IT LOOKS LIKE THE PLAYOFFS REALLY ARE A NEW SEASON

Whether it’s the Leafs, Predators or Blues, a lot of teams are playing above their billing

Doubt was the word coming out of Washington following Saturday night’s overtime Game 2 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. But it came with an asterisk.

Even after losing 4-3 in double overtime to the Maple Leafs, no one really doubts that the Capitals will win this series. Need an example? Head coach Barry Trotz had several of them in overtime alone.

What if Alex Ovechkin hadn’t been stopped on that breakaway? What if Brett Connolly’s shot hadn’t rang off the post? What if Marcus Johansson, who was alone in the slot in the dying seconds of the third, managed to squeeze the puck past Toronto goalie Frederik Andersen?

“He scores there and we’re probably going, ‘Thank you very much,’ and it’s a different story,” Trotz said. “That’s the great thing about the playoffs: There’s different storylines.”

Had Washington capitalized on what Trotz called “four or five absolute outstanding chances to win the game,” the Capitals would be up 2-0 and the story coming out today would be how this series was practically over.

Instead, with Toronto’s Kasperi Kapanen scoring in double OT, the series is tied 1-1 heading to Toronto for the next two games.

“They won a game in our building, so the series is on. It’s on,” Trotz said. “We won a hockey game in overtime and they regrouped and had a real good effort (Saturday) and they end up winning a hockey game. We’ve got to do the same. We got to go into Toronto, regroup and go win a hockey game in Toronto. It’s no different than what they went through the other night.”

A best-of-seven playoff series is all about managing momentum. It’s OK to lose two or three games — just not in a row. That’s why Toronto’s win on Saturday was so important.

Before Kapanen scored in overtime, the Leafs were a team that got close but hadn’t sealed the deal. A very young team now has an actual reason to believe a firstround upset might be possible.

Of course, the Leafs will probably have to win Game 3 — and maybe even Game 4 — to cause some real uncertainty in Washington’s players. Either way, with the series tied and heading to the Air Canada Centre, the outcome does not seem as preordained as it did when the playoffs began.

“I think you go into every series hoping that you win every game, but the reality of the playoffs — and you can look around at any of the series for the most part — the teams that are in the playoffs are very, very good,” Trotz said.

“They’re in the playoffs for a reason. There’s teams that are not in the playoffs that are very, very good that some of them were expected to be Stanley Cup finalists and they’re not there.”

Indeed, because of parity, upsets feel less like upsets these days. Is Toronto, a team that finished with three fewer points than the second-best team in the Atlantic Division, really an underdog? Are the St. Louis Blues, who had three fewer wins than the Minnesota Wild, surprising anyone with their 3-0 lead in their series?

In the Western Conference, the top-seeded Chicago Blackhawks are down 2-0 to the eighth-seeded Nashville Predators after a pair of shutouts. That’s the same Nashville team that finished 15 points below Chicago, by the way.

“We’ve had some funny games this year,” Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville told reporters following Saturday night’s loss. “This was one of them. It wasn’t fun to watch, standing from behind the bench. As a teammate, as a player, as a coach, it’s one of those games that it’s as bad as you can be. We have to be way better and bring our best because we haven’t seen anywhere near our best.”

Righting the ship might be easier to do when you are a team that has won three Stanley Cups in the last seven years. But going down 2-1 or 3-1 is a different situation for the Capitals, who despite constantly having their name etched on the Presidents’ Trophy, haven’t advanced to a conference final since 1998.

What happens if Andersen stands on his head again or if Ovechkin cannot punch through Toronto’s threadbare defence?

When does doubt — real doubt — start to creep in?

“We have a lot of belief,” Trotz said when asked about the Leafs’ growing confidence. “There’s a reason we won a lot of games over the past few years. There’s a lot of belief in our room.”