Capitals 3, Flyers 2

I’ve never really been one to believe that a young team needs to “learn” how to win playoffs games. After all, a team is playing the same sport they’ve played countless hours in their lives to that point and although playoffs games do have a different feel, one would expect the players to be prepared for them given how much the players do know about hockey. Yet it seems that almost every year a young, talented team fails to live up to its promise in the postseason.

Thus far this year it has been the Washington Capitals, who dropped three straight to the Philadelphia Flyers after a comeback victory in the first game of the series between the two teams. The Capitals do appear to be learning however: they played much better in Game 4 than in Game 3, and better in Game 5 than in Game 4. Given the Capitals’ impressive run to end the season and the fact that they seem to be finding their groove the question is: is the pressure now on the Flyers?

After all, the orange and black missed their first opportunity to close out the series on Saturday afternoon when they let the Capitals come out and dictate the flow of play. Game 6 is going to be the Flyers best chance to close out the Capitals because if they lose the Capitals going in to a Game 7 at home, with momentum. While the Flyers do have the home ice advantage, the home ice advantage comes with pressure; pressure not just to win but to win in style and to please the crowd (especially in Philadelphia, where fans can be…unforgiving, to say the least). The Flyer faithful love their team’s Broad Street Bullies persona and that, coupled with the fact that Capitals controlled the physical play on Saturday, means the Flyers have the potential to put themselves on the penalty kill both early and often. Playing against a Capitals team that’s clicking on the powerplay for the first time this postseason the Flyers could be down and out if they succumb to the pressure of trying to close out the series at home and become undisciplined.

Capitals 0, Flyers 2

After the Capitals’ 5-4 comeback win in Game 1 of this series the Flyers were admonished for only playing forty minutes of a sixty minute game. While that is indeed not an admirable characteristic, it’s not really much better to adopt logic that the Capitals seem to have: that it’s okay to only play a good twenty minutes as long they’re the last twenty. The Capitals didn’t get anything going Sunday afternoon until the opening minutes of the third period and even then it wasn’t nearly enough to pull out a win. However, despite this I don’t think the Capitals’ effort was as poor as it seemed on the surface.

The story of yesterday’s game was individual efforts: the Capitals were done in by mistakes by defensemen John Erskine and Mike Green and stymied offensively by the individual effort of Martin Brion, who made 24 saves. Without Erskine getting caught in front of R.J. Umberger and Green making a bad turnover, the Flyers don’t get to dictate the rest of the game and without the efforts of Biron, the Caps probably net a pair. It’s not that there aren’t adjustments needed and it’s not as if the Capitals deserved to win this game. I just think it wasn’t as one-sided as it looked.

Regardless of that the Capitals did lose which means, for now at least, they’ve squandered their home ice advantage. The upcoming game in Philadelphia on Tuesday could end up being the make-or-break one for the Capitals. On the one hand they’ve still only lost back-to-back games once under Bruce Boudreau and that took some poor officiating and Nicklas Backstrom scoring into his own net to happen and the last time the Capitals lost they responded by reeling off an eight game winning streak. On the other hand, none of the games they played during that stretch were as difficult as the one on Tuesday is likely to be.

Quick Hits

• I usually like the NBC broadcast team but they were definitely off today: it only 13 seconds for someone to mispronounce Shaone Morrisonn’s name, Pierre Mcguire estimated that half the fans in attendance were rooting for the Flyers and Ed Olczyk had a number of errors: calling Scott Hartnell’s goaltender interference penalty “incidental contact” despite that Hartnell, who was not pushed, bowled over Cristobal Huet well into the blue paint, adamantly calling a phantom elbow on Backstom and saying the the Flyers exploited the the blocker of Huet on the Flyers’ second goal, a play on which Huet had no chance.
• Show me a Capitals fan who was surprised it was John Erskine who got beat on the Flyers first goal and I’ll show you a fan who doesn’t know who John Erskine is.
• Mike Green’s played six period of playoff hockey. One was stellar, five have been terrible.
• Sunday’s game wasn’t nearly as physical as Friday’s: total hits decreased from 76 to 57.
• The Capitals had 18 giveaways. The Flyers had 7.
• Of the Capitals 18 giveaways, nine were by defensemen. The only Washington defenseman who did not have a giveaway was Shaone Morrisonn.
  

All photos AP/Getty by way of Yahoo!

Capitals 0, Blackhawks 5

The no way around the fact that this one hurt. Bad. And there’s not really any sense in re-hashing the intricacies of last night’s game because there aren’t going to be any answers there for the Capitals. The team was terrible last night in just about every way and in all three zones.

The important thing to remember after a game like last night’s is this: it’s just one game. From looking around the Capitals-centric portion of the internet, I think that’s something that a lot of fans might be overlooking. Consider these facts:

• The Capitals playing just 25 hours after a game where they had delivered 23 hits and absorbed 17. After that game they had to travel 472 miles from Nashville to Chicago.
• The Capitals are still only two points out of the last playoff spot in the Eastern conference.
• On Friday the Capitals play the Atlanta Thrashers who are, right now, probably worst team in the NHL and are 2-6-2 in their last ten.
• The Caps seven remaining games are all against the Southeast Division, the worst division in the NHL.
• The Caps have still lost back-to-back games in regulation just once under Boudreau, and they had to get screwed by the refs in one game and score in their own net in another to pull that off.
• Buffalo is 4-4-2 in their last ten, Philly is 4-3-3 and Boston is 3-4-3.
• As ugly as it was, this was one game. It terms of potential points lost it doesn’t matter whether the Capitals lost 1-0, 2-0, 5-0 or 10-0.

I think the last point is the most important one. It would have been unreasonable to expect the Capitals to not lose at least one game in regulation during their six game road trip (my personal guess was that they’d go 4-1-1), so there’s not any reason to throw in the towel after last night’s loss. As long as the Capitals’ coaches and veterans realize that and don’t let the poor play from last night carry over into future games, the fact that the Capitals lost in (very) poor fashion becomes irrelevant. As they say “they don’t ask how, they just ask how many”; all that matters is that the Caps missed a chance to pick up points and they’re still very much in the playoffs race.

…and there’s another use of my ‘Relentless Optimism’ label.

Or: Why Things Might Not be as Bad as they Seem

With their Sunday afternoon loss to the Penguins, the Capitals’ playoffs hopes seem to be in a precarious position - they’re seven points out of the division lead (with a game in hand) and six points out of the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference (held by Philadelphia, which has a game in hand on the Caps). I’ll admit that it doesn’t look good, but I don’t think it’s as bleak as it might seem at first, for a couple of reasons:

1. The “I really want the Capitals to make the playoffs and it’s clouding my reasoning/relentless optimism” reason.

The Capitals are seven points behind the Hurricanes for the Southeast Division lead. It’s certainly possible the Capitals win the game they have in hand; perhaps even likely given that they’re winning more often than not these days. That would cut the deficit to five points. The Capitals also have two games remaining against Carolina. If (and that’s a big ‘if’) the Capitals can win those two, it pulls them to within one. It’s still an uphill battle no doubt, and while the Capitals don’t control their own destiny in terms of pulling ahead of the ‘Canes they do control their destiny in terms of getting within one point.

2. The Schedule

The Florida Panthers are 32-31-8, the Tampa Bay Lightning are 26-35-8 and the Atlanta Thrashers are 30-32-8 and in a complete tailspin. The Capitals play these teams a combined six times in their last twelve games. That’s 12 points the Capitals should have which means it should be an easy road to 84 points, with 12 more still up in the air. The Capitals haven’t performed they way they should have against the Southeast Division this season but the Capitals are also clearly a better team than Florida, Tampa or Atlanta.

It’s not as if the road the playoff will be easy one for the Capitals and there’s one problem that still stands in their way: The Numbers.

Glen Hanlon was fired 20 games into this season, with the Capitals at 6-13-1 (13 points). Since Bruce Boudreau took over the team has gone 26-17-7. That’s 1.18 points per game. The Capitals are currently sitting at 70 games played and 72 points. If the team can pick up points at the same rate during their last 12 games as they have in the 50 Boudreau has coached so far, they’ll wind up with 14, giving them 86 for the season. Put that up against what the Capitals are looking up at (this image was hard to fit in the post, but click on it and it will open in a might more viewable size),

…and things look pretty intimidating. If all the teams ahead of the Capitals keep their current pace, the Caps would need to take 21 of the remaining 24 points on their schedule. Of course, that won’t necessarily be the case. The odds of the Rangers, Bruins or Flyers stumbling down the stretch are pretty decent. Each team is far from bulletproof and each has struggled mightily at times this year, and that’s what would need to happen for the Capitals to have a shot at getting in as an eighth seed.

It’s for this reason the Capitals best bet for a playoff berth is to catch the Hurricanes. It’s not uncommon to hear coaches and players say that all they want is to be in control of their own destiny. The Capitals don’t quite have that advantage…but with the chance to pull within one point simply by winning three key games, it’d be hard to be any closer.

Capitals 4, Flyers 6

As has happened far too regularly this season, the Capitals were felled by questionable defensive play and sub-par goaltending and as a result lost a game where they should have had one point and could have had two. The Flyers, playing for the second time in two days and third time in four days, should have been outgunned by the Capitals (who were playing their only game in a seven day stretch), and if they game had stayed close they probably would have been. But by allowing Philadelphia to get out to a three goal lead and hence play a more conservative style the Capitals diminished their ability to use each team’s scheduling situation to their advantage.

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