via media3.washingtonpost.com

If only this picture was from this series

After the Upset of the decade, I know its soon but unless a expansion team beats a team in the playoffs I don't think you can top this one, our own R.J. Umberger's comments from earlier in the year started to float around again. To quote him on his feelings about how the Capitals play the game of Hockey.

"I don't think any team in the West would be overmatched by them," Umberger said. "They play the wrong way. They want to be moving all the time. They float around in their zone, looking for breakaways and odd-man rushes.

"A good defensive team is going to beat them (in the playoffs). If you eliminate your turnovers and keep them off the power play, they're going to get frustrated because they're in their zone a lot."

Now on the surface it looks like R.J. is a prophet, or a prophet of doom if you are a Capitals fan, all but saying that the capitals will collapse in the first round of the playoffs if they face a good defensive team. Well in the wreckage of the Capitals playoff collapse lets look at a few contributors to this playoffs failure

• Jaroslav Halak playing out his mind
• The Capitals inability to score on the Power Play, the went 1-34 in the last three games
• The Capitals inability to score in general, 3 goals in the last three games by the team that scored 384 in the regular season
• Bruce Boudreau's bad managing during the Series
• The Canadiens doing what Washington feared most, manning up on Ovie
• The Caps are built to play the way they play

First thing Jaroslav Halak played out of his mind during this series. After being pulled from game 4 of the series he came back and a Save% of .978 in the last three games of the series, let that sink in for a second of 134 shots face he stopped 131 of them and had countless other blocked by he other players. The statistic of the Washington Capitals with all of their fire power went 1-34 and the man advantage is stunning. Add that to the fact that they scored 3 goals in three games you have to start wondering the Habs made a deal with the devil to win this series. Now on to Bruce Boudreau and his handling of this series, First off he pulls the goalie he said he would pull, who was that Goalie you ask Jose Threeorfour Theodore. That should have been red flag that said this was about to be handled poorly, one of the Caps leading scorers for the regular season Tomas Fleischmann was benched for game 7. Now on to the fact that Ovie doesn't like it when people man up on him, why you ask simple he just tries to skate around guys and that hard to do when you have the entire defense of the other team manning up on him because they know he isn't going to pass the puck, think about it how do you score 50 goals a year by passing the puck, so when Alexander the "great" was shut down so went the rest of the Caps offense.

Now on to the last thing if the caps are built to play this way and in the last three years they are 1-3 in game sevens shouldn't that be a sign that mabye the team is built the wrong way.