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***Official 2018 Stanley Cup playoffs thread: Caps and Mystics to raise banners together in October. Congrats DC!!!!!!! (2 Viewers)

And ... congrats to the Penguins fans as well. Great run that is hard to duplicate in this era (although it is weird that the last nine Cups have been won by only four different franchises).

The remaining five teams have only one Cup among them ... Bolts in '04. I like to see new blood. Should be a lot of fun the next few weeks.

 
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I screamed “YES”, pumped my arms wildly (now they’re sore), and then kicked over the ottoman. This feels strange, but good. 

 
dgreen said:
I screamed “YES”, pumped my arms wildly (now they’re sore), and then kicked over the ottoman. This feels strange, but good. 
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And the best part is it really did happen and you aren't dreaming.I think we all felt a little weird on the winning side for the 1st time in a very long time against those flightless fowl in a series.

Kuzy was pretty much terrible the entire night so I really didn't expect him to be the one but they may now name him mayor of the city for a day.

 
Gonna party like it’s 1998 - last time a DC team reached a Conference Finals. 

Not gonna lie, don’t love the matchup vs. TB. But I’ll worry about that tomorrow when I wake up with a terrible hangover after watching postgame and highlights and getting lit til the early hours. So happy for this -200 overmatched team to play with that much heart tonight. And Ovie with a game-winning goal and 2 great game-winning assists in the series ... 

i don’t know what to say. The Caps have never actually made me feel happy before. 

And maybe Burakovsky is back for the ECF!

 
I have a lot of local friends who really live and die with Caps.  No ####### way I'd ever root for the Redskins, unless they were playing 49ers or Cowboys, most of them like the O's over the Nats so no thanks, and NO ONE GIVES A #### ABOUT THE NBA.  So nice to see the Caps win, guess I'm fine whatever direction it goes from here.  Probably will root for Western Conference team in Finals but we'll see.  I can be a half decent guy sometimes.  :mellow:

 
That's at least twice this series that the Preds have scored roofing one over Hellebuyck's shoulder from about 6 inches away.

 
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BTW, Pens with 6 even-strength goals in 6 games. Holtby played ridiculously well, even more so reflecting on what a traffic cone Orpik is

 
Considering the Caps played without Backstrom for the last 4+ periods (most of which they were the better team), and without Burakovsky the whole series, that's even more impressive. 

I told Caps fans at beginning of this series that this year, even though they won their division, they had almost no pressure.  No one expected them to beat the Pens.  Not one of them actually thought they'd win this series. 

They will probably come out flat in game 1 vs Tampa, and it might actually be an advantage to not play game one at home. 

It's wide open.  I think the NHL wants the Caps and Peg in the final, but Vegas might be the team that would draw the most new fans.  The whole Vegas thing is interesting on so many levels. 

Tampa and Ville would be the worst for the NHL, but that would probably be the best series.  Those are probably the two best teams on paper and they were both exceptional this season.  I think Tampa is the best team, but I do think the Caps will beat them.  Not sure about out west, no way I'm betting against the eges at this point. 

 
That's elite athleticism stuff there, you can't teach or learn what he just did.  Not doing it in a split second.  I think the issue with hockey popularity is people have no idea how hard the game is, and how much skill it requires. 

 
Bill Brasky said:
oh game 7 isn’t until Thursday? why not push it back to June?
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Stupid. I assume Nashville was booked Wednesday? I know the Bolts had a concert they may have had to cancel Saturday.  

Either way it sounds like ECF is Fri/Sun and WCF is Sat/Mon. 

Sorry mom. Cook your own steak. 

 
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Capella said:
Stupid. I assume Nashville was booked Wednesday? I know the Bolts had a concert they may have had to cancel Saturday.  

Either way it sounds like ECF is Fri/Sun and WCF is Sat/Mon. 

Sorry mom. Cook your own steak. 
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Timberlake is Wednesday 

 
Sheriff66 said:
People actually thought those chokers were going to win a Cup???? LMMFAO When will this place ever learn, Crapitals are a joke organization and ALWAYS WILL BE!! Jokevechkin just looks old and tired, a complete non factor 3rd line bum . Whole team is a bunch of Choking Dog wannabes that will never win ANYTHING...WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

Let's be honest.  Both of us know what I have to do here.

You've come to this page to see me write that the Capitals are — well, you know what they are.

And I have to write it, because I write it every year.

Because they do it every year.

Same old story: What's red, white and blue, and plays golf in April?

Excuse me, what's bronze, white and blue, and plays golf in April?

The Washington Capitals.

Choking Dogs.

I wrote it in small type, because this wasn't even one of their big chokes. As a historian of their gags, I don't put this in their top five. It doesn't rank with the 1987 foldo against the Islanders, when they lost the last three games — and Game 7 in four overtimes at home! Nor does it rank with the choke jobs against Pittsburgh in 1992 and '95, when they held 3-1 leads. I don't think it was as big a choke as the one in 1985, when a Caps team that had 101 points in the regular season blew a 2-0 lead, and lost three straight to the Islanders under the old, best-of-five format. I'll argue this wasn't as big a choke as in 1988, when the Caps lost three straight home games to the Devils.

But this was more than a hiccup.

I know all about the injuries. I know all about how Pittsburgh was a better team.

But the Capitals don't get off the hook simply because they lost to a better team — not when they put themselves in position to win. Individually, any one game may not have been choked, but collectively . . . .

The Caps were ahead 2-love in games and coming home! They had three of the next four at home, and they lost them all. In the critical Game 4, the game the Capitals absolutely, positively had to win to stay in the series, because they couldn't possibly depend on a team as good as Pittsburgh to lose three straight at home — the critical Game 4, the game the Capitals HAD to win to dispel the doubts, including their own — in that critical Game 4, the Caps held a two-goal lead, and lost slowly, agonizingly, in four overtimes.

Only a homer would say that's not choking.

You'd say it about Montreal, up 2-love, coming home.

It's the same with the Capitals. They had momentum, but they couldn't close. They couldn't push the puck past a second-string goalie. It's not what they gave up, it's what they didn't get.

Where the heck are the goal scorers?

(On other teams is where, right, David?)

Pittsburgh is allergic to defense. The Capitals outshot the Penguins 249-206. Shots, they got. If they had any real scorers besides Bondra, they would have won the thing.

Why can't the general manager bring in some scorers?

The Caps are gritty out of necessity. It's a virtue to work hard, but the Capitals have to out-work the other teams because management hasn't assembled enough gifted players to out-skate other teams.

You know, calling the Caps "Choking Dogs" used to be funny. But it isn't any more. Because it has been happening for 12 years. In nine of their past 12 playoffs the Capitals have either frittered away a substantial playoff lead or lost to a team they finished above in the regular season.

And it's not because of the Capitals' goalies.

It's because the Caps make everybody else's goalie look like Jacques Plante.

The coach of this team, Jim Schoenfeld, did a terrific job. He was outmanned and outgunned by Pittsburgh from here to the Pennsylvania border, yet he prepared his team so well they were able to win the first two games and stay competitive in two others. Considering all the injuries, Schoenfeld was like an Indy 500 mechanic who has to patch tires with bubble gum and spit. He's a keeper.

The Capitals' problem isn't the players they have — they tried their best — it's the players they don't have. The Messiers, the Lindroses, the Lemieuxs. The ones that can win Cups.

The GM brings in good players, but never great ones. The Caps have been treading water for years now; it appears it's getting harder and harder to bob above the surface.

The fans know this. They see the owner's money going to Chris Webber and Juwan Howard, and they question whether there's any left for comparable hockey talent. It doesn't look that way. It doesn't look as if the owner has made the same commitment to the Capitals as he has to the Bullets. (If he has, then what's the GM doing? Every year around the trading deadline, goal scorers start falling out of trees. How can the Caps be the only team that doesn't catch one?)

What it looks like is that the owner's happy to simply make the playoffs — first round and out is okay. That's why almost nobody in town believes in the Caps. That's why almost nobody in town thought the Capitals would actually win the series against Pittsburgh, even when they were ahead 2-0. Capitals fans have been conditioned by past failures to expect the worst, to expect: choking dogs.

The truth is that the blame lies with management more than with the players. The Capitals' organization has failed to improve this team. They fiddle while Rome burns.

Yesterday I was talking to a former Caps player, who told me of the torture of Game 4. He spoke of the crushing bad luck that always befalls the Capitals, from Pat LaFontaine to Petr Nedved. He spoke of Joe Juneau getting the first playoff overtime penalty shot in the whole history of the NHL, how Juneau had the series on his stick, and how, incomprehensibly, the puck began bouncing around like a Spaldeen and Juneau couldn't get off a shot. Bad luck. The former Cap looked at me with dark eyes, and asked plaintively, "Why can't they ever get some good luck?"

Good teams make their own good luck.
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#featurenotabug

 
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