BOSTON — Before Troy Brouwer rifled home the game-winning goal and made the arena go dead quiet, Braden Holtby said the shot that was supposed to be a goal for Boston’s Tyler Seguin — the one Holtby did the splits to stop point-blank in front of the net — would have got through if not for “the very tip of my toe — the end of my skate.”
This treasure of a series, for that matter, has been “like the edge of a knife,” said Mike Knuble. “It’s that close — one final bounce, one break here or there.”
Capitals 2012 playoffs shot-by-shot
More Caps and NHL coverage
The future of Dale Hunter is one of several tough questions facing the team’s decision makers.
For all of the steps forward the Capitals took in reinventing themselves as a gritty, hard-working, defensive-oriented team under Dale Hunter’s guidance as coach, the result didn’t change.
New York scores on its first shot of the night just 1:32 in and never looks back as the Capitals fail to generate enough scoring opportunities and fall one victory shy of their first berth in the conference finals since 1998.
OPINION | Though Game 7 was another heart-wrenching defeat for Washington, the Capitals may have finally found what they’ve been looking for: a team identity.
New York eliminates the Capitals in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, 2-1
After the 2-1 Game 7 loss to the Rangers in second round, is Washington’s 2011-12 season a failure?
Except when so many are going the Washington Capitals’ way at the moment, it feels like something is happening, something beyond heart and perseverance.
When Knuble, an all-but-released veteran winger, emerged from the coach’s doghouse at age 39 to put in a go-ahead rebound goal in the third period, when Holtby, a 22-year-old kid goalie, who was actually pulled from an American Hockey League game, oh, last month, outduels the reigning Vezina Trophy winner in net — when the Capitals withstand another gantlet of 108-mph slapshots from Zdeno Chara, medieval Shawn Thornton hits and breathtaking Tim Thomas saves, yet somehow never surrender the lead after the defending Stanley Cup champions come back to tie twice — it’s pretty clear:
The gods of grit are with you, and you might as well keep working and grinding so they stick around.
Three games to two, Dale Hunter’s converted dump-and-chasers.
One more win and the Great Eight and his learn-as-they-go grinders knock off a defending champion for the first time in franchise history.
The Caps have pushed Boston to the ledge after an absolute gem of a Game 5 at TD Garden, and now they have their crowd to help send the Bruins tumbling down — toward an early offseason the Capitals have known too well themselves for four years running.
And where to start except with Knuble, who had fallen out of favor with Hunter at the end of the season and only got on the ice this series because Nicklas Backstrom was suspended for Game 4. Former Bruin, former Flyer — a guy who demonstrated what Washington needed to win a series when he stood outside a victorious Philadelphia locker room in Game 7 of the first round at Verizon Center in 2008 and gave a TV interview with blood dripping from a stitched gash under his right eye — he refused to let his career die silently in Washington.
“Nobody likes to not play, nobody likes that at all,” Knuble said as the locker room cleared out. “You can call it the doghouse, you can call it the odd guy out, you can call it the numbers game — any way you want to sugarcoat it. But it sucks not playing. And when you get the chance to get in there, you try and do what you’ve done your whole life. And keep doing what you’ve always done.”
Sick to his stomach that his fourth line had given up a tying goal moments before, he got it back when Joel Ward played the angles and put a rocket off Thomas’s pads from the right side. Knuble cleaned it up for a momentary go-ahead goal.
Then Johnny Boychuk tied it again 8 minutes and 47 seconds into the third, upping the ante in an unbelievably taut game.
Loading...
Comments