It’s almost as if the Washington Capitals are back in the visitor’s locker room at Madison Square Garden after the second period of Game 4 against the New York Rangers. The Caps were down 3-0 and facing the prospect of letting the series slip away.
Somebody needed to say something. Something needed to be done.
A change had to come.
The Caps are actually at the St. Pete Times Forum preparing for Game 3 on Tuesday. They are down 2-0 in this best-of-seven conference semifinals Stanley Cup playoff series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
But for all intents and purposes, they are in the same place emotionally as they were in New York, where desperation followed them into the locker room.
The Lightning, who were down 3-1 to the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first series only to come back and win it, brought desperation with them to Verizon Center for these first two games.
“I always believe it’s not about momentum,” Lightning coach Guy Boucher said. “It’s about desperation.”
Caps coach Bruce Boudreau’s postgame comments would seem to back that up. He believed his team had the momentum for much of the Caps’ 3-2 overtime loss Sunday night in Game 2.
“I thought we had the momentum for about 45 minutes of that game,” Boudreau said.
If by momentum he meant a man advantage, then I guess the Caps did have momentum.
Washington had six power-play opportunities during the game and failed to take advantage of any of them. It is as if the power play is a penalty for the Caps, who have gone 4-for-60 on the power play in the last two postseasons.
If by momentum, Boudreau meant the 16 shots the Caps had on goal in the second period — compared to just three for the Lightning — then I guess the Caps did have momentum. But they only had one goal — from Brooks Laich at 14:52 of the second period to tie the game at 1-1 — in the period to show for it.
But while 41-year-old Tampa Bay goalie Dwayne Roloson was outstanding, stopping 35 of 37 shots, the Caps didn’t exactly rattle his dentures with those shots.
Alex Ovechkin turned in a subpar effort despite scoring the tying goal — his first point of this series — with a little more than a minute left in regulation. But he nailed it when he said about pressuring Roloson: “We don’t have the kind of traffic we had with the Rangers.”
These Caps have this love-hate relationship with history. They hate being reminded of all the playoff losses, such as last year’s embarrassing first-round exit at the hands of the Canadiens. But now they invoke the Rangers series from two years ago, when Washington lost the first two games at home to the Rangers but came back to win the series in seven games.
“We’ve been in this situation before, and we’ve come back,” Laich said.
They would be better off calling on whatever happened between the second and third periods in New York in the last series against the Rangers. It was desperation.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected].
