If Washington Capitals fans are feeling a bit of deja vu again after another heartbreaking playoff exit, no one would blame them.
This was supposed to be the year that those playoff demons would be exorcised. The Caps had a goaltender who tied the NHL record wins in a regular season, they had balanced scoring up and down their lineup, and the brunt of the pressure wasn’t felt by their captain for once. They were cruising all season and even though the Caps were destined to face the Pittsburgh Penguins at some point this postseason, there was a renewed confidence that this would be the team able to finally slay the dragon.
But after Pittsburgh’s Nick Bonino staked a dagger through the hearts of Washington Tuesday night, here we are again, writing the same story about the Capitals failures in the playoffs. Or are we?
“Every year, lots of expectations. Lots of great players. There’s something we’re missing,” Alex Ovechkin told reporters after the Caps’ 4-3 loss in overtime. “This group of guys can do better. Can go farther than the second round. I think we have the best goalie in the league. All four lines can play well. We just didn’t execute when we had a chance to put the puck in the net.”
Ovechkin will always take the brunt of the blame for the Caps’ playoffs misfortune, rightly or wrongly, because he’s the captain, leading scorer and face of the franchise. Sadly, that’s the way the narrative has been shaped and it won’t change until he and his team do so. Such a reality still doesn’t excuse comments like this:
An NHL exec just text this to me now (had not read my tweets) "Ovi can't take the heat & didn't embrace the pressure"
— Jimmy Murphy (@MurphysLaw74) May 11, 2016
Ovechkin had two goals and five assists in the six-game series. Of course, that doesn’t account for his herculean performances in the third period of Game 3, when the Caps were chasing the game, and in Game 5, when he put his entire team on his back leading them to Game 6. Ovechkin had 12 points in the postseason, and was a 56.9% possession player (116 shots for, 88 against when he was on the ice).
That’s not the sign of a player who isn’t picking up his fair share of the workload. What he didn’t have that his rivals from Pittsburgh had, namely Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, was help from the supporting cast.
Washington’s supporting cast was supposed to be better. With Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie, Game 7 hero of old Justin Williams, the renaissance of Evgeny Kuznetsov and more, this group was rightly called the deepest Caps team of the Ovechkin era.
Ovechkin ripped a monster shot past Murray to score the first goal of the game for the @washcaps. #StanleyCup https://t.co/OQrVVGsPyk
— NBC Sports Bet (@NBCSportsBet) May 7, 2016
But while Backstrom and Oshie certainly took their fair share of the workload, Kuznetsov’s insane dry spell continued, with only one playoff point and no goals. Andre Burakovsky, another important piece, also only contributed one goal in the playoffs. Marcus Johannson was clearly dinged up, but he’ll tell you his two goals and five assists weren’t good enough. Ovechkin can’t do it all, and though he was brilliant this regular season, he knows — as does everyone in that Washington dressing room — that the secondary scoring which carried the Caps to the Presidents Trophy needed to be better.
Pittsburgh, on the other hand, was carried to the conference finals on the backs of players not named Crosby and Malkin. Nick Bonino, acquired in a trade for Brandon Sutter, has 10 points this postseason. Phil Kessel, who was miscast in Toronto and needed plenty of time to come to life, leads the Penguins in playoff points. Patric Hornqvist has scored important goals, as have journeymen Matt Cullen and Eric Fehr, etc.
Crosby had two assists in the series matched up against defensive wizard Nick Backstrom, but that didn’t matter because his supporting cast was better than Washington’s. If the Penguins lost this series, maybe Crosby would have taken the brunt of some criticism for not scoring enough. But he doesn’t have to face that since the depth acquired by general manager Jim Rutherford and coach Mike Sullivan’s “speed kills” system” has carried the Penguins here, meaning they didn’t need to rely on their captain and talisman to bear the burden of the scoring responsibility.
The Caps may have been unlucky with some of the bounces they didn’t get in this series, not just in Game 6. Older Capitals teams folded like lawn chairs when the pressure came to them, but this team found a way to fight back from a 3-0 deficit (aided and abetted by three inexplicable puck over the glass penalties) and make a game that looked over competitive again. Most acknowledged that the stigma which hovers over the franchise like the San Francisco morning fog is hard to ignore, especially now. But this Capitals team is by no means at the end of its window, despite the heartbreak.
ICYMI: The @penguins advanced to the Eastern Conference Final thanks to this OT goal from Nick Bonino. #StanleyCuphttps://t.co/o56hPdADIF
— NBC Sports Hockey (@NBCSportsHockey) May 11, 2016
Ovechkin has found new life under Barry Trotz’s system, as evidenced by his 103 goals the last two seasons. He might be 30 years old, but has never looked it on the ice. His team has become a puck possession machine, and with presumptive Vezina Trophy winner Braden Holtby behind them, their regular season success will continue. In the playoffs, though, that means nothing.
Washington’s captain will be 31 at the start of next season, and has yet to reach the Conference Finals in 12 seasons. But it took Steve Yzerman 14 years to finally hoist the Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings, and he faced some of the same criticisms Ovechkin has before finally breaking through. Everyone can take their fair share of the blame for the Caps’ consistently slow starts in most games against the Penguins, the lack of secondary scoring, the boneheaded plays by Brooks Orpik in Games 2 and 6, and so on.
What do the Capitals and Ovechkin need to change to finally end this hex next season? Arguably, not much. There is a distinct lack of speed on this team, and the Eastern Conference is filled with fast teams such as Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh, so that could be addressed. But this team will still be one of the favorites in the East next season, largely because of Ovechkin and the supporting cast that didn’t get the bounces or find the magic the Penguins were able to capture.
It is so hard to avoid being swept up in the narrative, but Alex Ovechkin is not the reason for the Capitals’ fate repeating itself this year. It’s a team effort, and as the Penguins showed, the stars need their supporting casts to back them up.
