(photo by Clyde Caplan)

At this point, longtime fans of the Washington Capitals would rather have their spouse cheat on them than see their favorite hockey team play in another triple overtime affair.

That’s because the Capitals have ventured into triple overtime four times in franchise history and sadly, all four games have ended in heartbreak and disappointment.*

*Quick sidenote: My poor wife took cold medicine at 9 p.m. because she’s been under the weather and wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and get some rest. Because the Caps game was so tightly contested though, she inexplicably ended up staying awake all the way to the bitter end of the game.

Roughly three hours after she hoped to be asleep and the game had mercifully ended, my wife never even said a word. She simply stood up and tried her best to drag her exhausted, cranky  and near-lifeless carcass to bed. That’s what being a fan of this team does to people.

Because I’ve got plenty of personal experience in this matter — namely watching the Capitals self destruct in the most brutal ways imaginable — let me try to put it another way for the newbies.

In a lot of ways, even though the franchise has been around since 1974, the Capitals are still like a teenager. Most days they’re fine, but you never want them too stay out too late because nothing good happens in their world after midnight.

Once the evening reaches that breaking point, you can only hope they’ve gotten the most of their evening. Because, like a teenager trying to sneak back into the house after missing curfew, it’s only a matter of time before they take that beating.

My parents used to say nothing good ever happens after the street lights come on, and clearly that’s a mantra that the Caps still live by today.

Not only that, but historically speaking, losing a triple overtime game has signaled the end of the postseason for the Capitals.

Just how bad has it been? Keep reading.

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(photo by Clyde Caplan)

It’s no secret that the life of a D.C. sports fans isn’t exactly filled with lollipops and rainbows.

The Nationals have yet to qualify for the postseason since relocating from Montreal, the Wizards have been a doormat for as long as anyone can remember and the Redskins have hosted just one playoff game since moving into FedEx Field back in ‘97.

Basically, locals fans have been forced to put all of their proverbial eggs in the Capitals’ basket when it comes to rooting for a professional franchise that is even remotely capable of accomplishing noteworthy.

Fortunately for Washington, the Caps were able to win on the road — taking three games from the Bruins in Boston. Otherwise, this series would have gone very differently because the Capitals have struggled to win consistently at home  in the playoffs.

Since Alex Ovechkin and friends came into our lives, hockey has been center stage in our nation’s capital — with Caps games routinely selling out at the Verizon Center as a sea of red-clad fans pack the stands and do their best to give Washington a true home-ice advantage.

And their efforts have not gone unnoticed, as the Capitals have gone 133-48-27 at home during the last five regular seasons.

But for as good as the Caps have been during the regular season at the Phone Booth, their regular-season success has carried over into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

In case you didn’t realize it, the Caps are just 11-13 at the Verizon Center during the last five postseasons.

Read that sentence one more time and let it truly sink in. The Capitals have won just 11 out of 24 home games in recent history.

Sure, the “Rock the Red” era has produced countless sellout crowds from a rowdy and passionate fanbase, but unfortunately, it simply hasn’t translated to wins.

Just last series, the Capitals needed to win three games in Boston to eliminate the Bruins. That’s what happens when you lose two out of three in Washington.

How does a team that wins 64 percent of their home games during the regular season suddenly have such a difficult time once the playoffs roll around?

I decided to take this question to the players themselves in hopes of 1.) making them aware of just how few wins the hometown fans have been able to enjoy in person recently and 2.) seeing if they could come up with a reason for the lack of success locally.

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(photo by Clyde Caplan)

When it comes to playoff hockey, a win is a win.

So I fully realize that fans should be thankful when the Washington Capitals emerge victorious against the top-seeded New York Rangers 3-2 in Game 2 of their second-round series. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things this team could/should do better.

Blindly praising a win without looking at any potential problem areas is a recipe for disaster moving forward, and there are definitely aspects of this series the Caps are going to want to improve upon both teams head to our nation’s capital for the next two games.

For starters, the defensive pairing of Mike Green and Roman Hamrlik needs to either step up their collective game or coach Dale Hunter should seriously consider breaking up this duo.

Both players log a ton of minutes each night, which would be fine if they both weren’t off to such a poor start against the Rangers.

Maybe it’s because Green missed 50 games during the regular season and Hamrlik began playing professional hockey back in 1991 — the same year teammates Cody Eakin and Dmitri Orlov were born — but both defenders look a step slow through two games against New York.

Not only that, but their subpar performances are clearly affecting them psychologically as well. As frustration boils over because neither veteran is performing particularly well, they’ve both started to suffer from mental lapses which result in ill-advised penalties.

During the final stages of the second period of Game 2, Green was whistled for tripping after he chose to retaliate because he had been knocked to the ice on a hard, but clean hit.

Earlier in the middle frame, Hamrlik was whistled for holding because he apparently didn’t want to get hit when digging out a puck from behind the net, so he slowed down, allowed the Rangers player to get inside position and then he had no choice but to mug the opposing player.

Notice a pattern here? Hockey is a physical game. If you play for any length of time, you’re going to get hit. If that’s an issue, you’re in the wrong line of work.

While it’s trendy for Caps fans to rant and rave about defenseman Jeff Schultz, they should be much more concerned with the play of Green and Hamrlik. I’m just not sure Washington can win this series if this duo continues to play so poorly moving forward.

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(photo by Clyde Caplan)

It’s no big secret that the Washington Capitals under coach Dale Hunter look drastically different than they did during the glory years under Bruce Boudreau.

Back then, the Capitals never really cared about the opponent or what their gameplan was, they were confident in their abilities to trade goals with whoever happened to be on the schedule that day.

When they were on, the Caps were a powerhouse offense that struck fear in the heart of opposing goaltenders league-wide. When the offense struggle however, it became painfully clear that ignoring the defensive side of the rink was probably not the wisest of moves.

Sadly, those days will forever be remembered for regular-season accolades and accomplishments that never translated into postseason success. Sure, fire-wagon hockey was enjoyable on the surface, but it isn’t a way to win in the playoffs.

Even Boudreau realized that, which is why he attempted to change his team’s mindset in hopes of getting the players to be more defensively responsible.

Unfortunately, his message fell on deaf ears because, let’s face it, Boudreau was essentially the cool teacher who suddenly woke up one day and wanted to be taken more seriously. After years of kicking his feet up on the desk and letting his students sleep in class, he tried to remake himself into a taskmaster and his players never bought in.

A change needed to be made, and Boudreau was let go. Hunter was brought in to save this sinking ship, and for 60 regular-season games, it appeared that the former Caps captain was in over his head as well.

But then the playoffs rolled around and suddenly everything changed. All of the sudden, all of his players looked completely at home in Hunter’s system. Offensively-minded players like Alexander Semin were suddenly hustling back on defense and even sacrificing their bodies for the good of the team.

The days of freelancing were long gone and almost overnight, the Capitals transformed themselves from a fatally-flawed franchise that barely limped into the playoffs into a team that could trade punches with the defending Stanley Cup champions.

Everything changed so quickly, that I’m sure some D.C. sports fans are still trying to figure out how the Capitals were able to eliminate the Boston Bruins during a season in which so little seemed to go Washington’s way.

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(courtesy photo)

Holy shit.

Seriously, what else can you say after witnessing the Washington Capitals miraculously emerge victorious in the most tightly-contested playoff series in the history of hockey?

Not only did they somehow defeat the defending Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins (with a rookie goalie in net!), but they did so thanks to the efforts of two veteran players who both found themselves in the coach’s doghouse at various points during the regular season.

Too often during the Alex Ovechkin era, the Capitals have entered the postseason as heavy favorites, only to be bounced in painstaking fashion. And yet, somehow the Caps found a way to scrap and claw their way to a series victory during the year they barely even qualified for the playoffs.

Try not to over-analyze it. Instead, just sit back and relish the fact that the Capitals are heading into the second round of the playoffs thanks to a beautifully ugly goal by forward Joel “Commander in Chief” Ward in overtime.*

*And if you haven’t heard it yet, please do yourself a favor and listen to John Walton of the Capitals Radio Broadcast call the game winner. It’s simply amazing.

Honestly though, two players — forwards Mike Knuble and Ward — who couldn’t consistently crack coach Dale Hunter’s lineup on a team that barely squeaked into the playoffs somehow combined for one of the most satisfying victories I’ve ever experienced thanks to a play I will forever refer to as an “old-man rush.”

Seriously, Knuble and Ward finished the regular season tied for 12th on the team with just 18 points. Each player was inactive at some point during the season thanks to a “coach’s decision.” So naturally, they’re the two players who pull off the dramatic finish in overtime of Game 7 against the defending champs.

Conversely, the Capitals were still able to close out the series against the second-best offense in hockey on a night when the team’s top two scorers — Ovechkin and Alexander Semin — were nothing more than passengers.

The Capitals aren’t supposed to win on a night when the Young Guns — Ovechkin, Semin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green — go pointless. They’re not supposed to outlast the reigning champs with Braden Holtby, their third-string goalie.

And yet, thanks to great individual efforts by a couple of blue-collar veteran — Knuble, Ward and Matt Hendricks — Washington lives to see another day.

This is why I’m a “glass half empty” kind of guy. Because when you’re conditioned to expect the worst year after year, you can no longer be heartbroken if/when that’s what happens.

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(photo by Clyde Caplan)

There is a small faction of Washington Capitals fans who, after taking a page from the student section at College Park, decided to liven up their gameday experience with a few chants and look-at-me gimmicks.

One of their favorites involves heckling the opposing netminder after he allows a goal with the chant of “It’s all your fault.”

If I’m being honest, it’s stupid and it angers me every time I hear it, but I’ve accepted that it’s here to stay. While this new-found tradition seems pretty straight forward to most, it apparently confused one local sports columnist enough that upon hearing it, he’s now convinced that the Capitals can’t win in the playoffs because of the fanbase.

At least, that’s my best guess as to why on earth this individual would write something so spectacularly stupid. In case you missed it, here’s an excerpt from one of the most absurd columns I have ever read:

Vic and other psychologically battered Washington sports fans don’t know it, but that kind of negativity actually hurts their team’s chances of upsetting the defending Stanley Cup champions on the Bruins’ home ice.

“Oh, definitely,” said Ronald Kamm, the sports psychiatrist and director of Sport Psychiatry Associates in Oakhurst, N.J., and a lifelong fan of Philadelphia teams. “The mind-set of the city is very important to players. They read the press. They hear the media. They know their history. It’s all part of a culture.

To recap, Caps players will never win in the postseason unless their fans learn to love them more.

Now, if this sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it’s essentially the plot to Ghostbusters II. You might remember that New York was in trouble because something called “psychomagnotheric slime” built up in the sewers and fed off of the negativity and hostility from the locals.

Just when it seemed like all of New York was on the verge of being sucked down into the 10th level of hell, the Ghostbusters saved the day (with an assist from the Statue of Liberty).

So basically Caps fans, the only way your favorite hockey team is ever going to win Game 7 against the Boston Bruins is to either coat the team’s locker room with “mood slime” or have Brooks Laich hook up a walkman to the speaker system at TD Garden and blast “Higher and Higher” by Howard Huntsberry at full volume during warm-ups.*

*In the interest of full disclosure, I’d be completely on board with either scenario.

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(photo by Clyde Caplan)

If the Washington Capitals are going to finish off the Boston Bruins and keep their postseason hopes alive, they would do well to take a page from one of their biggest rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers.

Prior to the team’s pivotal Game 6 match-up against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Flyers star forward Claude Giroux sought out his coach, Peter Laviolette. According to CSN Philadelphia, here’s what transpired:

What the player said to the coach was closer to a directive than a request. That was more than fine with Laviolette – it was welcomed. According to Laviolette, Giroux went up to him and said, “I don’t know who you’re planning on starting tonight, but I want that first shift.”

“He was so adamant about wanting that first shift,” Laviolette continued. “Line matchups didn’t matter at that point. He wanted to get out on the ice. He wanted to make a statement.

What happened next is the stuff that legends are made of — Giroux started the game for Philly and had a shift to remember.

He began by delivering a punishing hit that floored Penguins forward Sidney Crosby. Once the opposition’s best player was out of the way, Giroux found himself with a little bit of breathing room and used it to his advance as he netted a goal just 32 seconds into the contest.

Because their best player demanded the game be put on his shoulders and the coach had enough faith in him to do just that, the Flyers came out swinging and never looked back. From there, they cruised to an easy victory against a team that was supposedly a Stanley Cup favorite and are now enjoying a few days of rest up before moving on to the second round.

Look, I’m never going to be confused for being a Flyers fan. But if I was, that’s the kind of story that would make me feel really good about my team’s chance this postseason.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the coach and the star player in Washington.

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