Depressing end

My wife surprised me this afternoon by letting me know she'd found me a ticket to the Caps game this evening.  Despite my earlier misgivings, I was still quite excited about the prospect.

I had never been to a Game Seven before, and that was fairly exciting.  And the last time I saw a Caps-Rangers playoff game, live, it was Game Four in 1994, when the Caps won 4-2 to stave off elimination.

I was certainly hoping for a similar result tonight, and the Caps came out on fire.  They were putting together a fantastic game (despite some nearly-criminal no-calls) when a Caps attack was stopped by Lundqvist and a jail-break went the other way, ending up as a 4-on-2.  Kreider dropped to Asham just inside the blue line, and his shot went to the top corner.

That was the only goal of the first period, but the Caps had solidly dominated.  Not only were shots 13-9, but blocks were 13-1.  The only thing that kept me from feeling confident that they were get back into it was the officiating (not only was Holtby run twice, but Callahan leveled Chimmer with a hit well after the whistle and Perreault was tripped right in front of the net.  And those are the ones I remember.  I remember yelling more than that, but I forget the details).

The second period actually did start with the tail end of the one power play the Caps got before the game was decided, but they didn't get anything out of it.  The Caps actually kept playing well for a while, but three minutes in, Erskine ended up as the only one back against a 2-on-1.  That didn't end in immediate disaster, as the shot went off the post, but the defense never got set up, and Pyatt was left alone on the edge of the crease to clean up a rebound of a Dorsett shot.

Two minutes later, at the end of some significant zone time, a Del Zotto shot from the point went off of Brouwer's skate, off of Holtby's stick, and off the top of his shin pad, then into the net.  The hole the puck slipped through, there, wasn't even big enough to see.  Really bad luck.

The Caps actually looked pretty good for the rest of the period (except Holtby, who had a couple of other very near misses that he normally just gobbles up), but were unable to put the puck past Hank, despite some fantastic chances.

They were up  26-17 on shots, even better when factoring in blocks, but were losing three-nil anyway.

The only bit of encouragement was that we saw that Boston had come back from 4-1 down to tie Toronto in regulation.

But then, almost right off the opening face-off, Erskine decides to try to beat Callahan one-on-one and loses, giving up a clean breakaway.  Why did he get a two-year extension with a 30% raise, again?

In any event, Callahan, excellent shootout man that is, converted the breakaway to basically put the game away.  Thirteen seconds in.  Fastest goal I've ever seen that wasn't scored by the team winning the opening faceoff.

Six and a half minutes later, Zuccarello put the final nail in the coffin when Green went over to the other side to make a nice poke check on Brassard, but then never got back to that side.  Brassard retrieved the puck and threw it over to that side, leaving Zuccarello alone against Holtby.  Zucky deked Holtby nicely and put it into the net.

From that point, it was basically just a shit-show that I stuck around for, for no real reason.  Hoping they could at least break the shutout, I suppose.  A ton of people left after the fifth goal.  I did text my wife 'Game over', but stayed anyway.

Easily the most depressing playoff game I've ever gone to.  Maybe most depressing game, actually, although I'm less certain about that.  I'd like to say that Lundqvist stole this game for New York, but the defense was thoroughly craptastic.  And I haven't even mentioned the odd-man break from the first period that resulted from the defenseman pinching, and no forward went back to cover the point.

Well, let the offseason begin, I suppose.  The team will certainly have plenty to think about, starting with answering the question of what to do with Ribeiro.  I must admit to having very mixed feelings about him, and I'm honestly not even sure what to hope for.

Update:  I forgot to mention that the officiating did seem fine after the first period, for what that's worth.