Have Caps peaked or is best yet to come?
Magic of 2015-16 ride is missing
WASHINGTON — Are you suffering from a Presidents’ Trophy hangover? Here are a few telltale symptoms.
When the Washington Capitals lose three straight early season games, you start calculating whether they could miss the playoffs. When Evgeny Kuznetsov goes a week or two without resembling Russell Westbrook on skates, you wonder if he’s broken. When the team slogs through a sluggish December road loss against a struggling opponent, you ask yourself whether last season was the peak and this is the start of the decline.
Maybe the Caps are showing signs of a hangover themselves. Look at their on-ice product, which often seems less a joyful celebration and more a sullen headache. At their coach, who already has publicly reprimanded his captain and asked his players to start having more fun. At their goalie, who accused his team of playing spoiled and said the Caps must “realize it’s not easy just because we had success last year.”
That’s the key word: Easy. Last year’s team spent most of the season making the game look easier than it has any right to be. They easily finished with the NHL’s best record when trailing after the first period. If their offensive stars got nicked up, the injuries didn’t linger. And if they lost, they immediately responded with a win. That team never dropped consecutive games in regulation. Less than a third of the way through the season, this team already has done it twice.
Sure, the previous record-breaking season ended with another playoff disappointment. But before that, the regular season was a joyride free of speed bumps.
“I think you’re right,” Marcus Johansson said this week. “I mean everything went smoothly and there were never any issues. We won and even when we didn’t play well, we found ways to win. So yeah, it’s been a little different so far this year. But it can’t always go that smoothly as it did last year during the regular season.”
This season’s team, so similar on paper, was never going to come close to last season’s pace. As of Tuesday, these Caps were already four wins (and 17 goals) behind their predecessors through 24 games and this is the moment that team hit its stride, winning 10 of its next 12.
That streak — sparked by Braden Holtby’s Vezina-winning campaign, a terrifying power play and two all-star centres — created a certain intoxication. You flipped on a Capitals game and you expected to see something dazzling, plus two points in the standings. Those expectations already worried Holtby last spring.
“It’s just human nature. You could tell it crept in a bit through the last part of last year,” he said. “You can force yourself and push yourself forward, but you also need those outside things like a playoff race or trying to prove yourself as a team.”