When the Capitals fell behind the Penguins three games to one in their NHL playoff second-round series, it seemed as though history was about to repeat. Another Presidents' Trophy regular season, another second-round exit.
Two wins in elimination games later, and the Capitals have pushed all of that pressure back onto the Penguins. No longer is Washington trying to avoid embarrassment; now Pittsburgh is.
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The Caps forced a Game 7 with a dominant 5-2 win in Pittsburgh on Monday. The Penguins have now blown series leads of 2-0 and 3-1 and given all the momentum back to the Capitals, who have looked like a new team since dropping star Alex Ovechkin to the third line to help ignite the bottom six.
It's no surprise this series is heading to Game 7, but how it got to that point is pretty shocking.
Up until Game 5, no team in the Stanley Cup playoffs was playing better than Pittsburgh. The Penguins handled the Blue Jackets 4-1 in Round 1, scoring three goals or more in all five games. They were the superior team in those first four contests against the Capitals, too.
Now the Penguins are free-falling.
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Penguins beat writer Jason Mackey of the Post-Gazette called Monday's loss "among the worst playoff losses in franchise history." This is a franchise with four Stanley Cups, so that means something.
The Penguins trailed 5-0 in the third period before a pair of late goals made things a little prettier. They had just eight shots entering the final 20 minutes and the Capitals' defense was making them look like they had cinder blocks strapped to their skates.
“Tough game for us,” Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin told reporters, via the Post-Gazette. “We need to forget this game. It’s bad luck for us tonight. Nothing worked. No power play, no penalty kill, no five-on-five.
“But we know we have a good team. We know we have a good goalie (Marc-Andre Fleury). If we play how we can, 100 percent, we can win.”
The loss of top defensemen Kris Letang has to be taking a toll as Pittsburgh plays short-handed. The Pens also had to play Monday without defenseman Trevor Daley, who was out with a lower-body injury.
“Nobody feels good about our game tonight,” Pens superstar captain Sidney Crosby told reporters. “We can talk about it all we want as far as not playing the way we need to to win games. I think it’s more about what we need to do to win the next one.”
The Capitals will head into that next one, a home Game 7, trying to become the 29th team in NHL history to come back from a 3-1 deficit and win a best-of-seven playoff series. With all the pressure now the Penguins, the Caps are well-positioned to do it.