But Washington has been in this situation before
The Caps have been here before.
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The situation is clear and stark when an elimination game looms. Win and your season continues. Lose and get ready to pack up your gear and head home for what will seem like an endless summer.
That’s the scenario facing the Capitals, who trail 3-2 heading into Game 6 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight at Mellon Arena. But it’s nothing new for a team that has played six elimination games over the last two seasons.
“[Saturday’s] game has nothing to do with Monday night’s game,” Caps defenseman Brian Pothier said after Saturday’s devastating 4-3 overtime loss to Pittsburgh at Verizon Center. “We’ll show up Monday as if that’s our Game 7. Sort of getting used to these.”
The Caps also lost Game 3 of this series in overtime, 3-2, and as an organization have lost seven straight sudden-death games in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
One of those, of course, was the infamous Game 7 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round last spring. But under coach Bruce Boudreau, that remains the only elimination game Washington has not won. Otherwise, the Caps are 5-1 with the season on the line, including three in a row last month against the New York Rangers. Washington knows exactly how it has to play in such games.
“[With] the desperation, the urgency,” Pothier said. “It’s an elimination game for us. Therefore every single shift — that’s it. We have to make sure we’re prepared.”
Boudreau could use some of the secondary scoring that his team received in the New York series. Star forward Alex Ovechkin has seven goals against Pittsburgh and teammate Nicklas Backstrom has three. That is 10 of the team’s 15 goals in the series. Forward David Steckel also has a pair. Four of the five games in this series have been decided by one goal, so someone else will need to step forward if the Caps want to return home from Pittsburgh with a game left to play.
“It is capable of being done. In the two overtime losses we put the puck in our own net. In the one regulation loss, it’s easy to say that was [goalie Simeon Varlamov’s] only bad game of the playoffs,” Boudreau told reporters Sunday. “So we’re right there É We know by now that tomorrow’s game will be determined in the third period or in overtime.”
