Well, this looks familiar.
In what is becoming an annual passage of spring — right up there with filing tax returns and gawking at cherry blossoms — the Washington Capitals will play a Game 7 at Verizon Center, this time against the Montreal Canadiens. Their season, and perhaps the direction of the franchise, hangs in the balance.
Let’s be clear: This is the biggest game this group has ever played. A loss to Montreal would be the finishing touch on a collapse by a team with Stanley Cup aspirations. Six days ago, the Caps led 3-1 in this series and had all the momentum heading into Game 5. But Habs goalie Jaroslav Halak has been marvelous ever since, forcing an elimination night on F Street.
So here we are again, with the Caps hosting a Game 7 and with plenty of lingering questions. Will Washington’s disappearing power play rebound? Can the Caps return to playing tough crash-the-net hockey again? And who will start in goal, Semyon Varlamov or Jose Theodore?
But these immediate questions feed into bigger problems for the Caps moving forward. Another loss at Verizon in an elimination game — this time to an inferior opponent — would tag this team with the “underachiever” and “choker” labels. It also would raise serious concerns about their ability to make a Stanley Cup run with this roster.
The Caps are built for offense. They pile up goals and run teams out of the arena. In that sense, they are hockey’s version of Mike D’Antoni‘s old Phoenix Suns, or the 2004-06 Yankees, or the Indianapolis Colts of the mid-2000s — teams that try to outgun opponents. Only one of those teams, the 2006 Colts, won a championship, and that was largely due to a defense that forced 13 turnovers during the playoffs.
Hockey is just like any other sport. The majority of the time, boring stuff (defense, pitching, goaltending) wins championships. The Caps outskated, outshot and outplayed the Canadiens in Game 6. They fired missiles at Halak all night … and still lost by three. It was a prime example of what a hot goalie can do for a team in the playoffs. And it has the Capitals fighting for their season, and possibly their future, Wednesday night.
