Follow @james_tanner123 Blow up the Capitals, talk about how they can't get by the second round, make Ovechkin walk the plank, and pay a panel of so-called-experts to preview the comment section of my blog live on TV!
Oh the times we had.
Last night the Penguins were due for a good game, and they had one. Their first of the series. They still got out-shot and out-possessed, but at least they weren't destroyed as they pretty much were the entire rest of the series.
It's probably generous to say that the Penguins won four of the 23 or 24 periods (or however many) in the entire series.
Forget the fact that the Penguins won three games where the Capitals destroyed them, but just look at two plays from last night - the best goal-scorer possibly of all-time gets everything on a perfectly placed shot and it hits the shaft of a goalies stick( something that will probably happen three times in Ovechkin's entire career, if that), and the Penguins score a goal on a back-hand floater in front of a screen.
Frustrating, sure, but that's hockey.
The thing of it is though, since we know that, it gets pretty frustrating that the only narratives the post-game guys can come up with are black/white all-or-nothing- easy answers for sheeps.
And yes I know that Sheeps is not the proper plural, but it should be. The Capitals aren't cursed, they don't need leadership or lessons in winning or any of that. It's just a bad break. They can get by the second round, just, unlike most other best-teams-in-the-league, they are in the same division with their co-best-team and the league makes them play in the second round.
This was the de facto Stanley Cup Final and the Penguins won. Are you going to tell me the Senators built a better team, or that they have some kind of mysterious leadership or magic the Capitals don't have? Get real.
There is nothing wrong with the Capitals other than a bit of bad luck in a tournament that has extreme-randomness and high volatility. Break up the best team in the NHL? Come one. Sure, trade Ovechkin....where do these people even come from? The Caps have a few free agents, but almost all key players will be back. You can replace Oshie and Williams and probably even pawn Orpik's contract off on George McPhee in Vegas (he signed the damn thing).
The Capitals will be fine and next year they'll compete for the Cup again, as would any team made up of Ovechkin, Backstrom, Holtby, Niskanen, Orlov and Kuznetsov. Whatever secondary guys leave can easily be replaced.
Fleury won this series single-handedly. And just because the Capitals got unlucky, it doesn't mean the Penguins got lucky. They are a great team and they are Champions. Full respect to them, but the Capitals couldn't have somehow played better. It just went the way it went because that's hockey.
And since we all know that, it'd be nice to be spared BS about how certain guys just can't get it done.
Maybe the head coach ought to show some respect to the face-of-the-franchise and not passively aggressively rip him like a coward. Trotz is the one who made adjustments when the team was doing great. He's the one who left Connelly in the press box to dress seven defensemen and he's the one who put the greatest goalscorer of all time with classic set-up man Lars ___ Eller.
Fun fact: the best combo in the NHL for the last decade is not Ovechkin with Eller.
Yeah, Ovechkin didn't score. It's his fault he hit a two inch spot on the goalies stick. And while we're at it, let's blame the offensive winger for trying to chip the puck up the boards for a breakaway in a one-goal game after the defenseman failed twice to properly get it out.
I don't know why something always has to be someone's fault. The Capitals put together a great season and were the best team in hockey. They lost to the second-best team in hockey, in the de facto Cup Final.
And, they easily could have won without doing or playing any differently. In the end, Toronto gave them a harder time than the Penguins did, but the Penguins had the best goalie and that was the difference.
That's the way she blows sometimes, you know?
Yarr!