GAME TWO RECAP (Capitals 4, Penguins 3)

Boy, Ovechkin is something else. I'm not the only one who was thinking today about how amazing his shot is. It's fast and it's on-target. The guy's been in the league for only four years, but I'm sure I've seen him score at least a hundred goals on one-timers from the left dot. And I know he's scored at least fifty of them against the Penguins, including his first goal last night and the go-ahead power play goal he lasered in the third. I've developed an actual reflexive shudder when the Penguins play the Capitals; if the Capitals are on a power play or when Ovechkin's line is on the ice even-strength, I tense up whenever a pass floats over to the left circle, because I just know the TV camera will pan over to reveal Number Eight, cocked and ready to shoot. And more often than not, the shot is already long gone by the time the camera settles on him, and he's already halfway into some overly exuberant goal celebration.

On Ovechkin's second goal-- the one that put the Capitals ahead for the first time in the game-- he started to set himself up to take a pass after his guys got a criminally clean face-off win (by who, I'm not sure, but the Penguins are getting slaughtered in the face-off circle, and it's costing them at both ends of the ice). Ovechkin ground his legs, egg beater-style, about a half-dozen times to move quickly, laterally and create space between him and the nearest penalty-killer, Matt Cooke. It didn't hurt Ovechkin's efforts that Cooke got an interfering faceful of Alexander Semin to slow him down, but he still had to one-time the shot on net. He did, of course. I think I'm starting to get a taste of what it was like for other Wales Conference teams, most notably the Capitals, in the '91-'01 period when Mario Lemieux or Jaromir Jagr would absolutely turn out their lights in April or May.

The Penguins can talk all the want about how close the games have been, or how they just need to finish more scoring chances, but these two losses have got to be dispiriting, especially since the Capitals have flouted the playoff conventional wisdoms that scoring first is the key to winning and that third-period comebacks are hard to come by. Just as in Game One, the Penguins came out very strong in Game Two and did everything possible to get a second goal after they took the lead, only to have Varmalov rebound after allowing an early goal and shut the door. Sure, the highlight-reel saves are what get people's attention, but keeping it a one-goal game is the key. The Penguins' supporting cast threw everything into trying to get a second goal, only to wilt into the background when the Capitals tied up the game. Only the Penguins' captain seems committed to playing a full sixty minutes this series.

Game Two was a ridiculously entertaining game of hockey, with lots of skating and skill on display. Just think how great the remainder of the series will be if Evgeni Malkin decides to show up for it.