By: Jeff McDonough
The picture above comes from the Washington Post, the morning after the Washington Capitals were eliminated from the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs by the New York Rangers in Madison Square Garden. The Capitals had gone up three games to one on the Rangers in their Eastern Semifinal series, only to lose the final three games — all decided by one goal, as was every game in their spectacular series. After a phenomenal postseason run, the Rangers’ Derek Stepan buried a rebound shot past Braden Holtby to win Game 7 in overtime, and all the young goaltender could do was lie there motionless. This is what being a Capitals fan looks like. Never forget.
Now for the good news. This year’s Capitals team looks really good. When the puck drops tomorrow night, they’ll be returning most of the core that had everyone in the DMV so excited last spring. That includes superstar Alex Ovechkin, back to playing at as high a level as ever. Ovie was the runner-up for the MVP Hart Trophy and led the NHL in goals for the third consecutive year. It also includes the aforementioned Braden Holtby, who — behind a solid season and dominant playoffs — has finally stabilized the rotating door the Caps have had at goalie ever since Olie Kölzig retired. Finally, it includes Sweden’s Nicklas Bäckström as well, who led the NHL in assists for the first time last year. That is the triumvirate that will lead the Capitals to the Promised Land, if they ever do get there. This is not to shortchange head coach Barry Trotz, who in one year was able to undo most of the ill will that had been built in the disastrous — but thankfully brief — tenure of Adam Oates. Oh, Adam. What happened to us, man?
Long-time stalwarts John Carlson, Karl Alzner, Brooks Laich, Jason Chimera, Marcus Johansson and Jay Beagle will be back. Evgeny Kuznetsov and André Burakovsky, their two young European centers, showed flashes of stardom in the playoffs. This is especially crucial with Bäckström still recovering from hip surgery and slated to miss the first “zero to 10 games” of the season. New GM Brian MacLellan’s first splash on the job last offseason was brining in Americans Brooks Orpik and Matt Niskanen from the rival Penguins to bolster the struggling defense. The results have been noticeable. This year Joel Ward, Mike Green, Troy Brouwer and Eric Fehr all left the team, but they were replaced by the flashy acquisitions of right-wingers T.J. Oshie and Justin Williams — and for you non-hockey fans, by “right-winger” I do not mean that they rock “Make America Great Again” hats. Though the guys recently have been donning hats just as gawdy.
Oshie is most known for his brilliant stint as the shootout specialist for Team USA in the 2014 Winter Olympics. His pro career has been fine, but at 28, he is still looking to break out and have that career year. The Capitals believe he will flourish playing next to Ovechkin and Bäckström on the first line. Williams has spent the last decade-plus with the Kings and Hurricanes, winning three Stanley Cups along the way. In 2014, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy for Playoffs MVP, piling up nine goals and 15 assists on the Kings’ run to the Cup. The Caps are hoping Williams will be able to infuse some of his “clutch gene” and leadership onto this group, that let’s say, maybe has choked away a few possible rings in the Ovechkin era.
All these pieces — combined with their second place finish in the Metropolitan Division and their decent (for them) showing in the playoffs — have had the pundits buzzing all summer. The Capitals are undoubtedly viewed as belonging in the elite crop of teams atop the Eastern Conference, but they have suddenly become a trendy pick to make the Cup, or — gasp! — even win it. As you can see in the graph below, ESPN’s panel of hockey experts are sensing big things will be happening in our national’s capital this year:
Seven of the 11 experts project Washington to win the Metro Division, five chose them to win the East and three even picked them to win it all — tied for the highest number among any team. Among those to “prognosticationally” rock the red was noted Rangers fan Linda Cohn, who has been a SportsCenter anchor since 1992 and actually tried out for the Florida Panthers backup goalie job last season. Now, I realize going to ESPN for hockey coverage is akin to having the folks at Bravo select the Emmy winners, but humor me, would ya? There are several people paid to cover sports for a living that are picking the Capitals to win a championship. That matters.
So the question now is, how do we as Capitals fans not set ourselves up for disappointment from what we can only assume is pending doom? We all know the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These are inevitable phases us Caps fan have gone through — and will again — during, oh so, many playoff collapses. Denial: “This is our year!” Anger: “How did they blow that game?!” Bargaining: “Please God, just give me this one! And Satan, be ready if the Big Guy turns me down.” Depression: “Why do I do this to myself every year? Why am I a Capitals fan? What is the point of sport? What is life?” Acceptance: “Man, it’s October already. When’s the Caps’ first game? This roster sure is looking good…” In the case of Capitals fans, the acceptance stage really just feeds right back into the denial one. It is the only way to get by.
These are the ways we handle the disaster while it happens. But how can we prepare for a pain that will take so long to manifest? How does the man with his foot caught in the railroad track pass the time until the train obliterates him? I have come up with my own five tips for Caps fans to survive this season amidst some lofty expectations:
Don’t Believe the Hype
Think of what Bill Goldberg tells you to do, but then do the opposite. This is the Washington freakin’ Capitals. I don’t know who this “Murphy” guy was, but I don’t what he did to get that law named after him instead of us. The Capitals have never won even a game in the Stanley Cup Finals in 41 years as a hockey club. They made their lone Cup appearance in 1998, but were swept by the Red Wings. Even worse, they’ve only made it to the Conference Finals twice. They were — shocker — swept in 1990 by Boston, but did manage to defeat Buffalo in six games to advance to those 1998 Finals. The point of greatest success in the Capitals’ history can be credited to our inability to out-choke the city of Buffalo. Congrats.
It’s not simply a matter of outright failure though. The Capitals have had many talented clubs who’ve thrived in the regular season and have done a great job early on in playoff series. If hockey consisted of best-of-three series, the Capitals might’ve well had a damn dynasty. Last year’s 3-1 collapse at the hands of the Rangers was the 10th time the Capitals have lost a series in which they’ve held a two-game lead. Even worse, all of them have come since 1985. Plus, eight of the 10 collapses came against teams from New York and Pittsburgh, which just makes it sting all the more. Grantland’s Sean McIndoe did an excellent job of chronicling this rich history of suckage right before the Caps sealed their latest collapse this spring. I definitely recommend clicking that link and giving it a read to fully grasp the lineage of what we are dealing with here. It always ends in despair. We don’t deserve nice things. Life is meaningless.
Accentuate the Positive
Okay, time to reel it back in. Hockey is fun. They have undoubtedly the best playoffs in all of sports. The increase of excitement from regular season to postseason is monumental. In basketball, there are game-winning shots but rarely do we get true buzzer-beaters. In baseball, only the home team can hit a walk-off. Football’s overtimes often come down to a lame-ass field goal attempt. In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, any game that goes to overtime is guaranteed to end in a bonafide, thrilling, sudden, walk-off victory. That could come in 20 seconds or after two hours in the third overtime. That’s what makes it so amazing and why you have to stay glued to the TV. It’s also what makes planning out bathroom breaks during close playoff hockey games very challenging.
In this world, the Capitals are active participants. They’ve made the postseason seven of the last eight years. They’ve even won four series. As far as level of excitement, the Capitals last five playoff series have all gone the full seven games — and nine of the 11 in the Ovechkin era. It’s like watching Game of Thrones. Sure, it may take a slow build sometimes to get to the juicy part, but when it does you’re absolutely captivated. Then your favorite character is horribly disfigured, savagely raped or brutally murdered. These things happen. But the ride sure was fun, right? Point being, a lot of cities don’t have a generational superstar like Ovechkin — let alone one whose style of play is so fun to watch. Lots of cities don’t have all these trips to the postseason or these thrilling moments or such a rabid fanbase — especially other southern and/or warmer weather cities. The once proud Edmonton Oilers haven’t made the playoffs in almost a decade. It’s not all bad for us. At least we have something.
Spread the Wealth
Listen, there are lots of sports out there. No need to put all your eggs in one basket — especially when that basket is apparently covered in poison oak and keeps giving you a horrible rash. I follow all four major sports leagues, as well as college, and am a diehard fan for lots of teams. Tennis is one of my favorite sports and those grand slam tournaments have 128 participants to choose from on both the men’s and women’s side. Hell, even when my entire sports fan life is in ruins, I always have the one true sport professional wrestling on which to fall back. The happy ending is baked right in! If only the NHL was scripted. I don’t know, I’ll write Bettman a letter. He might be intrigued by the idea actually. The point is, if you follow all these leagues, it’s easy to move on from one heartbreak to the next — as I have throughout most of my life. Thank God for the Ravens’ two championships, otherwise I might’ve abandoned this torture and switched over to becoming the Broadway Addict, or the Fishing Addict, or ya know, just a drug addict.
If you’re a resident of the DC Metropolitan area, spreading the wealth may pose some problems. The Washington Redskins — excuse me, the Washington They-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s — won the Super Bowl just months after I was born. Since 1993, it has nothing but city-wide peril. I thank the Good Lord every day that I have Baltimore ties and don’t bear the burden of being a full-fledged DC sports fan. The Baltimore teams don’t mess around. They’re not always the best, but it lessens the heartache. The Ravens make the playoffs almost every year, win at least one game and then usually bow out as a road underdog — throwing in some thrilling deep runs occasionally. That’s fine. My whole childhood the Orioles never caused any false hope, that’s for sure. When they finally got good, the levels to which we could reach were very apparent. Last season, they won the division by 12 games, swept the Tigers in the ALDS and then got swept by the Royals in the ALCS. They clearly said, “We are exactly this good,” and stuck to it. I appreciate the courtesy.
For the DC teams, when they’re bad, they’re embarrassingly bad. When they’re good, it’s all just a clever ruse to set you up for greater heartache in the end. Their football team under Dan Snyder has been the laughingstock of the league. Even in the brief time that Washington has had baseball back, the Nationals have managed to underachieve on high expectations several times. The original baseball franchise was so bad that the classic play Damn Yankees is about a Senators fan who sells his soul to the devil so that the team will win the pennant. So we’re back to the bargaining stage, and he did all that just for a World Series APPEARANCE, not even a guaranteed championship! We all know about the Capitals. The Wizards are even worse, thanks to “The Curse ’O Les Boulez,” as my former boss Tony Kornheiser would put it. The last 30 years have seen a name change, guns in the lockeroom, many draft pick busts, horrible injuries and bad contracts handed out. There has been tons of futility and some playoff collapses of their own, if they’re even lucky enough to get the chance to choke anything away.
On May 13 last year, the Capitals and Wizards both lost huge playoff games by one at the buzzer, within 12 minutes of one another. It was that Game 7 loss for the Caps and a Game 5 loss for the Wiz when tied 2-2 in the series, also in the Conference Semis — they lost Game 6 and were eliminated two night later. I didn’t even know something like that was possible. In 40+ years as arena co-tenants, this was the first year both teams had won a playoff series. It should’ve been one of the happiest times in DC sports history. Instead, it was just the long con, setting up for their greatest choking magic trick yet. If we want to include their main college team, the Georgetown Hoyas have been the annual chokers of March Madness as well. For any Washingtonian who’s not middle-aged or older, you’ve known nothing but desolation. So I don’t know, move…?
Hope for the Best
After thoroughly depressing you all, time to get upbeat! Listen, hope springs eternal, even in autumn. There are an infinite number of universes, so that means there is a universe where the Capitals win the Stanley Cup. I don’t know enough about physics to provide the road map to finding said universe. The Caps have a fun team and they could very well be right in it come springtime. They were the best power play team in the league by a wide margin last year. Is that repeatable? Probably not, but I’d rather be the best than the alternative. So even though life continues to let you down, don’t let it jade you. Don’t go making hotel reservations for Southern California in June though, unless you don’t care if the Capitals will be there with you. It’s okay to have hope. Just don’t take anything for granted or expect it to be any different. It might be. But probably not.
Plan for the Worst
Hope is all well and good, but let’s be realistic. The Capitals are not winning the 2016 Stanley Cup. They’re just not. It’s the Capitals. I know the team looks great, but c’mon guys! I don’t care if they have Charlie Conway at center, Wildwing in net, the Hanson Brothers as enforcers and they put skates on Air Bud and teach him how to screen the goalie. Barry Trotz has been pushing the slogan, “Stick to the Script.” Stick to the script?! STICK TO THE SCRIPT?!?! This is the script to a Shakespeare tragedy. I’d rather bring in Katherine Heigl in a desperate ploy for that RomCom happy ending. You can be hopeful and enjoy the ride, but don’t be fooled. SPOILER! We all know how this ends. So I’ll close by quoting esteemed substitute teacher and child labor ringleader Dewey Finn: “Here’s a useful lesson for ya: Give up. Just quit. Because in this life, you can’t win. Yeah, you can try. But in the end you’re just gonna lose. Big time.” Washington, D.C. doesn’t get to win. “The Man” wins. That’s true in hockey too. Whether “The Man” is the folks in New York, LA, Chicago or Boston, it sure as shit ain’t us. So do yourselves a favor and just give up.
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