How do the Capitals clean the slate from nine premature playoff exits over the past decade?
The entirety of the Alex Ovechkin era in Washington has been known for regular-season success, which begets Stanley Cup playoff failure.
One can't simply wave a magic wand and suddenly erase all of that shortcoming from memory.
And yet, the Capitals, perennial Stanley Cup on-paper champions, have had to defy doubters all season.
Didn't you hear? The window closed on the Caps in 2017.
'This is the year it all falls apart for them,' the thinking goes.
There's no doubt, after losing Karl Alzner, Marcus Johansson, Daniel Winnik, Nate Schmidt and Justin Williams (to name a few), the Caps were forced to discover a new identity on the ice. The 2017-18 Caps -- after years of knowing they'd be near the top of the standings in the end -- were forced to wander "into a little bit of the great unknown," as Barry Trotz put it Tuesday.
After 76 games, atop they sit of the Metro Division with 97 points, and six games left before they start the bad dream all over again.
"I think there's a lot of doubt on a lot of areas," said Trotz. "You go into a little bit of the great unknown. I mean, for two years, I think we knew we were going to be okay. This year, I wasn't sure, and that's where, hopefully, experience that I've collected over the years and our staff, I said we're gonna back off. We're gonna let them heal a little bit before we start going after certain areas of our game and, looking back at it, it was the right decision.
"It allowed people to have some space. It allowed them to -- as I use the term -- heal, and then we started to build our game. It put us in an area where we needed each other, too. Because we got off to, I'll just say an average start, maybe even below-average start. And then we got ramped up a little bit and we found our game, and realized we needed to come together, and we did. And, lo and behold, we're less than 10 games left in the season and we're hovering in that first place."
"I don't know how many people picked us early in the season, in the first 10, 12 games of the season," Trotz said. "I know we were on the Canadian trip and no one had us in the playoffs. There's a lot of doubters outside the room, but I think, inside, we knew we just needed to heal and we'd find our game and we'd be okay."
Herein lies the Caps' new message: They don't think we can do it.
If there ever were a way to convince 23 men, many of whom have been weighed down by years of playoff heartache, that this year -- not last year, or the year, or year, or year before it -- that this specific year is somehow different, it's to flip the narrative of old entirely on its head. Perhaps. Perhaps, Trotz has found the answer.
If they've died repeatedly by the definition of insanity, do the precise polar opposite.
"There's a little bit less weight, for sure," Trotz said. "As I said, the crown is quite heavy. When everybody has those expectations, it's a little heavier."
"I actually, I look around right now, and everybody's, 'Want to play the Caps. We want to play the Caps.' I mean, you hear it in all the little Twitter sites and all that," he quipped. "I'm like, 'Okay. Someone's gotta play us. But they all want to play us. Not everybody can.' That's a good challenge for our group, because everybody -- there's a lot of doubt in, I think, a lot of people about us. The only ones that matter is what we think in that room."
Sounds like #Caps will embrace a "No one believes in us" bit for playoffs. Barry Trotz mentioned how he hears on social media other teams hoping they draw Washington. Maybe other fanbases feel that way. I'm...pretty damn sure no opposing team/player has said that publicly.
— Brian McNally (@bmcnally14) March 27, 2018Follow @ChrisLingebach and @1067TheFan on Twitter
