The Chase for 895 came to its thrilling conclusion on Sunday afternoon, Alex Ovechkin potting the record-breaker on a power play in the second period of the Caps’ game against the Islanders up in New York.
That last fact, at least to Tarik El-Bashir, is maybe the only thing that took away from the finish being the absolute perfect Hollywood ending.
But, around all that, the Caps have lost five of seven, so now, with a three-day break before they host the Hurricanes (and one hell of a celebration for Ovi) at home Thursday night, can they get right with the ghost of the Chase now slain?
“I don't know what they would tell you, but I could tell this as a person who's covered the team for a couple of decades and been around teams that had big things in front of them or gone through stuff: you could tell that they were starting to feel the pressure as Ovi got closer,” El-Bashir said. “I think there are a lot of things going on with the downturn in play and performance; I wouldn't attribute it all to the chase, but certainly some of it was just the pressure of the additional interviews media being around. I do think that that played a role, but there have been some other things as well. When you're up double digits in your division with some time to go and you ran out of gas in the playoffs last year, you know, human nature says maybe I should just dial it back a little bit. But now, they have time to get their game in order before the playoffs.”
Listen to El-Bashir’s entire visit with the Junkies above!