The Capitals had an outside chance of making the playoffs at the end of January; by the middle of April, they had made it, largely on the backs of performances by three players: Charlie Lindgren, John Carlson, and Alex Ovechkin. Now that the team is in the postseason, however, that previously stalwart trio has fallen off a bit (relatively speaking, in one case; less relatively in the others), at exactly the wrong time.
We’ll start with the guy who has been good but probably can (and definitely needs to be) better, and that’s Charlie Lindgren.
This is no shade to the job Lindgren’s done so far; he has made some huge saves already in this series, and hasn’t been bad.