The Washington Capitals are in a place with which they have some
familiarity over the years, holding a 3-2 lead through five games of their
Eastern Conference Quarterfinals series against the Toronto Maple Leafs. A Game 5 usually means a series win, looking
at the history of such things around the league. For the Caps, though, it has not been as reliable an
indicator of series success. But we’ll
let the cousins bat that back and forth…
Feerless… For much of the season, Capitals Nation has
entertained the notion of this being a team different from any other in recent
history. They score like the 2009-2010
team…yeah, well this team is different.
They won 56 games last year, 55 games this year…yeah, well, this team is
different. In some respects, this team
has been different. It is arguably the
best defense/goaltending performance in the post-2005-2006 era, if not team
history. They were actually pressed in
the late season by Columbus and Pittsburgh this season while they coasted to a
Presidents Trophy last season. But the
first meaningful indicator of whether this team is truly “different” this
season comes on Sunday night when they can eliminate the Maple Leafs without
letting things slide to a Game 7 in Washington on Tuesday.
Cheerless… Well, y’know, this whole “Game 5” thing hasn’t
been much of a thing in this “era,” as you call it, cuz. Since 2005-2006 the Caps took a 2-2- series
into a Game 5 on home ice three times.
They won two of those games – in 2013 against the New York Rangers and
in 2015 against the New York Islanders.
In those two series, they lost Game 6 in New York against the Rangers in
2013 before losing Game 7 on home ice, and in 2015 they lost Game 6 on Long
Island before beating the Islanders at Verizon Center in Game 7. Know what would really be different
here? Winning Game 6 on the road.
*****
Cheerless… When is this team going to put together a
complete game and give us all a break?!
Five games, five one-goal games, four settled in overtime. This is worse than that 2012 series against
Boston that had seven one-goal games, four of them in overtime, including the
Game 7 win on the road. At least the
Caps were an underdog in that series, or at least the lower seed playing the
defending Stanley Cup champs. And it’s
not like the 2010 series against Montreal where the goalie played out of his
mind in the last three games to steal the series from the Caps. The Caps have played right to the level of
their competition in this series. High scoring
games, low scoring games…no matter what, all one-goal games, and the Caps and
coin-flips don’t go well together.
Fearless… Yes, this is a game between one- and
eight-seeds. But since March 1st,
their records are almost identical.
Washington was 13-6-1, while Toronto was 12-6-2. Toronto has been rightly characterized as a
young team, but they might not be getting enough credit for being a good
one. Sure, one could make the argument
that they have had the benefit of some bounces, but they have put themselves in
a position to take advantage of the opportunities those bounces provided. Teams that lack a foundation in fundamentals
might not find themselves in those positions.
The Caps have done well to fight through that and carry a 3-2 lead into
Game 6.
*****
Fearless… Once more, the game on the ice and the “off season”
game intersect. Look at who scored the
goals in Game 5 – T.J. Oshie and Justin Williams. The players that the front office went out
and acquired to address a specific shortcoming after the 2014-2015 season. Those two are tied for the team lead in goals
(three, with Tom Wilson and Alex Ovechkin), and they are first and third in
points, respectively, in the postseason.
Each has a game-winning goal, Oshie’s coming in the third period of Game
4 and Williams’ coming last night in overtime of Game 5. It is part of a broader theme of the veterans
having a pretty good series. Ovechkin is
tied for the team lead with three goals in five games, while Nicklas Backstrom
is 2-4-6, second on the team in points.
Cheerless… Then there are the young guys. Evgeny Kuznetsov occasionally looks as if he
is oh, so close on chances or about to break out in a big way, and he did have
the primary assist on the overtime game-winner last night on a sweet feed. But then again, that was his third point in
five games. Him having three and not,
say, five, might be the difference between the Caps wining this series in five
games and having to go to a Game 6 to close things out. Then there is Andre Burakovsky. Two assists in five games makes for 1-2-3 in
17 playoff games over the past two seasons.
And his ice time is starting to look like his performance. He had 10:44 in Game 4 and 11:56 last night
after three games over 13:30, one of them over 19 minutes. Burakovsky isn’t the reason this series is
close, but if he gets untracked it could end really quickly.
*****
Cheerless… The Caps are facing a hard climb in Game 6. They beat Toronto in Game 4 at Air Canada
Centre, but they have not won consecutive games on the road in the postseason
since then won three in a row in 2012 against Boston (they haven’t won
consecutive games on the road in regulation since 2010 against Montreal). Since those wins against Boston in 2012,
Washington is 6-16 on the road in the playoffs, 1-7 in overtime.
Fearless… The Caps have been in a position to win each of
their last dozen games on the road in the postseason. In those dozen games they have a 4-8 record,
but all eight losses were by one goal, five of them in overtime. To be fair, of the Caps’ four wins in that
span, three were by one goal, but all of them in regulation. It is not as if the Caps have been dominated
on enemy ice the last two seasons, but they have been consistently on the wrong
side of those close games.
*****
Fearless… If the Caps should be successful in this
postseason, Tom Wilson’s effort late in the first period of Game 4 against the
Leafs might be referred to as “The Shift” in Capitals lore. But there might be a day remember in the
future that was every bit as important that and that had nothing to do with a
game. Thursday was an off-day between
Games 4 and 5, but while the skaters took advantage of the down time to
recharge their batteries, goalie Braden Holtby took the ice at 10 a.m. to work
with coach Mitch Korn to do some “fine tuning.”
You get the feeling Korn wouldn’t need a tuning fork to tune a Stradivarius or
a Steinway (or that he’d bring a lot of funky tools to the job). Whatever he and Holtby did had the desired
effect, a 30-save effort when the Caps desperately needed one. It might have been his best performance since
he authored a 30-save effort in Game 5 of last spring’s second round series
against the Penguins, the 3-1 win forcing a Game 6. If Holtby has been sufficiently “fine tuned,”
Toronto’s task becomes infinitely more difficult.
Cheerless… Cuz, about that game against Pittsburgh last
spring. Yup, it was a 30-save
effort. Yup, he allowed only one
goal. Yup, he won on home ice. Yup, it came after he allowed three goals in
three of his previous four games and after he lost three in a row to the Penguins. But that Game 6 after that 30-save
effort? He allowed four goals on 42
shots and lost in overtime in what was the series-clinching win for the
Penguins. Maybe the key is going to be
not letting Toronto use Holtby like a shooting gallery.
*****
Peerless… The Caps took a first period lead in each of the
last two games, but they allowed the Maple Leafs to tie the game in the second
period twice. The second period is the
only one in which the Caps have a negative goal-differential in the series
(minus-2), and they have been outscored, 5-2, in the second periods over the
last three games. It might not be coincidental,
the Leafs taking advantage of the long change with their speed to ramp up the
pace of the game. The second period has been an issue all season long. It is something that still bears watching.
The Capitals have had the chance to eliminate a team 20
times in since 2005-2006. In those 20
games, they have a 5-15 record, 2-9 in their last 11 games in which they could
have sent an opponent home. What is most
ominous in an historical context is that the Caps have never won consecutive
decisions in games in that span in which they could have eliminated an opponent. The last time they were in this situation,
they eliminated the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6 of their opening round series
last spring. Nothing would say – nay,
scream – “we’re different”… “WE’RE DIFFERENT! – than ending this series in the
Caps’ first chance to send the Maple Leafs off to the off-season.
However, the thing to watch for now might be on the Toronto
side of the ice. The Maple Leafs have
played a high-tempo, but determined sort of game for most of this series. They have not looked like a team with seven
rookies having dressed for games. Now,
however, the Leafs are facing elimination for the first time in this
series. If Shakespeare was a hockey guy,
he might call this the “undiscovered country” for the Leafs (for Hamlet, it was
death; for Toronto, it is elimination from the playoffs). How the Maple Leafs deal with this situation
might be what decides Game 6.
No comments:
Post a Comment