Do you like horror movies?

You do? Ah, well, here's how it starts:

Here, we examine the worst +/- players in the 28-39-14 Washington Capitals team, in 14th place with 70 points:

And here, we can observe the same stat for the 42-33-6 Montreal Canadiens, in 8th place with 92 points (22 more than the latter)



See anything weird there? Oh, it's no big deal, the Canadiens only have 3 players in the minus twenties whereas the Washington Capitals HAVE NONE!
I can't believe it, really. Even if the Caps have Ovechkin, who is a thousand times better than Koivu and Ryder put together, their team +/- rating is -135, the Habs sit 26 back with...wait for it, -161!
Koivu is -22, Ovechkin is -19.

And worst of all, which makes this stat even more scary, is that the Capitals and Canadiens both have scored the exact same numbers of goals heading into Saturday night, with 234 a piece and the Canadiens, who sit in playoff contention, have allowed about 30 goals less than the Capitals.

There's a problem here, and I just can't see how this can be.
I know the Habs' penalty kill dropped off badly from 1st to the mid-teens recently, but the Capitals have been consistently mediocre all year long.

If anyone can tell me, I'd gladly appreciate it.


In other relative Habs news...

-Cristobal Huet will tend goal for the Canadiens tonight. It will be the French goaltender's first start since he injured his hamstring against the New Jersey Devils about 2 months ago. Huet appeared for the 3rd period of Thursday's 3-1 Habs' loss to the New York Rangers, when he replaced Jaroslav Halak, who allowed 3 goals on 25 shots.

This is a reasonable move, Carbonneau probably panicked at Halak's shaky play and didn't want it to transition to this game, he knows they can't afford to risk anything with the playoffs on the line, and the logical choice was to go with Cristobal Huet, who hopefully, once again will save the team as he did last season.

See Matthew's post above for more information heading into tonight's Habs-Leafs tilt.