Capitals give home fans reason to believe
TAMPA – A running joke for Washington area sports fans for many years has been that every spring, in our nation’s capital, cherry blossoms bloom and the Capitals wilt.
This season’s Capitals appear determined to break the cycle of postseason failures. They turned in another strong overall game to down the Lightning 6-2 and claim a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference finals.
Two weeks ago, the story was the Capitals hadn’t been to the conference finals in the Alex Ovechkin era. Now, they are two wins from reaching the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 20 years.
“We are playing good,” said Brett Connolly, who scored one of Washington’s goals. “They look like they are frustrated a little over there, and we have to continue to play hard, keep playing fast and stay on them.”
Forgive Washington fans if they don’t know how to act Tuesday when the series shifts to D.C. for Games 3 and 4.
The Capitals aren’t just squeaking by against the Lightning. Despite missing key center Nicklas Backstrom because of an injury, the Capitals outscored the Lightning 10-4 in the two games in Tampa. This is a Lightning team that boasted the league’s No. 1 offense in the regular season. The Lightning have one even-strength goal against Washington in two games.
Enthusiasm abounds for the Capitals. It’s as if the Washington players, now with a huge weight lifted off their shoulders by escaping the second round, are playing with unbridled confidence. The Capitals are 3-0 without Backstrom, among the NHL’s best centers. They are 7-1 on the road. They overcame a blown officiating call that led to a Lightning power-play goal in Game 2.
“A lot of our guys have learned tough lessons,” Washington coach Barry Trotz said.
It’s still undecided what will happen from this point, but the Capitals, at the very least, are playing strong enough to believe they can win it all.
Ovechkin scored his 10th goal of this postseason, and Evgeny Kuznetsov had a goal and two assists. But Washington’s success thus far hasn’t only been about the stars. The Capitals had six different scorers in this game.
“Everyone is stepping up,” Ovechkin said. “We played hard, we played smart and you can see all the four lines did their job. We didn’t force it. We just did our job.”
After the Game 1 loss, the Lightning talk was all about how poorly they played. After Game 2, there was more recognition about how sharply the Capitals are playing.
“They’re playing really well, taking away a lot of our options and taking away a lot of our speed with their physicality and defensive play,” Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “We’ve got to continue to make good decisions with the puck, play high percentage a little bit more, and obviously spend more time in their end.”
Sunday morning, Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper was asked to describe Kuznetsov’s importance with Backstrom out, and he detailed Kuznetsov’s skill package before offering unsolicited that he was most impressed by Lars Eller’s performance in Backstrom’s absence. That seemed prophetic Sunday night when Eller generated a goal and two assists in the Game 2 win.
“He’s got all of the qualities of a playoff-type player,” Trotz said of Eller. “He’s big, he’s strong and he’s got experience. He’s very competitive. He’s got a good skill level and he’s playing that way. He’s playing to his ability right now. We’ve had people step up, but he’s one of the guys that has stepped up in a major way for us. The guys in the room, they know how valuable he is.”