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A Little Credit, Please, Whether or Not They Cap it Off.

April 3, 2018, 9:45 AM ET [3 Comments]
Jay Greenberg
Blogger •NHL Hall of Fame writer • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Presuming there already is a special place in heaven for fans of the Caps, someday there also should be a banquet hall, a meadow, a fluffy cloud, or whatever facilities they have up there, for a toast to the 2017-18 edition of their team. The window, in this case a storm window poised to slam down on these guys’ necks, is still open, thanks to the Washington players’ impressively indefatigable arms.

This season they went without Justin Williams, Marcus Johansson, Karl Alzner, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Nate Schmidt–all salary cap or expansion draft casualties–hard to overcome under any circumstances, let alone while doubled over gasping for wind. This is no way you want to feel on opening night. Although one, maybe even two, painful upset losses in the playoffs traditionally have proven to have educational value in subsequent trials-by-fire, a third President’s Trophy in eight years up in smoke without even reaching a conference final should have been too many for the Capitals to take.

Last year was the worst yet. They rallied back from a 3-1 series deficit against the Stanley Cup champion Penguins only to inexplicably have nothing left in a desultory Game Seven defeat at home.

“A devastating loss when we were right there,” said Coach Barry Trotz. “I said it was like a death to someone close to you.

“Some people get over it more quickly than others. You don’t know how long it is going to take.”

Often that’s been never, reflected by the long line of Stanley Cup finalists who fail to even make the playoffs the next year and, more to the point of the Capitals, some of the best teams never to win the Cup. Emile Francis’s Rangers, Don Cherry’s Bruins, Mike Keenan’s Flyer became old and broken and concussed from battering their heads against the walls of clubs that were either superior or luckier, the latter being even harder to take.

Age and injury is the Grim Reaper of contention. And, since 2005-6, the salary cap rides as his wingman. Because you have to pay your stars, the support inevitably erodes, along with belief that next year finally will be the one. And yet, here are the Caps, diminished but unbowed, Metropolitan Division titlists for the third straight year.

Alex Ovechkin, who has been a top three player in the league for more than a decade, has taken his game and leadership up one more level. In scoring 21 per cent of the Caps’ goals, Ovechkin has become a more consistent threat than ever at even strength, burying the last lingering question about whether he is too much of an individualist to lead his team.

John Carlson, to this point generally considered a 1a at best as an anchor defenseman, has lifted himself to Norris Trophy consideration. Tom Wilson has risen from energy guy and policeman to a point-productive first liner. And with Trotz’s feathered touch, the Caps have gathered themselves from a predictable slow start (4-5-1) and not lost more than three straight games since.

They have been fortunate with good health, particularly to their center-ice core. Mostly they have just been good, defeating desperate St. Louis Monday night for an 11th win in 13 games, despite the season-long absence of an impact newcomer. Logically one should have been required to replace all the talent and energy the Caps could not keep. The closest thing to a cavalry has become backup goalie Phillipp Grubauer, apparently under serious consideration by Trotz to supplant Braden Holtby, who has had better years. as the Game One starter.

Eroded of talent, depth, and motivation, considering how long can be a six-month regular season for a team that cannot enjoy any redemption until the playoffs, the Caps had an admirable season. It helped that the Islanders collapsed, Ranger management waved the white flag and Carolina fizzled, but Washington still outlasted the star-laden Penguin, and ambitious, talented and well-coached Columbus and Philadelphia teams.

“It wasn’t as easy as it sounds,” said Trotz. “We did the right thing, gave the players some space to allow them to heal a little bit.

“We haven’t gotten by the Penguins the last two years. Neither has anybody else but we took that one hard because we felt we were right there and could get it done. It sucked away a lot of energy. It was tough coming back to training camp so we gave the players a little bit of space, didn’t hammer them. From day one, we let them heal.

“Time heals everything I guess.”

It must if the Caps still are swinging away. In 2010, a 121-point Washington team was stoned out in the first round by Jaroslav Halak, but then so were the champion Penguins a round later. It was far from the first time a goalie stole a series from a superior opponent, and not the last. The Caps understood that and tried again the next year when they dispatched the Rangers and then lost three times by one goal in a sweep by Tampa Bay.

The most vicious of cycles began to emerge. Only in 2013, when Washington didn’t make the playoffs, and in 2014, have the Capitals not at least made the second round. In winning those first series, taking second ones to the limit, the Caps have rallied from series deficits, survived elimination games on the road and still not reached a conference final during the Ovechkin era.

He has 46 goals and 90 points in 97 playoff games, not quite top 50 all-time in points per game. but barely below Steve Yzerman and Brett Hull, neither of whom went to the Hall of Fame being called a choker.

But Ovechkin plays for the perceived chokingest franchise there ever was, somehow carrying a burden even for those good Washington team in the eighties that failed to get to a final, too. To men and women of a certain age in Washington, it all runs together, spring after depressing spring as generations of Charlie Browns duped by Lucie wind up on their backs, wondering how they ever fell again for hope and trust.

It’s finally going to happen in a year after the one everybody expects. Right? But it doesn’t happen. The Caps will win in some spring that their nemesis, Pittsburgh, is out of the way. But they have lost to other teams too.

Or, they will win in a year they come into the playoffs under the radar, a season like this one, so they can be the unburdened underdogs for a change. It’s the current theory but the problem with it is that nerves haven’t seemed to derail the Caps in the first round, which most players will tell you is the most treacherous psychologically for favorites. So why would the exceptional years by Tampa Bay and Boston really help the Caps this time?

To finally do it with a team not as loaded as the ones that failed, the Caps are going to have to get luckier, with perhaps an upset in another series or an injury to an opposing superstar clearing the overgrown brush of failure.

You never say never, because a lot of us said that in September about the Caps and here they are again, regardless, a division champion one more time. But with Carlson an unrestricted free agent, a prospect lode considerably thinner than the patience of these fans, and three seasons to go on Ovechkin’s contract, every year gets closer to the end of this run-without-a-real run. A friendly locker room and a gentleman like Trotz makes the Caps hard not to root for, Joe Hardys willing to take a deal for just one good, long. spring.

“We had some dry spells with goal scorers, and even Holts had a tough span, but we have stayed pretty consistent in our message,” said the coach. “We have a group that has overcome a tough loss and a massive amount of people leaving because of the salary cap issue and replacing them with young guys who have been in the system.

“We have good people, a family atmosphere. The guys take care of each other and we promote that. We have built a good culture in the last three years to allow us to stabilize and find some even ground through some tough times at the start of the year.”

All that should earn our admiration. But it’s going to be short lived, no grace extended for how consistent the Caps have been for a decade and how hard other good teams have found winning four rounds, too. That’s just the way it is, because regular seasons are for qualifying and post-seasons are for reputation making.

But before whatever happens this time to the Caps, first a tip of the hat for giving themselves another try, after that not having seemed very likely.
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