2012 NHL playoffs: Capitals aren’t done because they don’t know what done is

NEW YORK — I know. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory — or something like that.

Painful? You lose a lead with less than seven seconds left in a seminal game of the Stanley Cup playoffs and it’s pretty much over, right?

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For the doomsayers who act as if their relatively nascent NHL franchise founded in 1974 actually went title-less between 1908 and now, like the Cubs — or experienced misery from 1940 to 1994, like the Rangers — that’s an easy one.

But for the recent chroniclers of everything Capville? Predictable.

Look, I don’t want to go all John Belushi after the most crushing, absolutely devastating loss of the Washington Capitals’ season Monday night. But people: it’s not over.

The Caps are not done because they don’t know what done is. They have now been tied or been up or down a goal for a surreal 792 minutes of 806 total minutes played in the postseason.

That’s 14 minutes in two measly games out of 12 played that they have been up or down more than a goal.

Hey choking-dog doomsayers: They are 3-0 in games after an overtime loss the past three weeks. Choke on that.

Really, with all that’s happened since October with this crazy crew, can this gut-punch of a Game 5 against New York remotely be considered from nowhere? In hindsight, this is what they do, who they have come to be.

Magnificent and persevering one minute, maddening and heart-piercing the next.

That goal with 6.6 seconds left that got past Braden Holtby in regulation, the one that sent Madison Square Garden into a tizzy and a pendulum-swinging game in the Eastern Conference semifinals into overtime, where New York prevailed?

Part of a script that has been playing out all season, that’s all. Now we see if the epilogue is written at Verizon Center in Game 6 on Wednesday, where the Caps have to forget they were less than seven seconds from having their second closeout game on home ice in less than two weeks.

To the Charlie Browns of Washington sports whose identity is tethered to their abject loserness — who actually use the term “Les Boulez” to signify their loserness — would it have surprised you if the Capitals went up three games to two and lost Game 6 and home ice to New York, just like in the Bruins’ series? No.

So how can anyone assume this dizzying ride Dale and his dump-and-chasers have taken their loyalists on for a month is 48 hours from being over now? (If you were at the LaFontaine game, okay, you can raise your hand for a second.)

People, please. This is the team that has toyed with tickers, taken its legions from euphoria one week to abject anger the next.

Alex Ovechkin, money playoff goal-scorer the past two games, goes without a single shot on goal in the defining game of the series?

Joel Ward giveth; Joel Ward taketh away. The hero of Game 7 against the Bruins in the first round, his overtime goal knocking out the defending Stanley Cup champions in Boston, is the unfortunate goat of Game 5 of the second round — his crippling four-minute penalty for high-sticking enabled the Rangers to have more men on the ice for both of their game-tying and game-winning goals.