Alexander Ovechkin will try anything. This morning he found himself on the sidelines of Madison Square Garden, looking on as the Rangers practiced. I'm not sure what he hoped to gather from this spy session, but in any event, he was asked to leave, and John Tortorella wasn't too thrilled about the whole thing. So, did Ovechkin figure out all that he needed in his time there to turn this series around? No. Does it matter. No. This thing wasn't over anyway.
New York won two games in a row to start the series, both by a goal, and both because Henrik Lundqvist stole the show. Don't get me wrong, a hot goalie can win you a series, and there's no one out there better than "The King", but Washington has been firing on all cylinders, and they will be doing so for the rest of the series, whether it be four or five more games in length. What is certain - because I stick to my guns, the way Washington does there's - is that New York can't sustain this success, and they will ultimately suffer an unappealing fate at the hands of the most exciting team in hockey.
Before the series began, no one with any bit of sanity gave New York a chance, and on Saturday night when asked if Washington had any chance of overcoming the 0-2 deficit, the entire TSN panel responded with a resounding "no". The media can turn on you pretty quickly. Or maybe they just have their feet stuck in their overworked mouths. The fans can also turn on you pretty quickly too.
The very same people who went on and on about how good Ovechkin was, and how hard he played, have filled blogs and message boards with striking blows to his character and heart. I've seen the words selfish and lazy used to describe the man who for the balance of the season has outworked, outhit, and outplayed his opponent every shift he was on the ice. Ovechkin hasn't gone soft over the course of two games people. Get your heads on straight. This guy has 19 shots on goal, and 17 hits in the first two games. He's giving it everything he has, and just hasn't gotten any results... yet.
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If Varlamov can keep up any semblance of the great work he's put up in every game he's played this season, Washington just got scarier than they were going in to the playoffs.
It's always a little scary relying on a rookie goalie in the playoffs (ask Gainey about trading away Huet), but if you collapse his regular season numbers with the playoffs, his GAA is now 1.87 with a .935 SV%. Put those numbers behind the offensive potential, and I don't feel so bad about predicting Washington to at least make the Eastern final anymore.
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