On Frozen Blog

Among the many marvelous associations we’ll reminisce about from Thursday night, October 16, 2008, years from now, let romance be ascendant. At the Capitol Hill game-watch gathering I attended married women fell into my embrace moments after Michael Nylander’s game-tying goal, and lingered there. Not-so-Platonic kissing accompanied Boyd Gordon’s game-winner.
This was a 10 o’clock hour that made one very well cognizant of the virtues of good wine.
There was something poetic about playing meaningless late third period hockey for the better part of two minutes before a stoppage could allow for a review of Boyd Gordon’s roof-wrister that Marc-Andre Fleury never saw. An Igloo and its tenant then were in a state of shock, and when the goal was affirmed all of the evening’s bad MoJo settled in permanently on the host’s bench, bad news about a game, and a rivalry’s routing,¬†deliciously prolonged.
What is it about this rivalry that causes middle-aged, silver-haired men in red t-shirts to leap out of their recliners at game’s end and extend not one but two middle fingers at a TV screen image of a 21-year-old, sulking Nova Scotian dressed in black and gold? I haven’t the answer, but may it continue for at least a¬† millennium.
Mercifully, soon we’ll be returned to our scintillating showdowns back in the Southeast. Really, who would want a game like last night’s, reprised say in early spring, determining say a division title? Even when these two teams were pre-lockout bottom feeders they hated playing one another, and it showed. The Capitals’ owner, I learned this morning, apparently was on the receiving end of vulgar email during the early going last night. Think it arrives in heavy volume for flat performances versus Tampa? I swear every one of these Caps-Penguins’ tilts is a fresh indictment of Gary Bettman’s brain.
I am not going to be one to suggest that the significance and symbolism of last night’s near-miraculous comeback in the Igloo can be overstated — that it is melodrama or hyperbole to attach historic significance to a lone triumph on the road against a venomously hated rival in October. In the afterglow of triumph my party debated this very point. Was it the Caps’ greatest victory¬†ever in Pittsburgh? It sure felt that way. Ultimately, reason triumphed over irrational, wine and beer-laced¬†exuberance, and we agreed that Jeff Halpern’s overtime strike in game 4 back in 2001¬†the preeminent victory by a Caps’ team in western Pa. Playoff victories necessarily carry greater significance.
Still, it is true: Last night’s stunning reversal of fortunes carried with it a very cathartic quality for HockeyWashington.
All the talk of contending, of a new culture for hockey in Washington, of having successfully rebuilt is just talk until you actually go into the belly of the beast and get it done. The Caps have done that on their last two trips to the Igloo. And the Caps on Thursday night got it done again without Alexander Ovechkin leading the charge. That more than anything about Thursday is the news flash suggesting a new aura in this storied rivalry.
When we watched the¬†Pens surge to two- and three-goal leads, in¬†preceding eras, most particularly in this building, it was lights out. Through two periods last night the game carried all the staples of Allegheny Agonies of the Past. Black and gold got quality netminding while at our end . . . not so much. There was a partial parade to the penalty box by the visitors. Matt Bradley got molested. An atrocity of a boarding infraction on Alexander Semin — one the league is ever vociferous in lecturing against — was winked at by the game officials. At an excruciating moment, just when momentum seemed at last to¬†swerve Washington’s way, Mike Green struck a goalpost. Once again, in Pittsburgh, a strong Caps’ team looked beleaguered and luckless.
But Matt Bradley’s return, mangled but still his old pest self, joined by the Malkin smashing of Semin, seemed to ignite the visitors. They didn’t score on Malkin’s penalty, but their general lethargy and choppy attack suddenly was replaced by passion and purpose, cohesion and inspiration. To the tune of a 21-6 advantage in shots in the final frame.
It was far from a stellar performance, but it was a damned gutsy one, and it was directed at the very team, in the very building, it needed to be. Right at the dawn of a season of extraordinary promise.
Halloween is still two weeks away, but the Caps last night chased away some serious demons too long in their lingering.
It was a Thursday night third period of Capitals heroism and a rivalry-altering outcome. Let it be a Friday for a wearing of victory red, and kissing pretty girls.