Washington Capitals -- Not All Playoffs are the Same: Part V

In Part V of our look at the playoffs in the Rock the Red era of the Washington Capitals, we take a look at a hard working crew who overcame much, if not quite enough to make a deep run into the postseason.  Not so much disappointing as equal parts frustrating and promising.

3.  2012: “Great job, kid….”

In 2010 the Washington Capitals could not parlay a Presidents Trophy won in the regular season into so much as a single playoff series win.  In 2011 they changed their game, and what it bought them in the postseason was one series win before an disconcerting sweep in the second round at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

In the 2011-2012 season it all came apart, or so one might have felt in the 2011 portion of the season.  Oh sure, the Caps ran off to a 7-0-0 record in the first two weeks of the season.  However, things deteriorated.  Quickly.  On a trip to the Canadian west after winning their first seven games they managed only one goal against their old nemesis in goal, Nikolai Khabibulin, in a 2-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers despite outshooting the Oilers, 35-19.  Then the Caps moved on to Vancouver, fell behind, tied the game, fell behind again, tied the game again, then allowed three unanswered third period goals in a 7-4 loss to the Canucks.

Losing in a low-scoring game and losing in a high-scoring game, the Caps returned home to face the Anaheim Ducks to open November.  Washington fell deeper into a hole, allowing the Ducks to score three goals on just nine shots in 29 minutes to take a 3-0 lead.  That made it 11 goals allowed in the Caps’ last 116 minutes of hockey.  The Caps slowly whittled away at the deficit against the Ducks, though, scoring goals three minutes apart late in the second period to make it a 3-2 game after 40 minutes.  After spotting the Ducks the first third period goal to make it 4-2, they got one back mid-way through the period to set up a wild, if strange, finish. 

With a faceoff coming in the Anaheim zone with 1:02 left to play, head coach Bruce Boudreau took his time out, pulled goalie Tomas Vokoun, and sent out six skaters: Nicklas Backstrom, Brooks Liach, Joel Ward, Jason Chimera, Dennis Wideman, and John Carlson.  Conspicous by his absence was Alex Ovechkin, whose last shift ended with 3:11 to play in regulation.  Ovechkin was not happy, and it was captured on national television:

It worked out for the Caps, though.  Backstrom put back a rebound with 42 seconds left to send the game to overtime, then he won it just over two minutes into overtime.  If not a Pyrrhic victory, it was a win with a cost nevertheless.  The Caps beat the Carolina Hurricanes in their next game, but then the wheels spun off the wagon.  They went 3-7-1 in their next 11 games, outscored by a 44-25 margin, going 4-for-45 on their power play (8.9 percent) and 33-for-40 killing penalties (82.5 percent). 

It came crashing down with losses to the New York Rangers, 6-3, and the Buffalo Sabres, 5-1, as November was winding down.  On Monday, November 28^th, the ax fell on Boudreau, who was relieved of his duties in favor of former Capitals captain Dale Hunter, who was co-owner and head coach of the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League. 

If the Capitals “were no longer responding to Bruce,” as Washington general manager George McPhee put it, perhaps they would respond to a coach who, as a player, was not shy about engaging in confrontation.  As it was, things did not change much at first.  The Caps lost three of their first four games under Hunter, an overtime win over the Ottawa Senators after giving up a third period lead being the only thing between the Caps and a four-game losing streak to open Hunter’s NHL coaching career.

At 13-12-1 on December 5^th, the Caps were at their low point, record wise, for the season to date.  They were seven points behind the Florida Panthers for the Southeast Division lead and in ninth place in the Eastern Conference, two points behind the Senators.  The Caps started their slow climb back up the standings with a nice run to end December and start the new year, going 8-3-1.  A pair of 5-2 losses on a west coast trip to San Jose and Los Angeles barely slowed them down.  They went 7-4-2 after their west coast trip before one more stretch of adversity had to be confronted.

It actually started with a win.  The Caps defeated the Calgary Flames, 3-1, in the first game of the new year.  However, it came at a heavy price.  In the third period of that game, the Flames’ Rene Bourque elbowed Nicklas Backstrom in the head at center ice, Backstrom suffering a concussion that would cost him and the Caps 40 games. 

Starting with the first game after Backstrom’s injury, a 3-2 Gimmick loss to the Winnipeg Jets (lost after blowing a two-goal third period lead), the Caps went 4-7-2 to slip once more out of the top-eight in the Eastern Conference.  Then, on March 8^th, Alex Ovechkin scored an overtime goal to lead the Caps to a 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.  It might have been the product of some simple wisdom from Hunter, who told the club at the second intermission to “just quit trying to use your skill, and use your will a little bit more." 

Whether you think small inspirational message like that have an effect, the overtime win started the Caps on 10-4-2 run to close the regular season.  They did not win the division, finishing two points behind the Florida Panthers, but they did sneak into a wild card berth, ending up in seventh place in the conference by virtue of a tie-breaker with the Ottawa Senators.

What the seventh-place finish earned the Caps was a first-round playoff date with the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Boston Bruins.  Not that Caps showed much fear in dealing with the champs in the regular season.  They beat Boston in three of four games, all four of the games played under Dale Hunter.  There would be an important difference for the Caps in the postseason, though.  In the Caps’ last meeting against the Bruins in the regular season, on March 29^th, goaltender Tomas Vokoun suffered what was then called a “lower body injury,” aggravating a groin strain that caused him to miss 14 of the team’s previous 18 games.  Then, in the penultimate game of the regular season against the Florida Panthers, Michal Neuvirth suffered a knee injury in the second period.  Both goalies were done for the season, leaving the Caps’ fortunes in the untested hands of Braden Holtby.  In parts of two seasons, Holtby appeared in 21 regular season games (14-4-3, 2.02, .929,  three shutouts) and no postseason games.  He had not faced the Bruins since making his NHL debut in November 2010, playing the last ten minutes of a 5-3 win over the Bruins and getting credit for the win.

Neither the regular season results nor Holtby’s brief success against the Bruins were of any help to the Capitals in Game 1 of the series, although there was the glimmer of what might have been an emerging star.  Washington managed only 16 shots on  defending Vezina Trophy winning goalie Tim Thomas in regulation time.  Thomas stopped all of them.  At the other end, Holtby got more work – 29 shots faced in regulation – and he stopped all that he faced, too.  Both teams recorded a shot on goal in overtime, but it was Chris Kelly’s slap shot from the top of the left wing circle just 78 seconds into the extra period that gave the Bruins the win.

It would take extra time to settle Game 2 as well.  And once more, it was the goalies who starred.  Troy Brouwer put the Caps ahead 18 minutes into the second period for Washington’s first goal of the series.  Benoit Pouliot tied the game 12 minutes into the third period.  That would be as much scoring as the teams could muster despite 59 total shots on goal in regulation (Holtby was 29 for 30 in saves, Thomas was 28 for 29).

The clubs played a scoreless 20 minutes of overtime, sending the game to a second extra period.   Less than three minutes into the frame, from about six feet from where Chris Kelly ended Game 1, Nicklas Backstrom ended Game 2, sending a wrist shot under the right arm of Tim Thomas and the series back to Washington tied at a game apiece.

Compared to Games 1 and 2, Game 3 was an offensive explosion.  Where there were just two goals scored in 120 minutes of regulation time in Boston, the Caps needed just 16 minutes to get one – and Alexander Semin power play goal – and the Bruins needed just 35 seconds of the second period to get one of their own, from Rich Peverley.

When Alex Ovechkin split the defense and snapped a shot past Thomas just 13 seconds after the Peverley goal, one might have thought that it would be a happy day for Caps fans at Verizon Center.  It wasn’t.  Boston beat Holtby for the game’s next two goals to take a 3-2 lead.  Brooks Laich scored with six minutes left to tie the game once more, but with less than two minutes left the Caps and Holtby suffered one of those plays that seem unique to hockey.   Patrice Bergeron fed Zdeno Chara for a one-timer that was redirected on its way to the net by Caps defenseman Roman Hamrlik.  It was just enough for the puck to sneak past Holtby’s glove for what would be the game-winning goal in the Bruins’ 4-3 win.

Game 4 might have been an announcement that Braden Holtby was going to be a big-time goaltender.  With Nicklas Backstrom suspended for taking a match penalty against Rich Peverley at the end of Game 3, the Caps were without one of their most important offensive players.  It put more pressure on Holtby to improve on his Game 3 effort.  He almost singlehandedly kept the Caps in the game in the first period, allowing only one goal – by Peverley – on 14 shots faced.  The Bruins held the Caps to three shots in that first frame, although one by Marcus Johansson got through in the game’s second minute. 

Holtby’s effort allowed the Caps to get their feet under them, and it paid off late in the second period.  With Patrice Bergeron off on a hooking penalty, Alexander Semin circled from the left wing wall into the faceoff circle, double pumped, then sent a wrist shot over Thomas’ glove on the far side to put the Caps up, 2-1.  That put the game in Holtby’s hands in the third period, and he was up to the task.  Despite outshooting the Caps, 13-3, in the period and getting their only power play of the game, the Bruins could not find their way to a second goal.  Holtby stopped 44 of 45 shots in all (the Caps had 21 shots) to enable the Caps to avoid having to head back to Boston facing elimination.

Holtby was not as sharp in Game 5 as he was in Game 4, but then again, neither was Thomas.  A scoreless first period gave way to a second period in which the Caps took a 2-0 lead on goals barely three minutes apart.  Semin recorded his third of the series, and Jay Beagle got his first in an example of sustained effort.  He battled Brian Ralston to a draw for the puck, Ralston taking Beagle down at the right wing wall in the Bruins’ end.  It was sufficient to allow Matt Hendricks to bat the puck off the side wall and out where Jason Chimera took it in stride.  Chimera skated down the left wing and fired a shot that was kicked out by Thomas.  David Krejci tried to clear the puck, but Beagle, trailing the play, stopped the puck at the blue line.  He stepped up into the left wing faceoff circle and snapped a shot that was deadened in front, sneaking though Thomas for a 2-0 Caps lead.

Boston tied the game on goals by Dennis Seidenberg and Brad Marchand just 28 seconds apart late in the second period.  After the Caps took the lead early in the third period, Johnny Boychuk scored a power play goal to tie the game, 3-3.  With 2:50 left, Benoit Pouliot took a slashing penalty against Nicklas Backstrom, and the Caps made good on their opportunity.  It was a simple enough play.  John Carlson collected the puck behind the Caps’ net and started up ice.  From his own blue line he fed the puck up to Troy Brouwer closing on the Bruin blue line.  Brouwer had the advantage of momentum as defenseman Andrew Ference tried to close the gap.  Ference was late getting over, allowing Brouwer to fire a shot from the right wing faceoff circle that beat Thomas for the winning margin in the Caps’ 4-3 win.

With a chance to clinch the series at home, the Caps spent the entire contest a step behind.  The Bruins took the lead early on a goal by Rich Peverley six minutes into the game.  The Caps tied it on a Mike Green goal less than four minutes later, establishing a pattern.  The Bruins would score, the Caps would tie the game.  Washington could never get that lead goal, though, and the teams went to overtime for the third time in the series.  The Caps got sloppy early in the overtime, and it cost them.  Nicklas Backstrom sent a pass from inside his own blue line up the middle, but it lacked pace.  Krejci knocked it down in the neutral zone and fed the puck over to Milan Lucic heading into the offensive zone on the left side.  Lucic slid the puck across to Tyler Seguin skating down the middle.  Getting behind the Caps’ defense, Seguin deked Holtby to the ice and slid a forehad past Holtby’s left pad to send the series back to Boston one last time.

Six games, all one-goal decisions, three of them settled in overtime, two of them in Boston.  Did anyone think Game 7 would be different?   It certainly was not as the game unfolded.  Washington scored the first goal in the 12^th minute when Matt Hendricks redirected a John Carlson drive past Thomas.  Boston evened the score in the 15^th minute of the second period when a Johnny Boychuk drive from the right wing circle snuck under Holtby’s arm and crawled toward the open net.  Seguin fought to get between Karl Alzner and John Carlson to poke the puck into the net.  It would be all the scoring for regulation time.

Boston got the overtime’s first shot on goal 36 seconds into the extra period.  It would be their last of their season.  As the clock approached the three-minute mark, Boston tried to get a line change with Benoit Pouliot shooting the puck into the Washington end from in front of the players bench.  The puck made it only just inside the blue line where it struck Mike Knuble’s shin pads.  With the players coming on and going off for Boston, Knuble headed up ice ahead of the pack.  Pouliot desperately tried to get back into the play and interrupt Knuble’s progress, but what that did was leave a skating lane for Joel Ward to cross behind Knuble.  When Knuble’s backhand attempt was stifled, Ward was in perfect position to slide the puck through the pile of players and past Thomas for the game-winning, series clinching goal:

The Caps moved on to face the New York Rangers in the second round, the third time in four postseasons the teams would meet.  If there was a hangover from winning the Boston series in dramatic fashion, it was not apparent in the first half of Game 1.  In fact, it resembled the Boston series in that neither team could score.  It would be the Rangers drawing first blood, though, courtesy of Artem Anisimov in the 13^th minute of the first period.  Washington tied the game with 3.5 seconds left in the period when Jason Chimera converted a pass from Brooks Laich through goalie Henrik Lundqvist’s pads, his third goal in six career playoff games against the Rangers.  That would be all the Caps would get, though, as the Rangers got goals 90 seconds apart mid-way through the third period to take Game 1.

In Game 2 it was the Caps’ turn for some third period magic.  Washington wasted a two-goal lead provided by first-period goals from Mike Knuble and Chimera, allowing the Rangers to tie the game in the third period on a power play goal by Michael Del Zotto.  The Rangers returned the favor, though, with Brad Richards taking a holding penalty at the 12:29 mark to put the Caps on a power play.  On the ensuing faceoff to the right of Lundqvist, Nicklas Backstrom won the draw cleanly to Alex Ovechkin at the left point.  Ovechkin circled to the middle of the ice and fired a wrist shot that beat Lundqvist to the glove side just four seconds into the power play for the game-winnnig goal.

The teams took the series to Washington and played a game all too familiar to Caps fans.  After a scoreless first period the teams exchanged goals four and a half minutes apart in the second period.  John Carlson’s goal at 11:10 to tie the game would be all the scoring in the last 29 minutes of regulation…and a first overtime…and a second overtime.  For the Rangers, a third overtime was uncharted territory.  It was their first such playoff game since defeating the Chicago Blackhawks in triple-overtime in Game 6 of the 1971 Stanley Cup semifinals (the Rangers lost Game 7).  For the Caps it was their second multiple overtime game of the 2012 postseason and 12^th multiple overtime game in club history.

The problem for the Caps was that they were 4-7 in the 11 multiple overtime games played in franchise history.  That record went to 4-8 in the blink of an eye.  In the 15^th minute of the third overtime defenseman Dan Girardi stopped the puck along the right wing wall and fed it down to Brad Richards behind the Caps’ net.  Richards wasted no time sliding the puck out to Marian Gaborik in the low slot for a one-timer that snuck between Holtby’s pads to give the Rangers a 2-1 win and a 2-1 lead in games.

The Caps did not need extra time to tie the series in Game 4, but they did need some help from the Rangers in the third period.  It came in the form of a Carl Hagelin slashing penalty.  Then, the Rangers could not clear the puck out of their end on the ensuing power play.  Dennis Wideman easily stopped a weak clearing attempt and sent the puck across the rink to Mike Green at the right point.  Green took a couple of strides forward and leaned into a shot that beat Lundqvist cleanly to give the Caps a 3-2 win as the teams headed back to New York tied in the series.

Overtime was once more unkind to the Caps.  The teams exchanged a pair of goals early – New York’s Antron Stralman in the first period and Brooks Laich in the second period.  They then exchanged a pair of goals in the third period – John Carlson early and Brad Richards late.  The Caps had a chance between the two goals to get an insurance goal on a Nicklas Backstrom breakaway 13 minutes into the period, but he was foiled by Lundqvist’s left pad.  While that was disappointing, it would be the circumstances of the Richards goal would haunt the Caps for the rest of the series.

With the Caps nursing the one-goal lead in the last minute, Joel Ward was whistled for a double-minor penalty for high-sticking Hagelin.  The Capitals almost escaped.  With Lundqvist pulled for an extra skater, the Rangers had a 6-4 advantage.  It allowed them to get numbers in front of the Capitals’ net.  There were enough blue shirts at the top of the crease to keep the puck alive before Holtby could get a glove on it.  The puck squirted out to the opposite post where Brad Richards whacked it in, just 6.5 seconds left in regulation.  Then, just 95 seconds into the overtime, after the Rangers won a faceoff in the Caps’ end, Marc Staal sent a shot through a maze of bodies in front of Holtby and into the back of the net to give the Rangers a 3-2 win and a 3-2 lead in games heading back to Washington.

With goals at a premium and power plays not plentiful (16 for Washington through five games), the Caps were going to have to dig deep to find success in both in Game 6.  They did, less than 90 seconds into the contest.  Anton Stralman took a tripping penalty just 1:13 into the game to put the Caps on a power play.  The Caps moved the puck around the perimeter smartly to start their power play with Alex Ovechkin camped in the slot.  He was in perfect position to take a pass from Nicklas Backstrom and whip a shot past Lundqvist to open the scoring.  Given that the team scoring the first goal won each of the first five games, that goal could be considered important.

When Jason Chimera scored his fourth of the playoffs and third of the series mid-way through the second period it gave the Caps their first two-goal lead since the first period of Game 2.  They would need that goal as Marian Gaborik threw a scare into the Caps in the last minute, rattling a shot off the far pipe with 50.5 seconds left to halve the Caps lead.  The Caps weathered those last 50 and a half seconds without allowing the Rangers a shot attempt, and the teams were even heading to Game 7 in New York.

An extra day off between Game 6 and 7 only added to the suspense.  The suspense turned to dread for Caps fans less than two minutes into the contest.  The Rangers broke out of their own end cleanly, and a long lead pass from Michael Del Zotto from his own end was chipped into the Caps end and chased down behind the net by Carl Hagelin.  Hagelin circled out from behind the net and found Brad Richards for a one-timer from just inside the top of the left wing circle that beat Holtby on the long side to give the Rangers the first goal in a series dominated by teams scoring first.

After a scoreless second period, the Rangers added to their lead just after the ten-minute mark of the third period when Del Zotto recorded a goal of his own.  Just 38 seconds later the Caps got that one back on a goal by Roman Hamrlik.  His first of the postseason came as the late trailer on a Capitals rush, sneaking into the high slot to snap a shot past Lundqvist. 

It would be the Caps last goal of the season.  The Caps were awarded a power play less than a minute after the Hamrlik goal, but lost that advantage without recording a shot on goal when Nicklas Backstrom took a slashing penalty 1:38 into the power play.  Washington managed only two shots in the last seven minutes, one by Matt Hendricks and a 60-foot drive from Alexander Semin in the last half minute.  The Rangers ensured that for the seventh time in seven games, the team opening the scoring would go off as victors.

In the end, it was another “two and through” for the Caps, but it seemed very different from the finish to the 2011 postseason.  It might be summed up by what Tim Thomas said to Braden Holtby in the handshake line at the end of the opening round series against Boston: “great job, kid.”  While Joel Ward’s goal was the takeaway highlight of this postseason, it was Holtby who came though it as an emerging star.  He finished third in the postseason among qualifying goaltenders in goals against average (1.95), third in save percentage (.935).  His two series were copies of one another, a 2.00 goals against in the opening round series against Boston and a 1.90 goals against in the second round series against the Rangers.  His save percentage of .940 in the opening round series against the Bruins dropped to .929 in the Ranger series, but even that lower save percentage would have been sixth best among qualifying goalies in the postseason.

In a more general sense, this postseason was something of a precursor to what would be characterized in a season down the road as a “heavy” game played by the Caps.  When Bruce Boudreau was replaced by Dale Hunter (who departed at the end of the 2012 postseason to return to the London Knights), any remnants of the freewheeling style employed by the Caps from 2008-2010 were gone.  The Caps played games with a rougher edge, even if that meant playing a lot of “coin toss” hockey, games decided by a goal in low scoring affairs.

Unlike the hard to explain collapse in the second round of the 2011 playoffs to the Tampa Bay Lightning, one had the feeling the Caps did more right than wrong overall in the 2012 postseason.  And, given the turmoil that surrounded the early part of the season, the unknowns that came with changing coaches in mid-season, and the changes in style on the ice that Dale Hunter brought, it was not the disappointing postseason that characterized so many that came before.  The Caps might have gotten as much as they could have out of this season under the circumstances and might have planted the seeds for more success later, especially with a goaltender who emerged as a budding star.

Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images North America

Washington Capitals -- Memorable Goals: Number 2

We are down to the last two in our look at ten memorable goals in the history of Washington Capitals hockey.  At number two is perhaps the most replayed goal in the history of the franchise.

2.  April 16, 1988 – Dale Hunter: “Barkeep…a shot and a goal, please.”

On the morning of Game 7 of the opening round playoff series between the Washington Capitals and the Philadelphia Flyers, the late Robert Fachet of the Washington Post quoted a number of Capitals on their thoughts of the upcoming matchup, one thought next to impossible days earlier when the Caps fell behind the Flyers, three games to one, in the series… 

Dave Christian:  "The last two games, we were faced with being out of the playoffs and we survived. Now, we have to survive and play another one. We're all aware this still could be our last game of the season and we know what people will be saying if it is."

Rod Langway: "Right now, we're just worried about winning one game.  We're 20 players playing for each other and we deserve a lot of credit for coming back, especially in The Spectrum."

Mike Ridley: "It's tough to come back from 3-1.  But now we've got a lot of momentum coming home. It's a tough thing to stop…"

Head Coach Bryan Murray: "I think it'll be a real close, good hockey game.  We're fairly comparable teams. And in our case, I don't think it'll have anything to do with the past. We were backed against the wall two games in a row and I couldn't ask the guys for anything more. It's the same tomorrow; a loss and we're out."

Murray had more to say about some of his players.  About Bengt Gustafsson he said, "Gus plays better in important situations, as much as you need him and whatever you ask. I saw it in Vienna {where Sweden won the 1987 world championships}, where he was a dominant player." 

He also had this to say about Michal Pivonka: “"Michal has really played well.  I saw spurts during the year where he did some good things, but on a regular basis he hadn't shown the ability to score every night. Those flashes of good play were becoming more frequent the last month or so and now he's a real factor.”

And about defenseman Kevin Hatcher, Murray said: "Kevin thrives on the physical play.  Against a real quick team, he can be burned a little by outside speed. But he's very strong in the corners and in front of the net. He's been a tower of strength for us, especially with Scott {Stevens} and Rod in and out of the lineup."

Christian, Langway, Ridley, Gustafsson, Pivonka, Hatcher.  Any of them could be the key player in this game.  Christian had a goal and five assists heading into Game 7 and was a team-leading plus-7.  Langway did not have a point in the five games in which he played, but the captain’s presence would provide stability on the back line.  Ridley, who was the third-leading goal scorer on the team in the regular season, had a pair of goals and a pair of assists in six games.  Gustafsson and Pivonka were tied for the team-lead in scoring for the series with ten points apiece, both on four goals and six assists.  Hatcher was tied for the team lead in goal scoring for the series with four going into Game 7.

Game 7 started with a bounty of opportunities for the Caps in the form of power plays.  Kjell Samuelsson was sent off just 2:31 into the game on a high-sticking call.  Doug Crossman went off at 9:24 on a holding penalty.  Ron Hextall was whistled for delay of game 10:31 into the game.  Ron Sutter was sent to the box at 12:47 for a high-sticking call.

Four power plays, including a 53 second 5-on-3 advantage, in less than 15 minutes, and all the Caps had to show for it was four shots on goal.  The Caps would pay for their lack of production later in the period.  The Flyers got one power play back when Greg Adams went off at 15:28 on a holding penalty.  The Caps were about to kill off that shorthanded situation, but then Grant Ledyard was called for spearing Rick Tocchet with less than three minutes left in the first period.  Ledyard was sent to the box for five minutes, and it put the Flyers on a brief, 14 second 5-on-3 advantage.  The Flyers could not convert the two-man advantage, but just after Adams emerged from the penalty box, Tim Kerr got the Flyers on the board to give the Flyers a 1-0 lead at the first intermission.

Philadelphia put the Caps in choke hold before the second period was three minutes old.  Brian Propp scored his fourth goal of the series 1:35 into the period, and Mark Howe put the Flyers ahead, 3-0, with a goal at the 2:59 mark.  At that point, the Caps were just trying to stop the bleeding.  But perhaps, deep in the recesses of their collective mind, they recalled Game 4 of this series.  Playing without either Scott Stevens or Rod Langway, both out with injuries, the Caps spotted the Flyers a 1-0 lead but scored four unanswered goals to take a 4-1 lead into the last ten minutes of regulation time.  They blew that lead, allowing the tying goal in the last minute of regulation, then lost in overtime to fall into that three games to one deficit out of which they were trying to climb in Game 7.  Climbing out of a deep hole was not impossible.

The Caps got a spark when Garry Galley took a Dale Hunter pass and beat Hextall through the pads in the seventh minute of the period.  Less than two minutes later, the Caps were within one, courtesy of Kelly Miller’s third goal of the series.  The Caps tilted the ice toward the Flyer end as play went on, and their effort was rewarded when Hatcher scored to tie the game with 2:06 left in the period.

Washington had their chance to take the lead early in the third period when Kjell Samuelsson was sent off for his second penalty of the game, giving the Caps their eighth power play of the contest.  The Caps fired blanks on their first seven man advantages, but the eighth time was the charm.  Dale Hunter scored just six seconds into the power play to give the Caps their first lead of the night, 4-3, 5:19 into the period.

Fans barely had time to celebrate the comeback when the Flyers staged one of their own barely a minute later.  Brad Marsh scored his first of the series and just his fifth playoff goal in 88 career postseason games to tie the game, 4-4, with still more than 13 minutes left in regulation.

Neither team could break the tie, however, and for the second time in the series the teams would go to overtime.  For the Capitals it was all too familiar ground.  They were one year removed from playing in a four-overtime Game 7 against the New York Islanders that ended early on Easter morning with an Islander win.  Caps fans might have been forgiven for thinking a similar result awaited them when Mike Gartner rang a shot off the crossbar early in the overtime.

The Caps maintained the pressure, though, and just before the six-minute mark of the period, Larry Murphy started what might be the most famous single play and goal call in Capitals history…

For Dale Hunter, it was not his first turn in the spotlight of an overtime, and not against the Flyers, either.  In 1981, Hunter ended Game 4 of the Quebec Nordiques first round series against the Flyers with an overtime goal (the Nordiques lost in the best of five series, 3-2), the first postseason game-winning goal of his career.  In 1982 he scored the series-clinching goal in overtime of Game 5 of their five-game series against the Montreal Canadiens.  In 1985 his overtime goal against Montreal gave Quebec a 7-6 win in Game 3 of their second-round matchup (Quebec won the series in overtime of Game 7).  And now, in his first season with the Capitals after coming over in a trade with Quebec, he became the first player in NHL history to score two overtime, series-clinching goals.

After the incredible disappointment of the way Game 7 ended in the first round in 1987, Game 7 of the first round in 1988 brought incredible joy, made sweeter coming at the expense of one of the Caps' most bitter rivals.  What makes it among the most memorable of goals in Caps history is the whole package – the rivals, the falling behind in Game 7, the comeback, taking and losing a lead, almost winning it in overtime, and then the call of then Caps play-by-play announcer Mike Fornes that anyone who was a Capitals fan of that era knows by heart: “…Murphy starts the rush… he hits Hunter…he’s in alone…a shot…AND A GOAL!!!!!"

A shot and a goal…a Caps fan’s favorite drink order.

You can see more about this game and this series here and here.

Washington Capitals -- Not All Playoffs are the Same: Part IV

Disappointments and pleasant surprises are, for the Washington Capitals fan, a long history of understanding the meaning of the term, “asymmetry.” There have been far more disappointments in the playoffs than pleasant surprises, especially as the years go on.  We are at the mid-point of our look at the Rock the Red era of Capitals playoff history, and we are still dealing with the matter of disappointments.

4. 2013: “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades”

The 2013 season for the Washington Capitals was a strange one, as it was for all 30 NHL teams, albeit to differing degrees.  There was the matter of it being the “2013 season,” not the 2012-2013 season.  That was the product of a labor-management dispute that cost the league the 2012 portion of its season and 34 regular season games. 

For the Capitals it was a case of not only losing 34 regular season games off their schedule, but gaining something as well – their third head coach in seven months.  After Bruce Boudreau was relieved of his duties on November 28, 2011, former Capitals captain Dale Hunter was tasked with taking the helm to try to save the 2011-2012 season.  He lasted until the Caps were eliminated from the playoffs the following spring, returning to his London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League.  In June 2012 the Caps hired Adam Oates, previously an assistant with the New Jersey Devils and the 18th-highest point-getter in Caps history as a center for six seasons from 1996 to 2002.  It was the fifth straight hire of a first-time NHL head coach by the Caps.  The average tenure of the previous four was 185 games.  More was hoped for from the hall of famer Oates.

One of the things one might have hoped for under the new regime was stability, especially after a season with another in-season change behind the bench (like Hunter in 2012, his two immediate predecessors – Bruce Boudreau and (edit) Glen Hanlon – were in-season replacements).  Instead, Oates made perhaps the most potentially destabilizing move possible, that of flipping Alex Ovechkin from his left wing position – one from which he had earned five first-team NHL all-star positions and two second-team positions – to the right wing.

With a 48-game season ahead of them, it would be important for a team with playoff aspirations to get off to a good start.  Neither the Caps nor Ovechkin, in his new position, did so.  Washington lost their first four games and nine of their first 11 contests, going 2-8-1.  They staggered over the first two months of the abbreviated season, falling to 12-16-1 when they dropped a 2-1 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins on March 19th.

The Caps were a mess.  They sat in fourth place in the Southeast Division, 14th in the Eastern Conference.  Ovechkin had just 12 goals in 29 games and was on a pace to finish with just 20 goals in the 48-game season.  Braden Holtby, now in his first season as the Caps number one netminder, was limping along with a record of 10-10-0, 2.92, .911.  Three shutouts against Southeast Division clubs (Florida, Carolina, and Winnipeg) saved Holtby’s record from being even worse.

That game against Pittsburgh might have been a turning point, even if it was a loss.  The Penguins took the ice at Consol Energy Center that night on a nine-game winning streak and were sailing along with the best record in the Eastern Conference (22-8-0).  They had held their previous five opponents to a total of just five goals.  They faced only 10 shorthanded situations in their last five home games, killing off nine of them.  Yet the Caps, who had not won a road game outside the Southeast Division in more than a month, got a power play goal from Ovechkin, 34 saves from Holtby, and played the Penguins even until Matt Niskanen scored the game-winner for Pittsburgh with eight minutes left.

It propelled the Caps to a superb finish to the regular season.  They went 15-2-2 over their last 19 games to win the Southeast Division and earn a three-seed for the playoffs.  They outscored their opponents by a 67-43 margin.  Their power play hummed along at 30.8 percent, while the penalty kill was a respectable 81.8 percent.  Holtby was impenetrable, going 13-2-1, 2.20, .931, with one shutout.  Ovechkin played his last 19 games with a scoring line of 20-12-32, plus-9 (a stunning 86-52-138, plus-39 pace per 82 games), good enough to win his third Maruice Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal scorer and his third Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player.  And, in an odd bit of voting by the Professional Hockey Writers' Association, Ovechkin was named a first team NHL all-star at right wing and a second team all-star at left wing.

One would have thought that finish was just what the Caps needed for what they experienced so rarely in the postseason – a deep run, perhaps to the Finals.  Their first round opponent would be the New York Rangers, a club that had a similar profile to that of the Caps.  Meandering around at 16-15-3 at the end of March, they went 10-3-1 over their last 14 games to finish second in the Atlantic Division and sixth in the Eastern Conference, taking the higher seed from the Ottawa Senators on the basis of having more regulation and overtime wins (the teams finished tied with 56 points).  Perhaps more ominously, goaltender Henrik Lundqvist played all the minutes in goal for the Rangers in April, going 10-3-1, 1.89, .934, with one shutout over those last 14 games.

The Rangers took two of three games against the Caps in the regular season, Washington’s only win coming in a Gimmick in the last meeting of the clubs in late March.  It would be the Rangers breaking on top in Game 1 as well, Carl Hagelin stepping out from behind the Caps’ net and snapping a shot off the skate of defenseman John Erskine and past Holtby’s right pad inside the far post.

The Caps could not solve Lundqvist in the first 20 minutes but had no problem with the winning formula in the second period.  With Arron Asham in the penalty box for the Rangers, a Mike Green drive from the top of the offensive zone was kicked out by Lundqvist.  His direction might have been better, the rebound ending up on the stick of Ovechkin who put it back from the bottom of the left wing circle to tie the game.

Late in the period the Caps got a pair of quick strikes.  The first came on a brilliant pass from defenseman Steve Oleksy from between his own hash marks though the center of the ice and onto the stick of Marcus Johansson at the Ranger blue line.  Johansson, behind the Ranger defense, broke in alone on Lundqvist and snapped the puck under his glove to give the Caps the lead.

Less than a minute later, the Caps worked the puck free in the corner to Lundqvist’s right.  Jason Chimera skated it up the wall, but when his path and passing lane was closed off by Brad Richards, he spun back and fired the puck at the net.  Perhaps distracted by Mathieu Perreault crossing in front, Lundqvist let the shot sneak through, and the Caps had a 3-1 lead after 40 minutes.  That left the game in Holtby's hands, and he was up to the task, turning away all 12 Ranger shots in the third period to give the Caps a Game 1 win.

If one was a fan of goaltenders playing a the top of their game, Game 2 was their kind of contest.  Holtby faced 24 shots in regulation and stopped all of them.  Lundqvist more than matched him, turning aside all 30 shots he faced in 60 minutes of regulation time.  In the extra session it came down to special teams.  Each side would suffer the same call.  First, Steve Oleksy was sent to the penalty box just 1:51 into overtime for delay-of-game when he shot the puck over the glass.  The Caps killed the two minutes without allowing a shot on goal.  If it did not result in inspiration, it might have provided resolve.  To that point the Caps did not have a shot on goal in the extra session.  Upon Oleksy’s exit from the penalty box, the Caps ramped up the pressure in the Ranger end.  A flurry of four shots on goal in less than a minute ended with Ranger defenseman Ryan McDonagh shooting the puck over the glass and heading to the penalty box to pay his own penance.

McDonagh was paroled early from his two minute sentence, though not in the manner he or the Rangers might have preferred.  Mike Green held the puck at the top of the offensive zone with two options, Alex Ovechkin on his left and Mike Ribeiro on his right.  He chose to slide the puck to Ribeiro along the right wing wall.  Ribeiro walked in to the top of the right wing faceoff circle and faked a shot.  It had the effect of pulling three Ranger defenders to that side of the ice and opening up clear space for a return pass to Green.  Ribeiro slid the puck back to the middle, and Green stepped into one, one-timing the puck low to the glove side of Lundqvist.  The glove was not quite quick enough, and the puck settled into the back of the net to give the Caps a 1-0 win and a two games to none advantage as the clubs headed to New York for Games 3 and 4.

With 17 wins in their last 21 games dating back to the regular season and a goalie who had stopped 59 of 60 shots in Games 1 and 2 of the series so far, one might have wondered what could go wrong for the Caps in Game 3 and beyond.  A Caps fan might wonder, what “would” go wrong.  It was not when Nicklas Backstrom scored barely four minutes into the contest, outworking three Rangers along the end wall to get into a position to slide the puck up to John Erskine, then get to the front of the net to redirect a John Carlson drive past Lundqvist.  It was Brian Boyle who started the Rangers on a sunnier path and the Caps down a dark road when he walked in from the right wing wall and snapped the puck over Holtby’s left shoulder to tie the game.  Teams that win playoff series get goals from those sorts of players (it was just his fourth goal in 25 career playoff games); teams that lose allow them to such players.

From there the teams started exchanging goals, but the Caps found themselves on the wrong side of the exchange, having to score to re-tie the game.  After Derick Brassard scored just 83 seconds into the second period, Mike Green tied the game late in the period when he took a pass from Mathieu Perreault, stepped up, and wristed a shot past Lundqvist.  Arron Asham – another of those sorts of players you cannot allow to score goals in series such as this – did just that less than three minutes into the third period.  Jay Beagle got that one back (just his second goal in 19 postseason games) when he redirected a Jack Hillen drive from the left point after a faceoff win in the Rangers’ end.

The Caps were on the wrong side of the exchange one last time.  Derek Stepan redirected a Rick Nash shot past Holtby with less than seven minutes left in regulation.  It was enough time for one last comeback, but the Caps managed just three shots on goal in the last 6:25, none in the last 1:54 in which they they had a power play and what amounted to a six-on-four advantage for the last 90 seconds of the game after they pulled Holtby.

Going into Game 4, a Caps fan might have been forgiven for thinking a 2-1 advantage in games was not really much, if any, of an advantage.  By the time Game 4 was over, the Caps didn’t even have that.  They played from behind the entire game, falling behind, 2-0, in the first 30 minutes thanks to goals from Brad Richards and Carl Hagelin.  To their credit, the Caps fought back to tie it, Mathieu Perreault scoring first at the 13:08 mark of the second period when he put back a loose puck after Henrick Lundqvist foiled a Joel Ward stuff attempt off a rush.  Troy Brouwer tied it in the last minute of the period when he cut across the Ranger zone between two defenders and backhanded the puck past Lundqvist’s blocker.

The Caps could not get that third goal, however, before the Rangers restored their two-goal lead.  Dan Girardi scored on a power play less than a minute into the third period.  Then, as HBO’s John Oliver might put it…this:

A goal by Karl Alzner 90 seconds later through a maze of bodies in front of Lundqvist got the Caps close once more, but Lundqvist turned away the last eight Capital shots over the last 12:29 after the Alzner goal, and the Rangers were even in the series.

With the teams holding serve on home ice through four games, the series moved back to Washington for Game 5.  If 18,000 people could do a simultaneous face-palm, they would have done it in the first minute.  The Rangers scored on the first shot attempt of the context, and they made it look easy.  Just after jumping on ice for his first shift of the game, Brian Boyle swept the puck behind the Capitals’ cage and out to Dan Girardi at the right point.  Girardi wasted no time in throwing the puck back into the Caps’ end, where it ended up on the stick of Derick Brassard behind the Caps’ goal line to the right of goalie Braden Holtby.  As Brassard collected the puck, the Caps’ defense lost Boyle, not an easy feat considering Boyle is 6’7”, 245 pounds.  But there he was, wide open at the top of the crease for a pass from Brassard that he slipped past Holtby, and the Rangers were up, 1-0, 53 seconds into the game.

That is the way things stayed until deep into the second period when Boyle took a penalty slashing Mike Ribeiro.  On the ensuing power play, the Rangers won the draw to the left of goalie Henrik Lundqvist, but neither defenseman – Ryan McDonagh or Girardi – could secure the puck.  Marcus Johansson stepped in to gather it up and fed Nicklas Backstrom on the right wing wall.  Off a set play, Backstrom sent the puck back down to Johansson, and Johansson one-timed a pass to the slot where Joel Ward snapped the puck past Lundqvist, and the game was tied.

Just as the Rangers failed to build on their early success, the Caps were unable to build on that second period goal.  The teams skated a scoreless third period and went to overtime for the second time in this building in the series.  It was hardly a deliberate, defensive sort of overtime.  The teams combined for 13 shots on goal in the first nine minutes of the overtime.  Then came a sequence filled with so many twists and turns and “what-ifs” that is seemed to take far longer than the ten seconds or so that elapsed. 

It started with the Caps’ Eric Fehr and the Rangers’ Anton Stralman racing to run down a puck sliding toward the Ranger goal line to the right of Lundqvist.  Eric Fehr used every bit of his 6’4” frame and long stick to reach past Stralman to swipe the puck back toward the middle of the ice.  Ribeiro split two Ranger defenders to grab the puck, but it was poked off his stick by Dominic Moore.  Troy Brouwer darted in to beat a Ranger to the loose puck and move it out to Karl Alzner at the left point.  Alzner slid it across to Mike Green, who took a shot from the right point that was blocked by Moore.  This time, a Ranger – Derick Brassard – got to the puck first and tried to flip it out of the defensive zone.  His attempt got as far as Green, who settled the puck and sent it to Alzner on the opposite side.  Alzner fired it past Brassard trying to block the shot but couldn’t get it past Stralman in front of the Ranger net.  The puck struck Stralman and skittered to the opposite side of the crease, where Mike Ribeiro was fending off Moore.  Ribeiro had position on Moore and an open net at which to shoot.  He did not miss, Lundqvist skated off and slammed his stick against the ledge at the players’ bench, and the Caps escaped with a 2-1 win to send the series back to New York for a Game 6. 

This time it was the Caps that would skate off in frustration.  The Caps fought through having to kill off five power plays while receiving none of their own (extending the Rangers’ power play advantage to 26-14 through six games), wasted a 26-save effort by Holtby (whose save percentage for the series was now .938), allowing only a second period goal by Derick Brassard on a shot from near the blue line that struck defenseman Steve Oleksy’s arm on the way through and deflected down and through Holtby.  Lundqvist did the rest, stopping all 27 shots he faced, including 12 in the third period to ensure that every Capital fan’s worst nightmare would be re-lived – a Game 7 at home.

If the playoffs have been unkind to the Capitals through their history, Games 7 at home have been a special circle of hell.  Starting with the Easter Epic in 1987, the Caps took the ice in this Game 7 with a record of 2-6 in Games 7 on home ice.  The one consolation was that the last time the Caps won such a game was in the 2009 Eastern Conference quarterfinals against the Rangers.

Whatever consolation that 2009 memory might have brought to the minds of Caps fans, it was extinguished in about 25 minutes.  That was how long it took for the competitive portion of the game to be settled.  It started once more with a foot soldier, not a star, opening the scoring.  Arron Asham got the Rangers off and running with his second goal of the series, taking a drop pass from Chris Kreider and snapping a very stoppable shot past Braden Holtby 13:19 into the first period.  Early in the second, the game, the series, and the season turned against the Caps in a space of 130 seconds.  Taylor Pyatt – another of the Rangers’ unsung brigade – scored his first goal of the series, assisted by Derek Dorsett (his first assist of the series) and former Capital Steve Eminger (yes, his first assist, too) just over three minutes into the period.  Then, Michael Del Zotto notched his first goal of the series when he fired a slap shot from the top of the left wing circle that Holtby misplayed through his pads to make it 3-0.

If there was any glimmer of a comeback, it was snuffed out 13 seconds into the third period when Ryan Callahan scored (tell us if you’ve heard this) his first goal of the series, pilfering the puck from John Erskine at the red line, skating in alone on Holtby, and lifting a backhand over Holtby’s right pad.  All that was left was for Mats Zuccarello to put the whipped cream on top of the Big Apple Pie with – you guessed it – his first goal of the series I the seventh minute of the period.  It was a sound 5-0 thrashing put on the Caps by the Rangers, wholly unexpected given the way the series unfolded through six games, but not unexpected in the experience of such games in Caps history. 

What made this postseason so disappointing?  Let’s start with that Game 7.  The five-goal loss was the first time the Caps lost a home playoff game by more than one goal since Game 1 of the 2011 conference quarterfinals against the Tampa Bay Lighting.  The Caps went four straight home losses having lost by one goal, three of them in overtime.  It was the largest margin of defeat on home ice in a playoff game since they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 7-0, in Game 1 of the 2000 conference quarterfinals.

Then there was the inability to win on the road.  The Caps had the ninth-best road record in the league in the regular season (the Rangers were tied for 19th) yet could not find a way to win at Madison Square Garden. 

Then there were the stars.  Alex Ovechkin…one goal in seven games, that coming in Game 1.  Nicklas Backstrom…just one even strength point for the series.  Mike Ribeiro…one even strength point for the series (a game-winning overtime goal, so there was that). 

The Caps got ten points (three goals) from defensemen in the series.  Karl Alzner was the second-leading point-getter (1-1-2) and was the only defenseman to finish on the “plus” side of the plus-minus ledger (plus-3).

Troy Brouwer, Joel Ward, and Jason Chimera combined for two goals, the same number scored by both Brian Boyle and Arron Asham.


Martin Erat, for whom the Capitals traded one of their top prospects, played three games plus four minutes in Game 4.  His absence in Games 4-7 might have been missed just enough required some juggling among the forward lines.

In a way, the disappointment of that outcome is mitigated to a point by the fact that the Caps started the season in unsettled circumstances, perhaps more so than most other teams.  They weathered what could have been a disastrous start to the season, a start made more dangerous by the abbreviated schedule, and closed with a mad rush to reach the postseason.  Their best player accepted a different role – a new position – and scored goals at a pace that rivaled some of his best years before or since.

But in the end, it was another first round exit, the 14th time in 24 playoff appearances to that point the Caps were one-and-done.  They fought the Rangers to a draw through six games, then wilted in Game 7.  They came within a goal scored off their own player of perhaps forcing overtime in Game 6, and the Caps had won both of the overtime games in the series played to that point.  The Caps had their chances in that Game 6, despite the absence of any power plays – Ovechkin just after the Brassard goal, Ribeiro on a backhand from all alone in the left wing circle, Ovechkin on a one-timer from a Backstrom pass from below the goal line.  They were oh, so close to driving that spike into the Rangers’ season.  But then you already know the only things in which “close” counts.

Photo: Patrick McDermott/NHLI via Getty Images

Washington Capitals -- Memorable Goals: Number 3

We have looked at seven goals from seven different players in our look at memorable goals scored in the history of the Washington Capitals franchise.  For the eighth goal we look at an eighth different player, a player making good on the investment made in him as a free agent.

3.  April 25, 2012 – Joel Ward: “Long Term Capital Gain”

Joel Ward was a late bloomer.  An undrafted forward out of the Owen Sound Platers of the Ontario Hockey League, Ward completed four seasons in Canadian Junior with the Platers, then took the Canadian Interuniversity Sports route, playing for four seasons with the University of Prince Edward Island Panthers.  He did not sign his first professional contract, that with the Houston Aeros of the American Hockey League, until two days after his 25^th birthday.  He did not play in his first NHL game until he was two weeks past his 26^th birthday.  He did not score his first NHL goal until he was within two months of his 28^th birthday.

It was the profile of a singularly determined individual whose resume did not suggest he would have a long and productive career in the NHL.  However, in three full seasons with the Nashville Predators (after a brief stint with the Minnesota Wild), Ward appeared in 230 games, recording 40 goals and 98 points.  More than that, he became a clutch postseason performer, especially in the 2010-2011 season when he scored seven goals in 12 games for the Predators.

It was that 2011 postseason that appeared to get the attention of the Caps, who signed the now 30-year old Ward to a four-year/$12 million in July 2011.  Ward got off to a decent start with his new club with four goals in his first dozen games with the Caps.  But then he went 25 straight games without one.  Over those 25 games the Caps fell from first in the Southeast Division and third in the Eastern Conference standings to second in the division and seventh in the conference.

Ward’s slump did not end with that goal on January 7^th to break his 25-game drought.  After scoring against the San Jose Sharks, he went another 21 games without a goal, scoring what would be his last goal of the season on February 24^th against Montreal.  All in all, it was part of a long slow end to the regular season for Ward that saw him finish with only six goals in 73 games.

Things really did not go a lot better for Ward as the first round series against the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins began.  He did not score a goal in any of the first six games, shooting blanks on just eight shots in those six contests.  Heading into a deciding Game 7 of that series, Ward had a total of two goals on his last 75 shots over 67 regular season and playoff games.  And, in the six games against the Bruins in the first round, he was down to averaging less than ten minutes of ice time per game after averaging 12:26 a game in the regular season.

Through three periods of Game 7 in Boston, the Caps and Bruins played an inspired and hard-fought 60 minutes.  The Caps opened the scoring mid-way through the first period on a fine play by Matt Hendricks.  As Boston was trying to exit their zone, Hendricks was skating hard up the middle to provide defensive support.  Milan Lucic had his pocket picked along the wall by Jason Chimera, and Hendricks curled back to head to the front of the net.  Chimera sent the puck back up the wall to John Carlson at the right point.  As Carlson wound up for the shot, Hendricks was positioning himself in the line of the shot.  Carlson let fly, and Hendricks barely had time to spin around to attempt a redirection.  He managed just fine, altering the path of the puck just enough for it to sail past Bruin goalie Tim Thomas’ right shoulder to give the Caps a 1-0 lead.

Tyler Seguin tied the game for the Bruins mid-way through the second period when his shot slithered through goalie Braden Holtby and crawled over the goal line before either John Carlson or Karl Alzner could sweep it out of the paint. Thomas and Holtby would keep their nets clean thereafter, Holtby finishing regulation stopping 31 of 32 shots and Thomas turning away 24 of 25 shots. 

For the Caps it meant facing their fourth Game 7 overtime in club history.  They lost their first, a four-overtime defeat at the hands of the New York Islanders in the 1987 “Easter Epic.”  In 1988 the Caps evened their record in series-clinching Game 7 overtime wins, Dale Hunter breaking in alone on Philadelphia Flyer goalie Ron Hextall to score the game-winner in a 5-4 overtime win.  The Flyers returned the favor in 1988, Joffrey Lupul scoring a power play goal six minutes into overtime in Game 7 to eliminate the Caps.

This was the Caps’ first Game 7 overtime on the road, and prevailing over the defending NHL champion would be no easy task.  The extra session opened with the clubs doing some early feeling out, Boston recording one shot on goal in the first two minutes, as did the Caps.  Then, with 2:48 gone in the period, the Bruins tried to get a line change.  Benoit Pouliot circled through the neutral zone until he found himself with the puck in front of the Bruins’ bench.  He fired the puck in to gain time to complete the line change, but the puck struck Mike Knuble in the shin pads and rebounded back into the neutral zone.  Knuble took advantage of the confusion at the Bruins’ bench to jump on the puck and head up ice with Ward on his right, Greg Zanon back for the Bruins and Pouilot trying to run down Knuble.  As Knuble closed on the net, Ward curled to his left and crossed behind Knuble, just as the latter was trying to finish the play on goalie Tim Thomas.  The puck was blocked but Ward was in perfect position for the rebound.  With Knuble and a pair of Bruins churning the water in front of Thomas, Ward backhanded the puck through and into the back of the net, sending the Caps into a celebration on the ice and a second round matchup against the New York Rangers.

For Ward it was his tenth career playoff goal in his 25^th career playoff game and his second game winner.  If you count the first 60 minutes of hockey in Game 7 as a complete hockey game, the goal broke a 20-game streak for Ward without one dating back to the February 24^th game against Montreal.  But the goal was consistent with Ward’s 2011-2012 profile in one respect.  He had only six goals in the regular season, yes, but four of them were third period tallies.  And while he had only those six regular season goals, it was the postseason record Ward assembled in Nashville that made him a target of the Caps in free agency.  Here, in what could have been the season’s final game for the Caps, Ward made good on that investment made by the Caps in the previous summer.  It made for one of the most memorable goals in the history of the Washington Capitals’ franchise.

Photo: Greg M. Cooper/US Presswire

Washington Capitals -- Not All Playoffs are the Same: Part III

In our first two installments of looking at the playoff history in the “Rock the Red” era of the Washington Capitals we touched on two postseasons that were clearly disappointments, if for entirely different reasons. We now enter that part of the history that is a bit more conflicted, starting with a postseason that started well, ended poorly, perhaps a reflection of a team that was not what it seemed to be.

5. 2011: Live on the Edge, and You Might Fall Over It

The 2010-2011 season was one long effort at trying to repair the damage done as a result of the Washington Capitals’ far-too-early exit from the 2010 playoffs.  The Caps finished the 2009-2010 season with the league’s best record and its most fearsome offense, then blew a three-games-to-one lead in the first round of the playoffs in losing to the Montreal Canadiens in seven games in the most disappointing playoff exit in club history.

If the Caps of the 2010-2011 regular season were not the explosive and dominating team of 2009-2010, they were a consistent one.  In eight ten-game segments of the season they recorded fewer than ten standings points only once (a 4-5-1 record for Games 51-60).  They were also different in other respects.  Their scoring offense was down by more than a goal per game from the previous season (from 3.82 to 2.67). and their scoring differential was down by two thirds (from +1.05 goals per game to +0.34).   Five-on-five play was tighter, the Caps finishing with a goals-for/goals-against ratio of 1.07 versus 1.57 in 2009-2010.  And, while their special teams index was largely unchanged (104.0 in 2009-2010 to 103.1 in 2010-2011), the Caps got there in a very different way in 2010-2011.  Their power play dropped in efficiency from 25.2 percent to 17.5, while their power play jumped from 78.8 percent to 85.6.

It was a team that played games much closer to the margin.  They played in 46 one-goal games in 2010-2011 to a 26-9-11 record (including q 5-6 record in the Gimmick) versus 41 games in 2009-2010 to a 20-8-13 record (also with a 5-6 record in the Gimmick).  The bigger difference was in decisions of three or more goals.  The Caps won 22 such decisions in 2009-2010 (a 22-6 record), while they only had 22 such decisions in total in 2010-2011 (14-8 record).

Individually, production was down in 2010-2011, too.  As a group, the 22 skaters appearing in both seasons for the Caps scored almost 100 fewer goals in 2010-2011 (189) than in 2009-2010 (283).  That group had a total of 40 power play goals in 2010-2011 compared to 74 the previous season.  The drop was especially felt among the “Young Guns.”  Alex Ovechkin’s goal total dropped by 18 (from 50 to 32), his power play goals by six (from 13 to 7).  Nicklas Backstrom’s goal totals dropped by 15 overall (from 33 to 18), and his power play goals dropped by seven (from 11 to 4).  For Alexander Semin it was a drop of 12 goals overall (40 to 28) and two on the power play (8 to 6).  Mike Green lost 33 games to injury in 2010-2011, but his goal total dropping by more than half (from 19 to 8) overall and by half on the power play (from 10 to 5) from the previous year was still significant.

With all of that, however, the Caps still finished the regular season with a 48-23-11 record (107 points), the top-seed in the Eastern Conference and holders of the second-best record in the league (Vancouver: 54-19-9/117 points).  It was a reflection, one might say, of better balance between a potent offense and a decent, if unspectacular defense.  It could have been said that the Caps got there by playing “the right way,” when some thought they did not do so the previous season.  It earned the Capitals a rematch in the first round with 2009’s first-round opponent, the New York Rangers.

The two teams had very different run-ups to the postseason.  After getting pasted at home by the Rangers, 6-0, on February 25^th the Caps finished the season 16-3-1 over their last 20 games of the season.  Meanwhile, after the Rangers won five in a row in mid-March, they stumbled to a 4-3-1 record in their last eight games.  There was, however, an “X” factor.  In his last two appearances of the season against the Caps, Ranger goaltender Henrik Lundqvist shut out the Caps, once on 31 shots in a 7-0 win at Madison Square Garden in December, and the 6-0 shutout on 35 shots in February at Verizon Center in Washington.  In Game 1 of their opening round matchup, Lundqvist picked up right where he left off for the Rangers, turning away all 17 shots he faced over the first two periods.  For the Caps, goalie Michal Neuvirth matched Lundqvist in the goals allowed department, stopping all 11 shots he faced in the first 40 minutes.  Just two minutes into the third period, though, the Rangers broke the ice.  Brandon Prust outfought John Erskine for a loose puck in the corner to Neuvirth’s right, slid it along the end wall to Wojtek Wolski, and Wolski sent it out to Matt Gilroy for a one-timer that beat Neuvirth to make it 1-0.

Lundqvist threatened to make that goal stand up, blanking the Caps over the first 13 minutes of the period.  In the 14^th minute, however, the Caps broke out of their own end with a long pass from Mike Green to Alex Semin at the red line.  The puck squirted forward where Alex Ovechkin took over.  Ovechkin skated in but was interrupted by defenseman Dan Girardi, who was knocked to the ice for his trouble.  Semin collected the loose puck but lost control of it at the post to Lundqvist’s right.  Ovechkin took several whacks at it, and just before defenseman Marc Staal could tackle him at the post, Ovechkin batted the puck past Lundqvist to tie the game. 

That would be it for the scoring in regulation.  The first overtime seemed to be heading to its end without resolution when the Caps pinned the Rangers in their own end with a withering forecheck.  Unable to get the puck out on two clearing attempts, the puck settled on the stick of Jason Arnott at the right wing wall.  He fed Alexander Semin in the high slot, and Semin one-timed the puck past Lundqvist’s blocker to give the Caps the win in Game 1.

It was more of the same to start Game 2 – closely played by both teams in a scoreless first period.  The Caps struck twice, however, early in the second period.  Jason Chimera rewarded himself for hard work along the wall to keep the puck in the Ranger end by heading to the slot and one-timing a pass from Marcus Johansson through Lundqvist to give the Caps the lead.  Less than two minutes later, with Ryan McDonagh in the penalty box for the Rangers, Jason Arnott put back a rare rebound given up by Lundqvist to give the Caps a 2-0 lead.  Neuvirth did the rest, shutting out the Rangers with 22 saves to send the Caps to New York with a 2-0 lead in games.

Five times to that point in franchise history the Caps took 2-0 leads into Game 3.  Their record in Games 3 in those instances: 0-5.  And, they went on to lose four of those series.  If a two-goal lead is thought to be the most dangerous lead in hockey, then for the Caps a 2-0 lead in games was uniquely hazardous.  Game 3 unfolded as if it would be no exception.  The Caps seemed to be a step behind throughout.  After another scoreless first period – the third straight in this series – the Rangers broke through on a power play goal by Erik Christensen early in the second period.  Ovechkin tied the contest in the last minute of the third period, but the Rangers regained the lead on a Vinny Prospal goal in the ninth minute of the third period.  Washington tied the game a second time on a power play goal by Mike Knuble with just over five minutes left in regulation, and it seemed as if the teams would go to overtime for the second time in this series. 

It did not.  With the clock winding down under two minutes to play, Brandon Dubinsky walked out from the corner to Neuvirth’s right.  He pulled the puck to his forehand as he closed on the net, but his shot popped into the air in the Washington crease.  Neuvirth lost sight of the puck, and it dropped to his left and bounced into the net to give the Rangers a 2-1 win.

The teams returned to form in Game 4, failing to score in the first period.  In the second period, every Capital fan’s nightmare seemed to be playing out.  Artem Anisimov scored less than six minutes into the period.  Then, the Rangers scored goals seven seconds apart later in the period – Marian Gaborik and Dubinsky doing the damage – to take a 3-0 lead into the third period.

The Caps came out hard in the third period, recording five shots in the first 2:45 of the period.  It was the sixth shot that got the Caps back in the game.  With the Rangers changing personnel, Ryan McDonagh held the puck behind the Ranger net.  When the changes were finished, McDonagh tried to send the puck up the left wing to Gaborik.  What he didn’t see was Alexander Semin ready to pounce on the pass.  Semin intercepted the puck and circled in through the right wing circle.  His first shot was stopped by Lundqvist, but the puck was not secured under the goalie.  Semin poked it free and over the goal line, and the Caps – over the protests of Lundqvist that he froze the puck – were on the board. 

Less than a minute later, the Caps got to within a goal on a play that started when Marcus Johansson fed the puck across to Brooks Laich in the left wing faceoff circle.  The puck bounced over Laich’s stick, but he chased it down along the wall.  From there he sent the puck back in front where Johansson was setting up.  Johansson angled his stick blade and redirected the puck past Lundqvist’s left pad to make it 3-2 with more than 16 minutes still left in regulation.

It looked as if that would be as close as the Caps would get, but then the kids took over.  Karl Alzner (playing in his fifth career postseason game) fed the puck across to John Carlson (playing in his 11^th post season game) for a one-time blast that threaded its way to the front of the Ranger net.  Johansson (playing in his fourth career playoff game) redirected the puck past Lundqvist, and the game was tied with just under eight minutes left. 

Neither team could find the tie-breaker in what remained of regulation time, meaning that the teams would go to an extra session for the third time in four games.  Neuvirth (nine saves) and Lundqvist (13 saves) took the teams to a second overtime period, and each netminder had four saves in the first 12 minutes of the second extra period.  Rod Serling could have narrated what happened next.  The Caps broke out of their own end, Carlson sending the puck from behind his net along the wall to Eric Fehr at the right wing boards.  Fehr chipped the puck out to Johansson heading up the right side.  Just inside the Ranger blue line Johansson dropped the puck to Jason Chimera.  Up to this point it looked like a dozen other plays over the first 92 minutes.  But then Chimera took the shot.  It was deadened by defenseman Bryan McCabe and slid slowly toward the Ranger net.  Instead of allowing Lundqvist to smother the puck with his glove for a faceoff, Marian Gaborik tried to get his stick on the puck and slide it out of harm’s way.  Between his stick and Lundqvist’s glove, the puck snuck through and into the blue paint in front of the Ranger net and at the feet of Chimera.  With barely a foot between the puck and the goal line, it was quite literally a tap-in for the game-winner 12:36 into the second overtime.  The Caps had a 3-1 lead heading back to Washington.

Taking 3-1 leads into Game 5 has been a bitter experience for the Capitals over the years, but this time would be different.  The Caps played with focus and purpose from the drop of the puck.  They were rewarded just before the six-minute mark of the period when Mike Green took advantage of a Bryan McCabe penalty to give the Caps the lead on the ensuing power play.  It would be their only goal despite outshooting the Rangers by a 13-6 margin in the period.  The Caps got their second in the second period on a highlight reel play from Ovechkin.  After Jeff Schultz did some hard work to free the puck from the corner to the left of goalie Michal Neuvirth, Nicklas Backstrom started the puck up ice.  From Backstrom to Brooks Laich to Scott Hannan, it eventually found its way to the stick of Ovechkin at the red line.  Ovechkin caught Ranger defenseman Marc Staal in a bad place, facing up ice at the Ranger blue line.  That was a signal to Ovechkin to head into a higher gear.  Staal could not get turned in time, and Ovechkin had the positional edge, using his speed and strength to curl in on Lundqvist.  Ovechkin pulled the puck across the low slot to his backhand and flipped it past Lundqvist’s right pad, leaving the goalie face-down on the ice and the Caps with a 2-0 lead.  The teams played an even third period over the first 15 minutes, suiting the Caps just fine.  Alexander Semin stuck in the dagger when he and Marcus Johansson broke out on a 2-on-1 rush.  Johansson carried the puck into the zone and fed it across to Semin for the one-timer that clinched the series for the Caps.  Wojtek Wolski scored with a half-minute left to ruin Michal Neuvirth’s shutout, but it was not nearly enough to keep the Caps from heading to the second round as the only team in the East to advance to the second round in less than seven games.

In the second round the Caps faced the Tampa Bay Lightning, a club they faced only once before in team playoff history, a six-game loss in 2003, losing the last four games in succession, including the series-clinching Game 6 in triple overtime at home.  It was hard to get a read on these teams based on the season series.  The Caps won the first two games in impressive fashion by scores of 6-3 and 6-0.  The Lightning came back to win the third and fourth games, played just eight days apart in early January, by shutout -- 1-0 in overtime and 3-0.  Washington closed out the series with a pair of wins to take the series overall, 4-2.

Tampa took the early advantage in the first period of Game 1, getting a goal by Sean Bergenheim barely two minutes into the contest.  The Caps answered with a pair of goals wrapped around the first intermission, and it looked as if they were going to be able to use the same sort of stifling defense they used against the Rangers to carry that lead to a Game 1 win.  However, the Lightning struck for two goals late in the second period and then applied some stifling defense of their own.  The Caps had only five shots on goal in the third period, and Tampa Bay scored an empty net goal with 40 seconds left to take Game 1, 4-2. 

What Game 4 would be for the Capitals in their opening round series in New York against the Rangers, Game 2 would be for the Lightning in Washington against the Caps.  The teams took a 1-1 tie into the third period of the context, Tampa Bay scoring first in the opening frame and Brooks Laich tying it up in the second for the Caps.  Martin St. Louis, who scored the goal in triple overtime to eliminate the Caps in 2003, put the Lightning ahead in the eighth minute of the third period when his shot caromed off the skate of Caps defenseman Mike Green and past Neuvirth.  It might have been a frustrating way to give up a game-winning goal, except Alex Ovechkin got the Caps even with a goal with just 1:08 left in regulation.  In overtime, the Caps were burned by a sluggish line change.  As the Caps were swapping out players, Randy Jones chased the puck into the corner in his own end and sent it up the wall to Teddy Purcell at the Caps’ blue line.  It created a two-on-one advantage for the Lightning, Jones chipping a backhand pass across and out of the reach of Green that allowed Vincent Lecavalier an open opportunity to chip the puck over Neuvirth for the 3-2 win and a 2-0 lead in games.

Losing Games 1 and 2 of a seven-game series on home ice was not common in Caps history, having occurred only once before.  However, that one time was in 2009 against the New York Rangers, a team they eventually defeated in seven games.  When the Caps erased an early Lightning lead with a goal in the first minute of the second period by Mike Knuble and John Carlson’s first of the postseason eight minutes into the period, it looked as if the Caps might repeat their 2009 success against the Lightning.  Even when the Lightning tied the game up on a Lecavalier goal, the Caps regained the lead before the second intermission on a power play goal by Ovechkin, his fifth of the playoffs.  Whatever confidence Caps fans might have had that the team would turn the tables and beat Tampa Bay on their ice ended in an instant.  Steven Stamkos tied the game once more 5:23 into the third period, and Ryan Malone scored the game-winner 24 seconds later, converting a feed to the goal mouth by Nate Thompson. 

Instead of being in a position to play a Game 4 to tie the series before sending it back to Washington, the Caps were playing not to be swept for the third time in a seven game series in franchise history, dropping a four-game series to the Boston Bruins in the 1990 conference final and then again to the Detroit Red Wings in the 1998 Stanley Cup final.

One last time, the Lightning had the better finishing kick.  After exchanging goals in the first period, the Caps getting their first of the postseason from late-season acquisition Marco Sturm to answer a Ryan Malone strike, the Lightning slowly but steadily pulled away in the last 40 minutes.  Sean Bergenheim scored his third and fourth goals of the series eight minutes apart to give the Lightning a 3-1 lead.  The Caps drew within a goal 13:40 into the period, but it seemed more accident than plan. A battle for the puck behind the Tampa Bay net resulted in the puck sliding up the left wing boards.  Defenseman John Erskine pinched in and stopped the puck outside the faceoff circle hash marks.  In one motion he just flung the puck at the Lightning net, and the it sailed over goalie Dwayne Roloson’s right shoulder on the near side, just under the crossbar to make it 3-2 at the second intermission.

Tampa Bay wrapped things up in the third period, though.  The irony of it was that the game-winning goal would be scored on a power play by Marc-Andre Bergeron, who, when he was playing for Montreal in 2010 scored a power play goal in Game 7 to start the Canadiens to their series-clinching victory.   The goal seemed to stun the Caps, who were outshot by the Lightning, 4-0, over the next three minutes and 7-5 from the Bergeron goal to the 16:52 mark.  At that point, the old Caps nemesis, Martin St. Louis, drove the last nail into the coffin of the Caps’ season, snapping a shot from between the hash marks in the slot past John Carlson and Neuvirth to make it 5-2.  Carlson scored for the Caps 62 seconds after the St. Louis goal, but the damage was done, and there was too little time left in the season to rally. 

In the end, the disappointment was more in how quickly and meekly the Caps went in the second round.  It was a lot of little things and two big things.  Among the little things, the Caps could not take advantage of dominant possession numbers.  The Caps enjoyed a Corsi-for plus-minus of plus-45 over the four games (56.4 percent) for the series overall and plus-27 in close-score situations (55.4 percent).  The Caps won 51.5 percent of the faceoffs in the series.  They out-hit the Lightning, 98-79.  They could not take advantage.  On the other side, they lost the turnover battle, 57-73.  They allowed the first goal in all four games.  The allowed the first goal in the third period and overtime in all four games.  The only goals they got from defensemen were a pair from John Carlson and one from John Erskine, and Washington had only five points from defensemen in the series (Mike Green and Erskine had assists).  The little things the Caps did right didn’t matter, and the ones they did not they could not overcome. 

Then there were the two big things.  First, Michal Neuvirth had two utterly different series in the postseason.  Against the Rangers he was 4-1, 1.37, .946, with a shutout.  Against the Lightning he was 0-4, 3.74, .867.  He stopped just 18 of 23 shots in the third period and overtime against Tampa Bay (.783 save percentage).  Then there was Nicklas Backstrom.  He was almost invisible in the playoffs overall and especially against the Lightning.  The seeds of that disappointment were likely planted long before the postseason started.  In a 1-0 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins in late February, Backstrom took a slash from Kris Letang, breaking the thumb on his left hand, his dominant hand as a left-handed shooter.  He went all nine games of the postseason without a goal on 25 shots, and he managed only two assists, one in each series.  He was really not the same after the injury sustained in Pittsburgh.  In 25 games to close the season, including the nine he played in the postseason, Backstrom was 3-11-14.and did not score a goal in his last 17 games.  That was perhaps the single biggest hole in production the Caps could not fill in.

Being down to a one-handed first line center in the conference semi-final is not a reliable recipe for success, but the Caps did enough things right, especially in terms of possession, that a loss to the Lightning, not to mention a sweep, was confounding.  And while beating the Lightning was no guarantee of success (the Caps were the East’s top seed but lost three of four games to the Boston Bruins – the team they would have met in the conference final -- in the regular season), it was a disappointment to bow out for the second year in a row as the Eastern Conference top seed without advancing to the conference final.

Perhaps if Backstrom was healthy, the Caps might have gotten off to a better start at home to start the series against the Lightning and changed the tone of the series.  It made for an especially disappointing end to what was a solid season by the Caps to that point, dissolving into an “if only” sort of conclusion.  The trouble is, it is always something with this team – a hot opposing goaltender, a fortuitous bounce for the other team, unfortunate timing for an injury to one of their best players.  And once more, the Caps failed to reach a conference final.

Photo: Scott Audette/NHLI via Getty Images

Washington Capitals -- Memorable Goals: Number 4

Up until now, our look at ten memorable goals in the history of the Washington Capitals franchise has been limited to memories in the regular season.  With the fourth most memorable goal, we enter the history of the postseason and a player considered by most to be among hockey’s royalty.

4.  April 28, 2009 – Sergei Fedorov: “One More for the Road”

When Washington Capitals General Manager George McPhee woke on the morning of February 26, 2008, his Capitals were fighting for their playoff lives.  It was an unexpected development, given that the Caps started the season going 3-13-1 to finish October after starting the schedule with a three-game winning streak, firing their coach on Thanksgiving, and finding themselves in last place in the Eastern Conference on December 28th. 

But on February 26th – trading deadline day – McPhee’s Capitals were 14-8-3 since finding themselves in last place in the East and had closed to within five points of both the Southeast Division leading Carolina Hurricanes and the eighth place in the conference Philadelphia Flyers.  Instead of sellers at the trading deadline, looking to next season, the Caps were looking to add pieces to validate the hope that the push in the 2009 portion of the season sparked.

And so it was that McPhee, looking to add experience to a squad brimming in talent but yet quite green, pulled the trigger on a trade that sent defenseman prospect Theo Ruth to the Columbus Blue Jackets for 17-year veteran Sergei Fedorov.  Having appeared in almost 1,200 regular season games and another 162 in the postseason – almost as many as the combined total of the Washington roster of skaters (169) -- Fedorov was the embodiment of experience.  More to the point, of those 169 games of postseason experience on the Caps’ roster, 60 games of that experience was on the bench, injured (Michael Nylander and Brian Pothier).  They needed veteran contributions.

Fedorov provided both a spark (2-11-13 in 18 games) and a steadying influence on the “Young Guns” -- Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Alexander Semin, and Mike Green.  While his presence no doubt contributed to the Caps’ amazing stretch run that saw them go 11-1-0 to close the season and reach the playoffs, it was not enough to get the Caps over the hump of the first round of the playoffs and the Philadelphia Flyers, to whom they lost in seven games.

It was, as they say, a learning experience.  It was one that the Caps put to good use in the 2008-2009 season.  Fedorov returned to the Caps to fill the role of second line center behind Nicklas Backstrom, and although injuries limited him to 52 games, Fedorov was still top ten on the club in goals, assists, and points, going 11-22-33 overall.  It helped the Caps finish the season with a 50-24-8 record, the first time they finished a season with 50 wins since the 1985-1986 season and only the second time in franchise history that they did so.

Their Southeast Division championship and second-place finish in the Eastern Conference earned the Caps a first round playoff matchup with the New York Rangers, a foe of long standing from their Patrick Division days, but one they had not met in the postseason since falling in five games to the eventual Stanley Cup champions in 1994.  The Caps took the 2008-2009 season series against the Blueshirts, but that outcome is a bit deceiving.  Three of the four games were decided by one goal, two of them in extra time, the clubs splitting those decisions.  The fourth decision, a 3-1 win by the Caps, featured an empty net goal by Semin.  These were two evenly matched clubs.

It was not an evenly matched series at the start, though.  The Rangers delivered a serious blow to the Caps’ chances of advancing to the second round when they took Games 1 and 2 at Verizon Center in Washington.  It did not get a lot better for Washington when they split two games at Madison Square Garden in New York to leave them in a 1-3 deficit in games.  They did, however, have the potential of playing two of their last three games at home, should it come to that.  It did.  They shutout New York, 4-0, in Game 5 at home, then went back to New York and beat the Rangers, 5-3, to force a Game 7 in Washington.

Game 7 started in shaky fashion for the Caps.  Nik Antropov scored for the Rangers just 5:35 into the contest, and the Caps did not record their first shot of the contest until the 13:04 mark of the first period.  For a while, it seemed as if it might be their last shot of the period, the Rangers piling up an 8-1 advantage over the first 15 minutes of the frame.  However, the Caps evened up the contest on their second (and last) shot of the first frame on a goal by Alexander Semin.

The teams continued to play things tight to the vest in the second period, the Caps finishing the middle 20 minutes with nine shots but holding the Rangers to only six.  Neither team could take the lead.  In the third period, things changed, but only to a point.  The Caps rattled the Ranger cage with shots in machine gun fashion – four in a space of 1:36 early in the period, another three over a 1:32 span a few minutes later.  The Rangers did not get their first shot on goal until the 9:29 mark.  But that shot seemed to silence the Caps as well.  Staring at the 7:55 mark of the period, the Caps went the next seven minutes without a shot on goal. 

What happened next changed that.  The Rangers were in their own end looking for a line change.  Derek Morris held the puck in the faceoff circle to the left of goalie Henrik Lundqvist.  He had an open passing lane up ice and sent the puck to Sean Avery circling just outside the Caps’ blue line.  Avery curled into the offensive zone and left the puck for Brandon Dubinsky trailing the play while the Rangers swapped out what players they could.  Dubinsky wrong-footed a shot that missed on the far side of Caps goalie Semyon Varlamov, the puck skittering off into the corner and up the wall where the Caps’ Matt Bradley was looking to get off the ice himself. 

Facing the wall just inside his own blue line, Bradley collected the puck and backhanded it to Sergei Fedorov heading up ice.  Fedorov sped out of the zone and down the right wing, backing off Ranger defenseman Wade Redden.  With Redden trying to maintain position that would keep Fedorov to the outside, Fedorov carried the puck to the right wing circle, then slammed on the brakes, opening up a bit of daylight between Redden and himself as Redden tried to stop and gather himself.  It was just enough of an opening for Fedorov to fire a laser of a blast that caught Lundqvist dropping into his defensive posture a half-second too soon.  The shot sailed over Lundqvist’s glove and into the top of the net, and the arena exploded as Alex Ovechkin tackled Fedorov in celebration along the boards with just 4:59 left to play. 

The Caps did not merely hold on in that last 4:59, they held the Rangers without a shot on goal and limited them to a single shot for the entire third period, outshooting them 13-1.  But it was the one goal from the stick of the wily veteran Fedorov that made the difference and justified the trade made by the Caps more than a year before that moment.

For Capitals fans, it was a special moment.  For years, Fedorov, while he did not face the Capitals often as a member of the Detroit Red Wings, made life for the Caps a special kind of hell when he did.  There was the time in 1996 when he became the first Red Wing in more than half a century to score five goals in a game, torching the Caps for five goals, including the overtime winner, in a 5-4 win.  There was the Stanley Cup final in 1998 when he recorded the game-winning goal in Game 3 to put the Caps on the brink of elimination, then assisted on the Red Wings’ first goal 150 seconds into Game 4 to help propel them to a 4-1 win and a sweep of the Capitals.

For Fedorov as a Capital, it would be the only goal that he would score in the 2009 postseason, and it would be his last goal in the NHL.  He returned to Russia the following season, leaving a hole in the second line center position that the Capitals spent years trying to fill.  In all those years, as difficult as it was to fill that void, there was still the memory of that one last and memorable goal from a legend, that sent an arena into a frenzy and the Capitals into the second round of the playoffs.

It's quarter to three,

There's no one in the place 'cept you and me

So set 'em' up joe

I got a little story I think you oughtta know

We're drinking my friend

To the end of a brief episode

So make it one for my baby

And one more for the road…

Photo: Len Redkoles/Getty Images North America