Washington hosts Rangers in Game 5 Friday night
The Capitals finished the regular season with a franchise-record 108 points. They won 50 games for just the second time in team history and two of their biggest stars will be up for the NHL’s most prestigious awards in June. Winning hockey even became the hottest sports ticket in the District as Verizon Center hosted a record 29 sellout crowds.
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And yet, despite all that success, everything could come to an end as soon as tonight when the Caps host the New York Rangers in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series.
New York leads the best-of-seven series 3-1 so a loss means the season is over. That would be a bitter pill to swallow for a Washington team that finished second in the conference and still believes it has what it takes to make a deep Stanley Cup playoff run. But they either solve Rangers’ star goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who has stopped 141 of 149 shots in the series, or they face a long summer of questions.
“There’s always expectations and coming off last season and falling short we thought we could take the next step,” defenseman Mike Green told reporters after Thursday’s practice at Kettler Iceplex. “With the season we had we did that. But in the playoffs anything can happen and that’s what matters most.”
New York was on the playoff bubble the final two months of the season. But they fired coach Tom Renney in late February in favor of John Tortorella, who won a Stanley Cup with Tampa Bay in 2004. The Rangers also tweaked the roster at the NHL trade deadline in early March and hardly resemble the team the Caps beat three times in the regular season.
