Washington looks finished after latest capitulation
NWASHINGTON icklas Backstrom claimed his Presidents’ Trophy-winning Washington Capitals were the “underdogs” heading into this series. Few agreed at the time. Everybody would agree now. How could you not after the Penguins’ stunning 6-2 victory Saturday at Verizon Center?
The beleaguered Capitals — and the word “beleaguered” really was invented for this franchise — are underdogs, under siege, under fire and 20,000 leagues under the sea after two games of this Eastern Conference semifinal series.
They might be under an evil spell, too, based on events of the past several decades, and precisely no one expects them to break it after they lost back-toback at home for the first time all season despite ransacking the Penguins for a good portion of the evening.
Afterward, the Capitals kept their locker-room doors closed longer than usual and had some interesting things to say when they met the media.
“It’s far from over,” winger Justin Williams said.
“We have to man up,” winger T.J. Oshie said.
Defenseman Brooks Orpik cited his 2009 Penguins team as coming back twice from 2-0 deficits and offered this little
eye-opener: “I think we have a better team here this year than the team I was on that year in Pittsburgh.” OK. By the way, how did the Penguins win this game?
Let me answer that: They won it because they are the Penguins, and the Capitals are the Capitals. They won it because Marc-Andre Fleury was sensational again, because Phil Kessel only needs one chance (or two) and because Alex Ovechkin isn’t Sidney Crosby and never will be.
They won it because they know how to win, even under highly adverse circumstances. Namely, playing on the road against a team that had 118 points and rightfully was treating this like Game 7.
But let’s give some discredit to the Capitals, because they Capital-ed like rarely before, dominating the game before Bobby Orr, er, Kevin Shattenkirk, got stripped by Matt Cullen for a short-handed goal at 1:15 of the second period.
Washington tied it on the same power play when Ron Hainsey got lost in the corner, but that’s when Crosby took over, first going all Harlem Globetrotter to feed Kessel for a tie-breaking goal at 13:04.
I mean, it wasn’t that great. All Crosby did was kick the puck with his skate to stay onside, go between his legs with the puck at full speed, keep control of the puck among three Capitals (including Ovechkin) and whip a pass to Kessel, who, in the picturesque form of a natural goal scorer, had only his right skate on the ice when he rifled said puck over Braden Holtby’s glove. That’s all. “He’s the best player in the world for a reason,” defenseman Justin Schultz said of Crosby.
Three minutes later, the captain outdid himself, making the kind of play Ovechkin can only dream of. He went to his knees to block Williams’ shot, then dived to swipe the puck ahead to Jake Guentzel, who broke in alone and beat Holtby low glove-side (Crosby would later break up a sure goal just before the secondperiod horn).
All you could hear at that point, among the red sea of tortured Capitals fans, was “Let’s Go Pens!” chants breaking out in various pockets of Verizon Center.
Holtby is an interesting case, isn’t he? The Penguins own him. He seemed a little too confident after a lackluster Game 1, describing every aspect of Crosby’s first goal like he wasn’t surprised at all and saying, “That’s one I’m capable of stopping — and will next time.”
Next time never came after Period 2 Saturday. Holtby was pulled in favor of one Philipp Grubauer, who promptly allowed Kessel to beat him between the pads.
I asked Orpik what he thought of Barry Trotz pulling Holtby. Certainly seemed like a desperation move to me.
“My reaction was we should probably stop giving up breakaways and 2-on-1s and help him out a little bit against a team like this,” Orpik said. “Expecting him to bail us out is not a good recipe for success.”
The Penguins now return to a rink on which they almost never lose. They had the fewest home losses in the NHL this season, going 31-64, and are 12-4 in their past 16 playoff games at PPG Paints Arena.
But who knows? Maybe in the twisted prism of playoff hockey, the Capitals will reverse that evil spell and do so in precise proportion by erasing a two-game deficit the way the Penguins have done multiple times against them.
Only a fool would bet on it. The ghosts of past playoff failures are not only awake, they’re dancing and doing shots at the bar. The same old questions cannot be avoided.
I mean, it’s kind of hard to skirt the fact that Ovechkin and Trotz have gone a combined 27 NHL seasons without either advancing as far as the conference final. People are beginning to talk.
So while I refuse to discount the possibility of a comeback, I can’t help but think of a story from The Washington Post Saturday describing the Capitals’ playoff gear, the stuff players wear around the locker room. That would include T-shirts depicting zombies “clawing past gravestones.” Seems about right in regard to the Capitals’ predicament.
Dead men skating.