 as the Caps attempt to finish off the Habs in front of their home-town fans in DC.
Washington Capitals Blogger • 
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