Hello, darkness, my old friend. I’ve come to play game seven again.
The Washington Capitals were designed by the Enemy to make your life unbearable. They get dominated by the Rangers, the fall in a three-goal hole, they mount a comeback, they almost do it but fall late.
Chris Krieder scored the first and second goals of the game in the first and last minute of the first period. Jason Chimera cleaned up a rebound to get the Caps in it in the second, but Rick Nash and Dan Boyle scored early in the third to put us in blowout territory, but hold on.
Joel Ward forced a turnover and Evgeny Kuznetsov sunk it to restore some vitality to Verizon Center, then Ward did it solo– crashing the net to make it a one-goal game. A huge push late yielded nothing except stress.
Caps lose. To game seven, good ol’ gay sev, we go once more.
- Braden Holtby, for the first time in almost a month, played the hockey of a mere mortal. But this loss wasn’t about him.
- Once again, the Capitals were severely outmatched in the first period. The Rangers were both faster and more aggressive than the Capitals and used both opened up a huge shot differential. What is behind these persistently slow starts (beyond NYR’s desperation)? My guess: Heavy hockey doesn’t match up well against everyone.
- There were exceptions. The Ovechkin line was certainly electric every time they took the ice, but the true hereo was Joel Ward, who played maybe his best game in years. A three-point night, Ward was instrumental in Chimera’s and Kuznetsov’s goals– putting the initial shot on net in the former and snatching the turnover in the latter. He dominated possession, was strong on the puck, and made huge plays– the definition of a big-game hockey. And I wrote all that before he crashed the net in the third period to make it a one-goal game. The honestest of Abes.
- Rick Nash finally showed up at the worst possible time for Washington. His one-on-one duel with Holtby deflated the Caps, who had just completed a thrilling second period effort– one of their best of the postseason.
- Alex Ovechkin hit Ryan McDonagh into the boards halfway into the third. McD turned away from the hit, which made it even worse. He left the game for a bit, but Ovi had been doing fine matched up against him anyway.
- At the other end of the ice, how about Carl Hagelin loose an edge and wiping out Holtby? No call on that, but it could’ve been devastating for Holtby’s, ya know, legs.
- Let us no longer complain about the refs. The Caps got a gift in the form of a late-game delay of game, except Sheppard’s puck totally went off the glass.
Well, that was a ride. I need some time to digest this, but here’s the one thing I know now: Wednesday is game seven. Every second between now and then will be punishing.
