Alexander Ovechkin And The Washington Capitals Left No Trace In Erasing A Once Inevitable Storyline5/24/2018
Just over a minute. Sixty-two seconds, to be exact, although it would be a lie to tell you it felt that long. That's how much time it took Alexander Ovechkin to rear back and unleash a howitzer so patented that it should come with it's own watermark past both Andrei Vasilevskiy and the lurking narrative that either he and/or his team were doomed to suffer yet another crushing postseason defeat. I'd say that he took an annually explored storyline and shoved it directly up every ass, my own included, that was impatiently taking a squat-and-see approach to crapping on the Washington Capitals for managing to loot the Lightning of their home ice advantage in a series they proceeded to undeniably dominate, only to end up back within the hauntingly unforgiving confines of a Game 7. Unfortunately, the truth is that you couldn't even have conjured up quality clickbait between the dropping of the puck and it's all-too-familiar insertion into the back of the net that served as further proof that this particular "Caps Year" was different. We're talking about a team that has basically been the Vincent van Gogh of choke artists, so while refusing to paint yet another masterpiece against Pittsburgh was a good sign, it was never quite safe to assume that they wouldn't end up chopping off their own ear out of nowhere. Admittedly, outside of dropping two straight OT games to Columbus to kick off the postseason, it felt more difficult to find fatal flaws this time around, but there was reason to fear that dropping three straight to Tampa Bay in a fashion that was so defiant of the eye-test that it seemed like an optical illusion summoned some suppressed demons. The Capitals, to their credit, couldn't possibly have been any more indifferent to those demons in strapping Tampa Bay to the bed to helplessly squirm and vomit all over themselves as they finished the exorcism that they were as unstoppable in starting as their captain's clapper. There's no doubt as to who the best team in the Eastern Conference is, and for once we are saying that about the Capitals in late-May as opposed to early April. I'm at liberty to believe that the Vegas Golden Knights could currently go dancing in the rain and Marc-Andre Fleury would still come inside drier than this line of humor. So, while one of these cinematic stories has to give in a matchup we never even thought possible (in part because prior to this season, it was impossible), I have no idea which Cinderella's picture perfect season will come out underdeveloped once their slipper drops. Of course, Alexander Ovechkin could certainly use a Stanley Cup to both legitimize his legacy as well as to dump vodka-stained urine on every one of his nauseatingly nitpicky detractors. That said, barring a cataclysmic collapse of epic proportions, he finally shattered the perception that his Washington Capitals can't win when it matters with an immediate one-timer that looked to be worth a lot more than the absolute dagger of a go-ahead and game-winning goal that it counted as. The Finals will be fun for a variety of reasons, including the lack of a reason not to expect more of the same after a decade of dreading the same old.
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