"If you want to get a sense of the frustration that has overwhelmed this season, you only have to look at the goal Washington's Dennis Wideman scored Saturday.

Wideman didn't get everything he wanted on a bouncing puck but the result was a high, fluttering shot that seemed to drop like a good curve ball just as it cleared Canadiens goaltender Peter Budaj.

"He kind of like wedged it and it went over two guys," Budaj said. "I totally lost it in the air and it just dropped in. It was an unlucky break for us. It was kind of like a knuckle puck."

Nobody seemed more surprised when the puck went in than Wideman.

"It just went straight up," Wideman said. "You want to score goals, but when they go in like that you don't know what to do. Things aren't going well for them, and when it's going that way it seems like goals like that go in. I've been on the other end of it before."

It wasn't the only goal that surprised Budaj. Alexander Semin was awarded the second penalty shot of the game when he was hooked by Tomas Kaberle late in the third period and he found the top corner with a slapshot from 15 feet out.

"He's not just a shooter, he has great hands," Budaj said of Semin. "I've seen him fake the shot and then deke the goaltender. I tried to stay up as long as possible and I tried to stay big but he put the shot over my shoulder. There aren't many players in the NHL who can make that shot.""