ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The theme for the Washington Capitals going into game one of their Stanley Cup playoff series against the New York Islanders was this time, it will be different — new coach, new system, new attitude, a new day.
“It’s just a different team, I think, right now, compared to last couple years,” Alex Ovechkin told reporters before the series began. “Mature team. Experienced team. That’s how it’s different.”
Capitals fans, though, didn’t seem to buy in — as the players supposedly did for new coach Barry Trotz’s system — on Wednesday night at the Verizon Center.
There wasn’t much excitement about the “new” Capitals when the puck dropped Wednesday night. Empty seats scattered throughout an arena of subdued, almost defeated Capitals fans, who reacted when Brock Nelson scored the Islanders’ first goal in the first period with a collective, disappointing sigh.
The sighs continued through the second and third periods, until the Islanders came away with a 4-1 win in Game 1 of the best-of-seven series.
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I’d say they lost home ice advantage, but there was none Wednesday night at the Verizon Center.
It was almost as if first-round fatigue from years of early exits had set in, even though the Capitals didn’t even make the playoffs last year.
The players didn’t give the home crowd any particular reason to believe much had truly changed when it came to the Capitals’ postseason struggles, with sloppy passing and an inability to stay out of their own end of the ice early in the game.
Finally, when Marcus Johansson scored with less than a minute remaining in the first period to tie it at 1-1 — his fifth career playoff goal — the crowd woke up, almost surprised that the Capitals were even in the Islanders’ end of the ice. New York wound up with 11 shots on goal in the first period, while the Capitals managed seven.
Just 28 seconds after play resumed in the second period following repairs to a glass panel behind Washington’s net, Ryan Strome scored to put New York back on top, 2-1. The Capitals managed to generate more offensive action in the Islanders’ end of the ice in the second period, with 10 shots on goal compared to New York’s six, but it failed to translate into points.
New York added a third goal by Josh Bailey before the end of the second period to take a 3-1 lead, and the Capitals, outmuscled and outskated, did nothing to put that lead in jeopardy in the final period, finished off when Bailey scored an empty net goal with 1:19 left in the game.
Trotz tried to light a fire under his team — particularly his stars, Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, shuffling them between lines, “Looking for a spark.”
But there was none, on the ice or in the Verizon Center.
“I do not think we were skating the way we need to against a team that can skate pretty good,” Trotz said. “We weren’t as sharp as we need to be. That goes right through the whole lineup, from our top guys to our role players.”
The top of the top guys — Ovechkin — wasn’t a factor in yet again another playoff game, despite having eight shots and two good looks on the second power play. He is coming off another MVP-caliber regular season, scoring 53 goals to win his third straight Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy as the NHL’s leading goal scorer — the fifth time he has led the league over his 10-year career. He was just the sixth player in NHL history to record six 50-goal seasons, in such company as Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux.
And he came into this series against the Islanders having scored 41 of his 53 goals in the final 55 games of the season, also becoming the franchise’s all-time leading goal scorer, with 475, and points leader, with 895.
Wednesday night, all he was was disappointing.
“I was disappointed in a lot of guys,” Trotz said.
• Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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