Three years ago, the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins were considered the rising powers in the NHL's Eastern Conference. The Penguins were actually a power, with both a Stanley Cup final and the championship itself under their belt, but behind Alexander Ovechkin the Capitals were poised to become a worthy rival, one that would drive television ratings and attendance for years.
Both NHL and television executives were rubbing their hands in glee in the second round of the 2009 playoffs when the Penguins defeated the Capitals in a hard-fought series before winning the Stanley Cup. They saw gold in a rivalry buttressed by a head-to-head clash between the NHL's reigning superstars, Ovechkin and Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby.
However, since then both teams have combined to win exactly three playoff series. By Sunday's matinee Pens-Caps meeting at the Verizon Center, Ovechkin and the Capitals appeared spent forces, neither in position to hold up their end of what was supposed to be a nifty ratings-stealer for NBC on Super Bowl Sunday.
The Penguins have had their troubles but they appear back in gear after a slow start following the lockout. Sunday's 6-3 win over the Capitals left them with a 6-3 record and tied for second place in the Eastern Conference.
The Capitals are now 2-6-1 and last in the conference, although they insist better days are not far away. The problem is simply that they are learning their second defensive system in less than two years since turning away from run-and-gun hockey and the star system.
"Unless there's something on the video I didn't notice, [the Penguins] had no chances we didn't give them," Capitals head coach Adam Oates said not long after the sellout crowd of 18,506 booed his team off the ice. "I don't look at that game as it got away from us because we weren't playing well. We did a lot of good things."
Oates, who was hired last summer when Dale Hunter decided to end his experiment as an NHL head coach after less than a season, is trying to install the more complicated defensive scheme he learned as an assistant with the New Jersey Devils. Caps forward Troy Brouwer says Hunter's man-to-man defensive system "was as simple as it gets."
Under Oates, the players do not simply pick up their man in the defensive zone. Depending on the situation, they may overload the area in front of the net with three players on two opposing players, giving up what Caps defenceman Karl Alzner calls the "low-percentage scoring chance" in favour of closing down the front of the net.
Each situation has a response dictated by Oates and the players have to read the situation and remember the response. It is not something that falls into place in half a dozen games.
Alzner argues the Penguins loss "was closer than the score showed. We played 10 minutes of bad hockey and they scored the goals that beat us."
The trouble is, the Penguins are so talented they can exploit the smallest mistake. Oates argued the Capitals gave the Pens relatively few scoring chances. Caps goaltender Braden Holtby had a bad game, which meant some low-percentage shots went in, Paul Martin and Matt Cooke scored on deflections, then the Pens took a 5-2 lead on a five-on-three power play and it was all over.
"Through the course of the whole season there are going to be nights that happens," Oates said. "I'm not really focused on that. I'm focused on how we played as a group. I think the big picture is more important."
Oates will soon know if his players are coming around as well as he thinks. The Caps play the somewhat surprising Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, then have a rematch with the Pens on Thursday to show Sunday's loss was an anomaly.