Washington Capitals: It’s OK

I don’t even know who scored the game-winner to end the Washington Capitals’ season.

As soon as I heard Kenny Albert begin to yell, and a few Carolina Hurricanes players’ arms raise in the air, I closed my laptop and headed for the doors of my work office. So if you’re looking for a breakdown of what went wrong on the final play in that Washington Capitals Game 7, you’re at the wrong place. I’m not even sure what happened.

As I muttered (loudly) a few expletives and walked out, my mind raced.

Why didn’t Lars Eller pass the puck? Why does the slingshot on the power play exist?  What the hell did the Capitals do wrong? 

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And as I got to my car, my phone buzzed. A lot. I had numerous texts from people about the loss, mostly telling me they were sorry on how it went down.

My response to nearly all of them was: “It’s OK.”

Don’t get me wrong, this loss sucked — a ton. If you want to take a look at franchises, as a whole, the Capitals still might be the one most prone to gut punches across all sports. A Game 7 double overtime loss, as a series favorite, isn’t a fun pill to swallow.

And if you want to look at it existentially, every year the Capitals don’t push deep into the playoffs is a wasted year of Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom‘s dwindling career. Time is ticking, and the players we were introduced to as kids some 15 years ago won’t play forever.

On paper, the Capitals were, and still are, a better team than the Hurricanes. They just got outplayed in a seven game series. In that aspect, it’s nothing to fret about and make drastic, wholesale changes over.

The summer will come soon, and there will be many aspects of this year’s team that need addressing: Matt Niskanen  — and Dmitry Orlov — were an unmitigated disaster all season long, and Niskanen has two more years left on his contract.

The bottom six is due to look a ton different next season and there needs to be decisions made about who to keep and let walk, with the team up against the salary cap.

Braden Holtby and Nicklas Backstrom only have one year left on their contracts beginning next year. And the replacement for Holtby is already in Hershey, posting great numbers.

And perhaps most importantly, there needs to be a long hard look at Todd Reirden’s job behind the bench and what his role was in the loss. The answer might not be the one the franchise wants.

Time is ticking on this era of the Capitals, and not a day can be wasted. Because one day, it will be over.

But now is not the time for any of that. Don’t worry about free agents, or firings, or a trade, or yelling into the sea. There will be plenty of time in the coming weeks to breakdown where this team can improve, and how to make it two Stanley Cup runs in three years.

That’s for later. As for now, it’s time to sit back and relax. Because over the last calendar year, the Capitals made being a fan of the team arguably the most fun gig in sports fandom.

They won the Stanley Cup and partied harder than any team has partied before. They broke the D.C. title drought by beating every postseason demon that haunted them along the way. Ovechkin finally earned his Stanley Cup, which no one will ever be able to take away. The entire season was in pursuit of “Back To Back” instead of “Please, Just Once?”.

So sit back and grab a drink, friends. It’ll be alright. The Caps took us on an incredible ride in the last 11 months and it’s something we’ll carry with us until the day we die.

Does it make it any easier? No. But dammit, they’re still a Stanley Cup Champion.

That, without question, is something that should be OK with all of us.