The same could be said of most of the Capitals roster after they pushed hard to get in the playoffs, winning three games in four days to finish the regular season. After missing the playoffs last season for the first time since 2014, few outside their locker room expected to them to be back.
In that way, this playoff appearance felt from the beginning like an unexpected gift. It didn’t after it was over, though.
“It stings no matter what,” defenseman John Carlson said. “Especially with how hard we battled down the stretch, to finish the year like this, it’s really frustrating.”
The difference again Sunday was special teams. The Capitals didn’t get a shot on goal on either of their two power plays. And after scoring the winning goal short-handed in Games 2 and 3, the Rangers went 3-for-4 on the power play, including Artemi Panarin’s goal that gave them a 3-2 lead 3:21 into the third period and Jack Roslovic’s clinching one into an empty net with 51 seconds left.
The silver lining was the valuable experience younger players such as forwards Hendrix Lapierre, 22, Connor McMichael, 23, Aliaksei Protas, 23, and Ivan Miroshnichenko, 20, and defensemen Martin Fehervary, 24, and Alexander Alexeyev, 24, gained from the late regular season playoff push and the four games against the Rangers. That youth demonstrated some of what the future could be like Sunday. Protas set up Fehervary for a goal from the left circle that tied it 1-1 at 14:54 of the first period and Lapierre scored a spectacular 1-on-4 goal on the rush to tie it at 2-2 at 7:48 of the second.
Still, the reality might be that those young players might have to wait a while before they get another chance in the playoffs while the Capitals’ changing of the guard continues. Ovechkin, Carlson, T.J. Oshie and Tom Wilson are all that remain from the Cup-winning team, and Oshie’s future appears in doubt after he has played through a recurring back issue the past two seasons and, according to teammate Dylan Strome, a broken hand on Sunday.
Second in NHL history with 853 regular-season goals, Ovechkin will continue his chase of Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894 next season. What else the future holds for him and the Capitals other than that will depend on how the young players continue to grow and whether they can add some more skill to an offensively challenged team that scored seven total goals in the series and was 28th in the NHL during the regular season with 2.63 goals per game.
“It kind of was a frustrating game, but it’s the playoffs,” Ovechkin said. “We all understand the urgency has to be a little bit higher. But we were close battling the last two and a half months for that spot. I’m proud of this group of guys. We’ve been through lots of injuries, trade deadline, but we stick together, and it showed the character of this group and that experience that the boys have this year it’s going to help.”
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