Even in the post-lockout NHL, staring at a 2-0 deficit during the second intermission is daunting. Seated next to Gus, and having absorbed two periods of the Caps outshooting and outplaying the Isles but watching bounces bumfuzzle the Caps — cosmic justice for our rudely unmerited victory on the Island 10 days ago, I thought — I told my bloggermate, “It would take a small miracle, but if they could just pull a point out of this mess.”
In point of fact, a frenzied and determined Caps’ team made the third-period comeback look rather easy: it was knotted up at 2 well before the 10-minute mark of the stanza.
But as the opposing centers took the center-ice draw in a sudden deadlock, I turned again to Gus and said, “The hardest part isn’t necessarily evening things up, it’s taking the next step, actually overcoming, and stealing a game with a full-on effort throughout the final frame.”
I’ve watched I think 10,000 hockey games in my life, perhaps more. I’ve seen comebacks precisely like the Caps’ last night a couple of hundred times. Ninety three times out of 100, I’d venture, the comeback kids valiantly steady themselves and soar the spirits of the home partisans to the stratosphere, only, utlimately, to trip themselves up, lose, and labor in vain.
Captain Chris Clark, behind Rick DiPietro’s net and the puck a harmless 199 feet, 9 inches from Olie Kolzig, tripped up an Isles checker while his team was in frenzy’s full flight . . . and with that error sirened the end of the comeback. I said as much to Gus as no. 17 skated to the sin bin; he didn’t dispute me. It happens almost every time. It was the absolute worst place on the ice to take a penalty at the very worst time. A mad comeback’s energy suddenly screeched sullen and silent. Next you could hear a subtle groan among the hockey cognescenti in their seats.
The recognition.
Some in the Verizon Center stands filed out last night thinking of softies that slithered past and humiliated Kolzig. They were soft, yes. They hurt, certainly. But they weren’t as determinative as the Clark miscue.
The threatening intruder snake had been boot-stomped into compliance by the Russian snake-charmer wearing no. 8. (We in the stands were rather charmed as well.) It was the duty of his teammates — all of them — not to let their Bauers up off the head of the snake.
Two minutes for tripping.
The viper recoiled.
Hockey teams like the Isles on the receiving end of such savage surges are truly helpless. Lines change among the dominators but the ice remains tilted. The coaching staffs of the beleaguered can exhort, reassure, toss towels or water bottles, it matters none. It’s called hockey’s momentum, and in third periods it’s directed at defying death — losing. Which may make it so powerful, so unprecedented to the rest of the earlier action. It’s a natural force, a Force 10 of fury.
And it can be undone in an instant.
5 Comments
One penalty does not a game make, but I wanted to drink the Kool-Aid last night. From the first game any fan can see that we’re watching the same PP as last year’s. Pass the puck around the boards, kill some time. I fondly recall the days when Gonchar would sneak in from the point and backdoor a goal. And the last blueliner with a big point shot didn’t stay around long (Mathieu Biron). Erskine scored by shooting the puck - a novel idea.
I see what you’re saying about that penalty, but I’m still inclined to say the game hinged on Olie’s strange inability to keep weak shots out of the net. And let’s not forget that it was an undisciplined penalty by Kolzig earlier in the game that led to a 5-on-3 and a soft Islanders goal.
Rough night for Olie - it’s okay, everyone has bad nights and I fully expect him to bounce back tomorrow night. At least…I hope so.
When Hanlon says the penalty kill was fine that’s about as close to a shot at Olie that Glen is going to take. Olie flat out lost that game not some late penalty on Clark.
Focus has to be on our 5-3 play, and the personnel decisions that made up that PP unit last night. Motzko at the point? 3 games is no time to fret about the power play - how about 6? And the set up, whatever the personnel, is hopelessly predictable right now.
It used to be often that, not unlike Clark’s penalty, failing to convert a 5 on 3 would spell the end of a comeback or the beginning of the opponents.’ They happen a bit too often these days to have quite the same game-changing significance, but still — well, the Isles scored on theirs, and they won the game.
Ovechkin continued to make jaw dropping individual plays. Too bad there was no finisher nearby. Like, for example, Ovie getting by three defenders, passing to himself off the back of the net, to get it to . . . Motzko, who dented nothing but the Islanders crest on DiP’s jersey.
All that said, if you told me at 3-0 that we would lose the next three but smoke the Pens at home, I’d take it. And I’m still taking it, riding that train down the Northest Corridor tomorrow.
I think all this would be moot if we could have buried a couple of chances in the first period. Did anyone think we would only have 13 goals after 6 games?
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