That loud and plaintive squeal you heard coming from Manhattan was about 20,000 New York Rangers fans reacting to the realization that the momentum in the playoff series between the Caps and the Rangers has turned, if only for one night.After sleepwalking through a pair of hockey games on home ice to fall behind two games to none in their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series with the Rangers, the Washington Capitals recommitted themselves to the basics of playoff hockey and were rewarded with a 4-0 win at Madison Square Garden.
So what the heck happened to this team in between Saturday's loss and the start of Monday night's game? Whatever it was, it worked, and here's how it manifested itself earlier this evening.
For starters, that pileup in front of Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist in the above photo was just the start of what went right for Washington. From the drop of the puck, the Caps played with a physical edge we rarely saw in the regular season and hadn't seen at all in the first two games of the series with New York. After letting the Rangers dictate the physical tempo, the Caps brought the body for the first time in the series -- something that absolutely rattled Rangers winger Sean Avery and baited him into taking four penalties including a 10 minute misconduct.
If there's one man who should get the lion's share of the credit for bottling up Avery, it's oft-maligned Caps defenseman John Erskine. Since the start of the series, Erskine has been the only reliable physical presence on the ice for Washington, and he spent most of his evening beating up on Avery and then refusing to retaliate when the unpredictable winger would explode.
Next up, Alex Ovechkin rediscovered his linemates, rather than take the burden of beating the Rangers on his shoulders alone. That was on great display in the first period when the Caps took a 2-0 lead on a pair of Alexander Semin goals, with assists coming from Ovechkin on both. But the changes didn't just come of the offensive side of the puck, as the Caps also discovered a new commitment to defensive play. Whether it was battling along the boards, blocking shots or making the Rangers pay a price for real estate in front of the Washington net, the Caps returned to the ice looking like a changed team.
The game's defensive highlight had to come in the second period when Ovechkin lost possession of the puck in the Rangers offensive zone on the power play. Soon enough, Blair Betts was on a breakaway all alone on Caps goalie Simeon Varlamov. But it was here that Ovechkin put his head down, skated hard, caught up to Betts, and used a sweep check to take the puck of his stick before crashing into the Washington net and stopping the play.
Perhaps most exciting of all for Caps fans who have spent most of the season on pins and needles with Jose Theodore in net, Varlamov, aided heavily by a team defense that kept his sight lines clear and kept most of the New York shots to the outside, made huge saves time after time.
The most critical sequence probably came in the first period, shortly after the Caps took a 1-0 lead on Semin's first goal. Only seconds later, the Rangers had charged into the Capitals defensive zone when Ryan Callahan, New York's hero in Game Two, put a shot off the left post that caromed behind Varlamov and through an empty crease in front of an open net. The Caps collected the puck and immediately drove down ice for their second goal.
After that, the Rangers really never threatened, and it looks as if Varlamov has written the last chapter in Theodore's brief tour as the starting goalie in Washington.
How badly was New York beaten tonight? In short, the defeat made some history. Varlamov's shutout was the first by a rookie goalie in a playoff game in Madison Square Garden ever and represented the worst home playoff shutout suffered by New York in 22 seasons. I'm thinking there are a lot of players in that New York locker room who are wondering what happened to all the magic.
It's actually pretty simple: the better team finally decided to assert itself. All of a sudden, the outcome of this series doesn't look so certain.
