The Washington Capitals were eliminated by the Florida Panthers on Friday night. The Caps gave up two leads only to come back and tie both times. But eventually they lost by way of newly minted Caps-killer Carter Verhaeghe. It was a gut punch.

Postgame, fans assessed blame on social media. John Carlson and Martin Fehervary were on the ice for all four Panthers’ goals. Alex Ovechkin had only one goal in the series. The Capitals’ goaltending in Game Six was certainly not as SAMsational as it could have been. And what about Peter Laviolette’s matchups?

But this year, it’s on us. We did the wave, and the Hockey Gods punished us.

With about six minutes and 50 seconds left in the game, Capitals fans in the lower bowl began trying to get the wave going. And in defiance of the Natural Order of the Universe, they were successful.

Caps fans, you brought this on yourself doing the wave pic.twitter.com/KZKgyOEv4q

— Ian Oland (@ianoland) May 14, 2022

Matt, our friend from the RMNB Discord, was at the game. He said this in real-time:

Oh god, They’re trying to do the wave.

They did it.

We deserve to lose.

And then “we” did.

One minute after the Wave, Aleksander Barkov scored. The Capitals went on a long and mostly futile shooting spree until Oshie’s goal pushed into overtime, where Verhaeghe closed it out.

L.

Sure, a rational, respectable person who may be the greatest sportswriter in our generation, might say that “the wave is fine and kinda fun”, but this is neither the time nor place to be rational. This is a sports blog hours after playoff elimination.