Listening to New York Rangers coach John Tortorella and some of his players after their Game 2 loss Friday night to the Washington Capitals, I was struck by the tone of their answers.
They were down 2-0 in the series, but they didn’t sound or act like a team down 2-0 to one of the dominant teams in the NHL this season.
It was beyond the typical good-face-on-a-loss talk.
“By no means are we down,” Tortorella said. “We’ve got to get momentum on our side. I’m not discouraged with the team.”
No concern about the hole they were in. No fear about a No. 8 seed having to defeat a No. 1 seed in the playoffs four of the next five games.
So it should be no surprise that the Rangers were able to pull out a 3-2 win over the Capitals in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinals series Sunday at Madison Square Garden.
The Washington Capitals underwent this drastic change during the regular season to better prepare them for the Stanley Cup playoffs, becoming a more defensive, disciplined unit. From the eight minor penalties they took Sunday, however, you would be hard-pressed to find that discipline.
But will it translate to playoff success? They’ll have to prove it because the Rangers aren’t buying it yet. New York won three out of four games against the Capitals in the regular season (including two by a combined 13-0) and has Game 4 at home Wednesday against Washington.
“I don’t think we did much different,” Tortorella told reporters after Sunday’s Rangers win. “There’s no magic potion. We played the same way we want to play; we just scored three, [and] they scored two.
“Now it’s 2-1. It could be reversed. It could be us 2-1. We certainly haven’t gone about our business in any different manner.”
It can’t be business as usual, though, for the Capitals. All the kudos that came Bruce Boudreau’s way for engineering this season-long transition will be meaningless without playoff results.
When are the Capitals going to produce a playoff win that matches their talent? When are they going to play like a No. 1 seed?
Last year the Capitals put up 121 points and lost in seven games to a Montreal team that had just 88 regular-season points.
This season Washington compiled 107 points during the regular season, second behind Vancouver, which is one game away from sweeping defending champion Chicago. Yet the Caps hold just a 2-1 lead in the series against the Rangers, who were last among Stanley Cup playoff teams with 93 regular-season points.
“We really wanted to win that one,” Caps forward Matt Bradley said. “It obviously would have put us in a really good advantage.”
That is where the Capitals should be. When will that happen?
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].
