ANALYSIS/OPINION:
In the “Chinatown” film sequel, “The Two Jakes,” Kitty Berman turns to Jake Gittes and asks, “Does it ever go away?”
“What’s that?” Jake asks.
“The past,” Kitty says.
“I think you have to work real hard on that one,” Jake answers.
Brian MacLellan gets “The Two Jakes.”
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When asked on Monday about the history of the Washington Capitals — a long string of playoff failures, disappointments and disasters — MacLellan, like Gittes, spoke the truth.
“I don’t think it goes away until you make it go away,” he said.
As the Capitals — coming off a historic Presidents’ Trophy season, the top seed in the playoffs but a franchise that has not made it past the second round of the playoffs since 1998, when they reached the Stanley Cup Final — prepare for yet another postseason, starting Thursday at Verizon Center against the Philadelphia Flyers, somebody who works for Monumental Sports finally gets it.
“You start from scratch here,” MacLellan said. “It’s a new season. The Presidents’ Trophy doesn’t mean much besides what you learned about yourselves to get there.”
You can sell all the Presidents’ Trophies that you want, but the identity of this franchise is rooted in its playoff failures. There are countless stories devoted to those playoff failures — from blowing a 2-0 lead in a best-of-five series against the New York Islanders in 1985 to last season’s 3-1 series lead and collapse at the hands of the New York Rangers.
It doesn’t matter whether the cast of characters is Mike Gartner, Dale Hunter or Alex Ovechkin, it belongs to all of them. And, no matter how many milestones Ovechkin — who has yet to make it past the second round in nine playoff appearances — achieves in a Hall of Fame career, he will always drag the past of the Capitals around with him.
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MacLellan may not speak to reporters often, but when he does, he has something worth saying.
Two months ago, he said that the window for the Stanley Cup for this latest cast of Capitals — opened wide by owner Ted Leonsis years ago with the prediction of a Stanley Cup in the Ovechkin era — is closing.
“I view it as a two-year window,” MacLellan said. “We’re going for it this year, we’re going for it next year, and then after that we’re evaluating where we’re at.”
You can see why Leonsis hired McClellan after interviewing him — perhaps impressed by his honesty. It must have been like that “Seinfeld” episode where George Constanza tells George Steinbrenner how he has ruined the New York Yankees and Steinbrenner replied, “Hire this man.”
Ironically, the best way for the Capitals to conquer the past is for the players to forget about it when they are on the ice. If it consumes them, the opposing net will get smaller, the opposing goaltender will get bigger, and the puck will get heavier.
“I think the important thing for the players, the coaches, management is to just focus on what we control,” MacLellan said. “The past is the past. If you don’t let it come into your psyche mentally, it shouldn’t. I think for us, we need to focus on how we’re playing game-to-game, shift-to-shift and not let whatever’s gone on the last 20 years come into play here and not get too concerned about how far we have to get. ’We have to get to this round or this round.’ [It’s], ’We need to win a game.’ That’s where we start and we keep that same mental attitude through the whole thing.
“I think when you start letting the past come into it, it affects the way you play, or you worry about how far or where we’ve got to get in the future, it comes into play too.”
Longtime fans of this team can’t be expected to do the same. It’s too difficult if you’ve lived through one postseason disaster after another to focus on game-to-game, shift-to-shift.
You don’t think so? Tell me where your head will be if the Capitals lose the opening game of this series at home against the Philadelphia Flyers. Will it be on the next game, the next shift? Or will you be consumed by 1985, 1987, 1992, 1995, 1996, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2013 or 2015?
Forgetting the past is real hard work.
“Forget it Jake — it’s Chinatown.”
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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