An annual tradition at this point, the Washington Capitals met the media today and wondered how it all went wrong.
There was anger. Frustration. Even some gallows humor, after the Capitals failed once again to get past the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Two days ago, the Presidents’ Trophy winners blew it big time in a Game 7 shutout loss to Pittsburgh at Verizon Center.
“We should be angry,” longtime forward Nicklas Backstrom told reporters. “You should be mad.”
“Mentally, we have to get over it and stop crumbling in certain situations,” added defenseman John Carlson.
D-man Karl Alzner said that a lot of his teammates still hadn’t shaved because they were hoping it was all a big joke and that the Caps were actually still playing.
Some more:
Shattenkirk says #Caps dealing with a lot of pain, says players feel weight of previous losses. "It's everywhere surrounding this team."
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) May 12, 2017
Kuznetsov said he felt like Caps beat themselves. What's been hardest for him to reconcile is that he didn't recognize the Caps in Game 7.
— Isabelle Khurshudyan (@ikhurshudyan) May 12, 2017
If there was any actual news to come out of today’s postmortem, it’s that Alex Ovechkin suffered a hamstring injury in Game 3 against the Penguins. He also banged up his knee on that hit by Toronto’s Nazem Kadri in the first round. But he won’t need surgery. Just rest.
“It’s time take a deep breath, take some time off and get back to work,” Ovechkin said, per CSN Mid-Atlantic.
Read more: Ovechkin won’t join Russia at Worlds due to lower-body injury
Head coach Barry Trotz is scheduled to hold a press conference at 1 p.m. ET. And that could be interesting, given what he said Wednesday about Ovechkin.