Caps Can’t Advance

The Pittsburgh Penguins won a decidedly strange game in the usual way – in overtime. But this wasn’t just any 4-3 victory.

No, Tuesday night’s win was typical of the Penguins, and, sadly, typical of the Washington Capitals. The Penguins move on to the NHL’s Eastern Conference finals against the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Capitals advanced to, well, the rest of the spring and summer. As they always do.

This year, though, was supposed to be different. The Capitals were the best team in the NHL by a considerable margin, and if they were ever going to win a Stanley Cup – and they never have – this would be the time.

Nope. They’ve not made it past the second round of the playoffs since 1998. They’re out again. After storming back from a 3-0 deficit to tie the Pens and force it to overtime, they again reverted to form.

After allowing only one power-play goal in the first five games of the series, they gave up two on Tuesday. Despite holding Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to just one goal in six games, the Caps are done. Alex Ovechkin’s legacy? Well, it doesn’t really exist. He scores, he passes (two assists on Tuesday night) and still the Caps don’t get to a conference final or the Stanley Cup final. Crosby is headed to his fourth conference final.

Over six games of this series, the Penguins scored 16 goals and the Caps 15. The Penguins won two games in OT, the Capitals one. It was that close.

Caps coach Barry Trotz kept saying past playoff failures weren’t relevant, had nothing to do with this team. And while that’s probably true, that same pall once again hangs over Washington’s hockey fans.
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman