An almost joyous mood proliferated through the Washington Capitals’ dressing room on Sunday night, even though the team had just lost its regular-season finale to the Anaheim Ducks.
For weeks, the Capitals had shifted into cruise control, coasting into the postseason on their plaudits. They had tried to manufacture some semblance of urgency — frequently a desire to work on one aspect of their game or another — and, in the last two weeks, galvanized around goaltender Braden Holtby’s pursuit of the all-time wins record.
“The season feels like it flew by in general, but it’s been a while since we’ve had a real must-win game,” defenseman Matt Niskanen said, not long after a 2-0 loss to the Ducks in which four top players rested. “We’ve tried to make up reasons to get excited to play and tried to make up reasons to be urgent and we just haven’t had a real reason for a while. That’s changed now.”
Washington’s reward for an unmatched season arrives in the form of the Philadelphia Flyers, their first-round Stanley Cup Playoff opponent and, until a recent three-game skid, one of the hottest teams in the league.
The two teams split the four-game season series, with the Capitals winning twice in regulation and the Flyers winning their games in overtime and in a shootout. It projects to be a hard-hitting, vitriolic series, which should help snap Washington out of its doldrums.
“They played us really well all year,” coach Barry Trotz said.
The Capitals were on a record pace at the all-star break in late January, when they had won nearly 75 percent of their games. That pace slowed over the final two-plus months, but they still secured the Presidents’ Trophy before any other Eastern Conference team had qualified for the playoffs.
It wasn’t until last week that the Capitals endured their first three-game losing streak, and they still finished the regular season without having lost consecutive games in regulation — making them the first team to accomplish that feat since the Montreal Canadiens in 1976-77.
That Washington, which had five winning streaks of five games or longer, won only four of its final 10 games to finish the regular season was of no consequence to Trotz.
“We’ve played top teams that were fighting for position and were on top of their game,” Trotz said. “When you lose three-on-three and all that, I mean, it didn’t have a big effect on us. I feel fine. I feel actually better.
“We talk about losses, but when you lose in the overtime or three-on-three or the shootouts or whatever, you know, we don’t have those in the playoffs. I feel that we’re geared up, and I saw it last night. I saw where we were, and I’m pretty confident we’re healthy. We have as good a shot as the other [15] teams.”
That’s not to say that there weren’t concerns over the final weeks. Trotz frequently implored his players to “play the right way,” his manner of saying that they needed to stick to the system and stop freelancing. General manager Brian MacLellan, who has served as a sounding board for Trotz, said on Monday that he started to worry that the Capitals’ sluggish play could infiltrate its postseason charge.
“We start to cheat a little bit,” MacLellan said. “We don’t play as hard in certain areas. I think the challenge has been for the coaching staff to balance out where we were in the standings and still hold our team accountable to get us ready to be playing the right way at the end.”
Two games in particular have stood out as some shred of evidence that the Capitals can snap out of their funk. Players were particularly proud of their 4-2 road victory over the Colorado Avalanche on April 1, when they allowed only 19 shots on goal and drilled the posts frequently on the other end.
The other was on Saturday, a 5-1 road drubbing of the St. Louis Blues, a team that was trying to capture the Central Division title. Alex Ovechkin secured his seventh 50-goal season with a hat trick, and Holtby tied Martin Brodeur with his 48th victory, the most wins by a goaltender in a single season.
“St. Louis was a big game for us — a team that was fighting for something,” Holtby said. “They had a full lineup, and we did too. Both teams were playoff ready, and it was good to get that one — a full team effort and a good thing to lead into the playoffs with.”
One lingering apprehension surrounds the health of Jay Beagle, who took a shot off the inside of his left foot in the first period of the victory over the Blues. Beagle sat out Sunday’s game, but both Trotz and MacLellan have described his unspecified injury as day to day.
Even if Beagle were to miss time, the Capitals still enter the postseason as one of the healthiest teams in the Eastern Conference. It’s now up to them to show that they have no ailments — not physical and not mental.
“Everything’s reset to zero now, and we firmly believe that as well,” right wing Justin Williams said. “Philly’s going to be an extremely tough opponent, a team that’s playing well. We’ve always got to be weary. We know we have our home-ice [advantage] and we’ve got to take care of it.”
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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