And So It Ends...For Now

We’re now two days removed from the whoopee-cushion close of the Washington Capitals participation in the NHL post-season. I watched the game in the red shirt that I swore had brought us luck in Monday’s Game 6, watched as the eardrum-shattering roar that welcomed the boys onto the ice dwindled to a half-hearted clap-along with the stock arena music, watched as my beloved Caps were soundly spanked on a Wednesday night in Washington. It was a sorry thing.

If I’m honest, I’ll cop to it that I knew in my heart we weren’t going to see Round 3 this year. I hoped it, oh yes, but I knew otherwise. I just wish we had gone down swinging. As Buce Boudreau (I’ve redesigned his first name for easier pronunciation) said, “Whether we won or lost, I would never have thought it would have ended up in a game like it was tonight.” You couldn’t blame the officials – they were more judicious in their calls than I’d seen them in the entirety of the Playoffs, and we earned pretty much everything we were whistled for on Wednesday (I doubt the high-stick was intentional, but it was in fact a high stick and it did in fact catch a Penguin’s face). You couldn’t blame the ice – Verizon Center is infamous for its crappy ice and yet we dazzled crowds in both the regular and post season in spite of it. You couldn’t blame any one player – Varly collapsed, yes, but he’s also a 21-year-old rookie goalie who, until Game 2 of Round 1, was playing for the farm team and, in spite of his minimal NHL experience, managed to shock and awe us into believing from the moment he made his first block, so you can’t say the kid didn’t put on a show (besides, Theo let still two more go past him when they sent him back out). Only the team as a unit could be prosecuted for sleepwalking and fearing the puck.

That said, it’s a guarantee that even the Stanley Cup winners, whoever they may be, pulled a lemon at least a few times over the course of the season. Winning or not, the Caps gave us 13 edge-of-your-seat, down-to-the-wire, tooth-and-nail playoff games, 9 of which were decided by exactly 1 point (and of which, 3 of those were pushed into sudden-death overtime). The 14th game was a dud, yes, but it was A dud. The Penguins outplayed us. We very simply weren’t ready to progress. I can forgive the Capitals for that. I’m even a tiny bit glad it’s all over, as my blood pressure and anxiety can return to normal, my stomach can stop churning, my nails can grow back out, and I will suddenly have a glut of time on weeknights with which to punish Netflix for thinking it could make money by having me as a member.

The Caps have made unbelievably huge strides in the past season-and-a-half, compared to where they were in the beginning of 2007. I am immensely proud of them for that, and you'll catch me proudly donning my old-school Number 8 sweater to the Phone Booth as often as Husband can stand to take me next year. I think we can expect great things from the Caps in the coming years, and I can’t wait to see it.