The Capitals beat the Leafs last night 4-1.
Only a late third period goal prevented Phillip "Hans" Gruber from picking up his fourth shutout of the season. (Someone is likely going to be moving to Las Vegas soon.)
The Leafs needed to win in order to clinch the Playoffs, as the Lightning also lost, but clearly the Caps were not interested in allowing that.
I thought the Leafs would be pumped and that the Capitals, with nothing really to play for, would be listless and easy to beat.
I was wrong. The Leafs had a difficult back-to-back home/road situation and it seemed like they were the ones with nothing to play for.
That is some pretty bad scheduling to have a team play back-to-back in two different cities, but I digress.
Washington pretty much dominated this game, other than maybe the first bit of the second period, and they could have clinched first place, but the Penguins also won.
Stupid Penguins.
If the Penguins lose a single game, or if the Caps get a single point, the Capitals will be first in the league, division, conference, world and universe.
If this happens, they will open Playoffs against Ottawa, Boston, Tampa, Toronto or the Islanders.
Obviously the Islanders and Ottawa are the most preferable matchups.
Toronto, Tampa and Boston are all way too good to actually be the 8th seed and it would be unfortunate to win the President's Trophy and then have to face a team of that quality in the opening round.
The Caps play tonight against the Rangers, and they'll have Holtby back in the net. If they win, then they can at least cross Columbus off the list of possible Playoff partners.