The Caps had some time to enjoy Wednesday’s thrilling double overtime, comeback win over the Rangers at Madison Square Garden. Then it was on to the video room to see exactly how they fell behind 3-0 in the first place. The lessons learned there will be critical to the start of Game 5 on Saturday afternoon. The benefits this team will reap by ending a series early – finally – would be enormous. Especially with No. 2 Philadelphia and No. 3 Boston still fighting tooth and nail in their own best-of-seven series.
“These are hard. To finish a team off, to put them out, is very hard,” veteran center Jason Arnott said. “They’re going to be playing with every emotion and we’ve got to match that or be better than that. With our crowd and everything we can’t get too overconfident and overanxious. We got to go out and just play relaxed, play our system and just work hard.”
That’s a legitimate point. Sometimes a team can come out too keyed up and the home-ice advantage turns into a detriment. But there’s a fine line between guarding against that and becoming too complacent – even cocky – as we saw in Game 5 last year against Montreal. That 2-1 loss turned the tide of that series.
Not everyone wants to think about that game, of course: “I don’t remember nothing. I forget about it,” star left wing Alex Ovechkin said. But closing out a series is certainly a topic of conversation.
“Bruce has mentioned, the fourth game is the hardest game to win no matter and you saw it last night with Vancouver,” Matt Bradley said. “I’m sure they figured they were going to come home and have an easier game [against Chicago up 3-1] and win it. But a team that’s desperate and with their back against the wall is the toughest to play against. And I expect nothing different from the Rangers tomorrow night. They’re going to have their best game and work their hardest. If we’re not ready it’ll be a tough game and we won’t win.”
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