WASHINGTON, DC — The Washington Capitals spent much of their season fighting from the brink.
After a difficult start to the 2023-24 campaign, the Caps clawed their way back into the playoff picture in the final months of the season, culminating in a Game 82 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers. When they went down 3-0 in the first round against the New York Rangers, they were determined to push through adversity once again.
It wasn’t enough.
The Capitals recovered from two Rangers leads, with goals from Martin Fehervary and Hendrix Lapierre evening the score each time, but a third-period goal from Artemi Panarin and strong goaltending from Igor Shesterkin proved too much for the Caps to overcome. Jack Roslovic scored an empty netter with less than a minute remaining to end the season with a New York sweep.
For a team that had pushed so hard to make it this far, losing in four was a tough pill to swallow.
“It’s always tough to lose a series, especially we have pretty good chances,” Alex Ovechkin said postgame. “We just didn’t score.”
“I think frustrating is probably the wrong word,” noted Nic Dowd. “I think it stings. I think you can play a lot of ‘what if’ and I think guys will be doing that for the next couple days. I think honestly [at] five-on-five we did some really good things and that we at times outplayed them. I know the five-on-five goals, like I said, were close — I’m not exactly sure what they were. But they won the special teams battle and they ended up winning the games and that’s what turned the series.”
Special teams made the difference again Sunday night: New York scored three of their four goals on the power play, while Washington failed to convert on the man advantage for the second game in a row, ending the series with just two power play goals on 17 opportunities.
The Capitals came close to tying the game multiple times in the final minutes, but — as they did for so much of the year — they failed to string goals together.
“They were very opportunistic,” said Hendrix Lapierre. “We missed a couple of chances. It’s gonna sound crazy to say that in a 4-0 series, but we were right there, just a matter of details and a couple of bounces. I feel like our will was there, our effort was there. It’s just a matter of being more opportunistic, probably.”
Despite the sour end, the season saw the Capitals prove themselves with their regular-season resurgence: after falling out of the playoff picture, selling at the deadline, and struggling to score even in games they won, Washington was able to return to the postseason. For a team facing such low expectations, there was still plenty to celebrate.
“We got to the very end, so we’re all warriors in this room, proud to be part of this team, this organization,” Dylan Strome said. “So lots to build on moving forward. Obviously no one expected us to be in the playoffs. We grinded to get here and things happen in the playoffs we couldn’t recover from. Special teams and power play wasn’t good enough. Obviously penalty kill got scored on a couple of times, and that’s a difference in the series.”
Still, that knowledge did little to soothe the team’s wounds Sunday night. After their regular-season comeback, the Capitals had gotten used to overcoming slim odds, but those fortunes fell short against New York.
“I always get caught off guard by this because it’s: you just don’t feel like it’s going to end and then all of a sudden when it happens it hits you and you’re not ready,” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said. “So it’s going to be hard. It’s going to take me, especially, some time to reflect back and look at all the positives. Because once you get here, it’s not — because that’s going to be the story, right? ‘Wow, Caps got back into the playoffs.’ A lot of positives and I will get there at some point.
“But you’re still: once you get there, you want to win. You don’t want to just show up and get your participation ribbon and say, ‘yay, we made the playoffs and got swept.’ I mean, that’s disappointing and really frustrating. And you want to, none of our guys — and I know they’re not because they’re gamers, right? That they’re not going to be satisfied with making the playoffs…Just the way this went down was pretty disappointing. But at some point we’ll be able to reflect on a lot of the positives.”
The Capitals will have five months to reflect as they prepare for the 2024-25 campaign. Expectations will likely remain low as the team’s veteran core grows older and younger, less-experienced players take more of a role. But even after a sweep, this team believes they’re capable of overcoming the odds once again.
“No one believed in this group that we’re going to make the playoffs this year, but we stick together, we fight for it until the last game of the season and we get the opportunity to play in the playoffs,” said Ovechkin. “We still have young guys who played in Hershey last year and they take a huge step forward and they take that experience and next year those guys are going to be much better.”
