Rangers 4, Capitals 3

OH

FUCK

YES

HOCKEY!

I can't believe we took this game. I know, it's only one game, and we have to win 3 more. But this was huge. I said yesterday that we would need big performances from everyone. I said yesterday that we were gonna need to pepper the shit out of a weak Theodore. I said yesterday that, we were gonna have to win despite, not by stopping, an insanely talented barrage of Ovechkin-fire.

And then it all happened!

In the first period, we got unreasonably outplayed. Outplayed in a way that, despite being scoreless after 1, made me despair. Yeah, we'd gotten out without damage, but this performance was not going to be good enough. They outshot us 14-4, which told the story. And, of course, that meant we needed an enormous performance from The King. And the score tells us that we got it. So, there was ingredient 1: Lundqvist stepping up and keeping us alive. As always, the story of our survival when we don't deserve it comes back to The King.

Then we came back after the first intermission and realized we were in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Caps, who had been there by themselves for the whole first, seemed less than thrilled that we had joined them. We started bringing pressure - from everyone. Throughout the second and third, this didn't stop. People drove to the net and hit hard, especially our last two McDonald award recipients, Dubi and Cally. The Caps drew first blood (on a PP that came from a penalty we never would have taken if Naslund had just driven to the net instead of trying a spinorama with Ovechkin a foot away...Pro Tip: DO NOT TRY A SPINORAMA WITH ALEX OVECHKIN A FOOT AWAY FROM YOU YOU ARE NOT WAYNE GRETZKY), but Gomez came back about a minute later to tie it, and then all of a sudden we were still driving to the net and we were up 3-1.

Granted, we still made mistakes. Enough to collapse back to tied at 3 early in the 3rd (after giving up our second with like 45 seconds left in the second). But our defense came up really big. And not just Staal and Girardi. For all that Redden and Rozsie still don't know what to do with the puck on the PP (and they really, really don't), they played relatively solidly in the back. I mean, against Ovechkin sometimes, even.

Let's talk about him. I had a friend over last night, and I was trying to explain to her that an average shift for a forward in the NHL is about a minute. I failed to explain this to her, because of the third period last night. Seriously, did Ovechkin play all of it? Cause it seems like he never left the ice. What the hell, man? Don't you need to breathe? Or drink water? Fuck!

Okay, the cursory internet research I had to do to learn more tells me that he was on the ice for 26:07 total, including 11:22 in the third. 11:22. Fucking 57% of the period! He's a forward! That's...I don't even have a word for that. And, I mean, he earned every second of the ice time, too. Larry Brooks, whose whole article is an excellent summary of what happened to us (or, what we happened to) last night, helps me out with the numbers:

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Ovechkin launched an astonishing 28 shots in 26:07 of ice time, 13 of which hit the net, 10 of which were blocked and five of which went wide.
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Double Jesus Wow! But, here's the thing: it didn't matter. We held on and won one anyway. For all of Ovechkin's 11:22 in the third period, he was held to 3 shots, and none of them found their way into the net. And, even he admitted about Dubinsky's game-winning between-the-legs deke: "It was a sweet move, what can you do?" [paraphrase, I saw the interview last night, but couldn't find it online today to confirm]

We endured 3 penalties throughout that period as well, to their 0 (one was a really bad call, but whatever, there were bad calls in both directions - refs are shitty and it's the playoffs, no excuses). And this is a team that scores goals. A lot. In bursts. And yet we held on, played tough (really tough, as did they), and secured the win despite a painfully nerve-wracking barrage of attack late in the third.

Sure, it feels a little like we stole one. But it also feels like we held on against a team with ridiculous firepower, including the leading scorer and the leading scoring defenseman in the NHL, holding them to 2-for-7 on the PP, by scoring enough goals to come back and beat them, including going 2-for-4 on our own PP, despite playing a shitty first period, and playing without our captain, who is known for scoring the big late clutch goals, and we hit two posts besides.

You know what? I'll fucking take it. Rangers lead, 1-0. See you Saturday.