The Fact The Caps Didn't Lose Back To Back Games In Regulation All Season Makes The Nervous Scale Go To An All Time Low
WaPo - Which was the worst losing streak of this Caps season? Was it the two-game skid around New Year’s Day, with one loss coming in a shootout? Or maybe the two-game stretch a month later, with one loss coming in overtime? Or perhaps that two-game hiccup in early March, again featuring an overtime loss?
Not satisfied with any of those choices? Good luck finding another option. Washington’s only other losing streak this season was a three-game slide earlier this month, after the team had already clinched the NHL’s top seed and was just waiting for the playoffs to start. Even that streak featured two overtime losses. That made Washington the first NHL team in 39 years to go through an entire regular season without back-to-back regulation losses.
It’s never a good idea to say a series is over before 4 games have been won. That’s why I didn’t chirp the Rangers last night, anything can happen in the NHL playoffs. We’ve all seen it before. Even though the Rangers look like hot garbage, who knows what will happen? Meanwhile, I’ve been cocky as fuck this entire series vs the Flyers mostly because the Flyers are a bad hockey team and the Capitals are a really good hockey team. The Flyers never had a prayer to win it. But then little by little I see doubt creep into people’s minds. I see tweets here and there “what if”? I even had a doubt this morning. I was looking at my TV and was imagining the 30 for 30: Caps Lose After Being Up 3-0 On The Flyers and I shivered.
But then the Washington Post cooled my fears. The Caps didn’t lose back to back games in regulation all year. The longest losing streak they had was 3 games, and 2 of them were in 3 on 3 OT. So if the Caps somehow, someway were to lose this series, it would be a bigger upset than the Red Sox coming back vs the Yankees.in 2004.
If the Caps win tonight, they play the winner of the Pens vs Rangers series which the Pens are winning 3-1. If the Rangers do in fact lose this series it will make it awfully tricky for the Rangers to beat the Caps in the 2nd round like every Rags fan has been telling me will happen since October. A Rangers vs Pens matchup is great for the NHL, as it will pit Ovi vs Crosby once again. The Penguins are a flawed team (shout out to Chief for the word “flawed”, it’s a perfect word), but have been red, lava hot in the last month. I think they entered the playoffs something like 14-0-2 in their last 16…if that’s not 100% right, it’s something close. The Pens are fast and Crosby is playing at the top of his game. I definitely will not be dancing around like I own the place in that series, but I still think the Caps are all around the better team and would exploit the Pens soft blue line. Let’s just win tonight and get there first.