In Game 1, the Washington Capitals held the New York Rangers to 14 shots. They blocked shots, withstood and early surge from the home team and hit four goal posts. In Game 2, they beat the Rangers at their game and won with a late Power Play goal from their captain.
Late in the third period after the Rangers tied the game on a Power Play tip-in by Captain Ryan Callahan, Brad Richards was called for holding and sent to the box. Richards was incensed by the call, but referee Stephen Walkom deemed it worthy of two minutes in the Sin Bin. It took Alexander Ovechkin four seconds to make the Rangers pay, taking a face-off win and wristing a screened shot past Henrik Lundqvist.
It’s always said that when the playoffs role around, your star players need to be your best players in order to move on. But usually, star players get plenty of ice time to shine.
That hasn’t been the case for Alexander Ovechkin.
For the third time in the past five games, Ovechkin played less than 17 minutes in a Stanley Cup playoff game for the Caps on Monday. In fact, Ovi played a career-low in the postseason of just 13:36 in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Rangers. But the Caps captain made the most of it, netting what would be the game-winner in a 3-2 victory for Washington.
Ever hear about something being the same, but different. Well, stop me if you’ve heard this before. Rangers and the Capitals meet in the playoffs. For a while, that wasn’t the case. In 2009, the teams met for the first time since 1994.
This is now their third meeting in the last four years. The players are the same (for the most part) and the locations will be the same…but there’s changes to the schedule as the roles are reversed. This time, the Rangers are the favorite and the Capitals are the gritty team that eeked out two overtime game-winners ousting the Stanley Cup Champion Bruins.
April—a time for rebirth, The Masters and bold predictions.
With just two games remaining in the regular season for the Washington Capitals, veteran forward Brooks Laich fired off this shot when he appeared on Washington’s 106.7 The Fan sports radio (with “The Junkies”):
“We’re making the playoffs,” Laich predicted. “We’re not talking worst-case scenario. We’re making the playoffs….There’s probably games in October that you wish you had or November or whatever, but over the course of 82 games your team identity is gonna be revealed. And either you are or you aren’t a playoff team. There’s really no gray area.”
It’s hard to believe that when you look through the current league leaders in points, you won’t find Alexander Ovechkin’s name in the top 10. You won’t find The Great 8 in the top 20, either. Heck, you won’t even find him on the first page on NHL.com’s list of league’s top scorers. Nope, you have to go to the next page and scroll down to No. 43, where Ovi currently sits with just 39 points.
Ovechkin isn’t the only star who has struggled in 2012. Here is a list of the top five underachievers in 2012.
If you can’t wait to see Alex Ovechkin at this weekend’s NHL All-Star Game in Ottawa, well, there’s always next season.
Ovechkin decided to remove himself from the event Tuesday, citing that he will be in the middle of a three-game suspension.
“My heart is not there. I am suspended, so why I have to go there?” Ovechkin said. “I love the game. It is a great event. I love to be there. I am suspended. I don’t want to be a target. I feel like I’m not deserving to be there right now because I am suspended.”
It turns out Bruce Boudreau won’t have to go out and wait in any unemployment lines.
After being fired on Monday by the Washington Capitals, Boudreau was named the Anaheim Ducks new head coach Wednesday night, just hours after the Ducks fired Randy Carlyle following the club’s 4-1 win over the Montreal Canadiens.
The victory was only the second for the Ducks in the month of November, and despite the two points, the Ducks are 14th in the Western Conference and 29th in the overall standings.
The Ducks also relieved assistant coaches Dave Farrish and Mike Foligno, and video coordinator Joe Trotta of their duties.
After four-plus seasons behind Washington’s bench, the Caps fired coach Boudreau and replaced him with former Capitals captain Dale Hunter on Monday.
The 2011-12 season was finally supposed to be the one that saw Boudreau lead the Caps to the Stanley Cup finals, but following an embarrassing 5-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres Saturday, GM George McPhee decided that his club needed a change to turn around their uninspiring play.
If Nicklas Backstrom hadn’t scored the game-tying goal with less than a minute to go in what eventually led to a 5-4 OT win for the Washington Capitals over the Anaheim Ducks, then Caps coach Bruce Boudreau would still be getting a ton of heat right now.
Instead, he looked like a genius. However, that hasn’t prevented a media firestorm from hounding Boudreau with the same question over and over again: Why wasn’t Alex Ovechkin on the ice at that crucial stage in the game?
The Washington Capitals are the San Jose Sharks of the Eastern Conference: a talented team that has continually fallen short of expectations in the postseason.
After defeating the New York Rangers in five games last season, Washington was unceremoniously swept by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the second round of the 2010-11 NHL Playoffs.
Like the Sharks, the Caps have no more room for excuses heading into the 2011-12 season, and anything short of a trip to the Cup Finals this season will be deemed a failure.
In Game 1, the Washington Capitals held the New York Rangers to 14 shots. They blocked shots, withstood and early surge from the home team and hit four goal posts. In Game 2, they beat the Rangers at their game and won with a late Power Play goal from their captain.
