April 29, 2013
Ceci Ferrara
Sports Writer
Sports Insider
Ceci Ferrara
Sports Writer
Sports Insider
After a tumultuous season, the Capitals finished on top.
They clinched the Southeast Division last Tuesday with a 5-3 win over the Jets–a feat that had seemed almost impossible a month earlier. Alex Ovechkin became the league’s top scorer and led his team on an eight-game win streak.
The Caps will face the New York Rangers, a familiar match-up, in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The teams have met in the post-season three times in recent memory: the Eastern Conference quarterfinals in both the 2008-09 and 2010-11 seasons, as well as last year’s Eastern Conference semifinals.
The Capitals have won two of the three match-ups, but the Rangers won the most recent, beating the Capitals in the seventh game of the 2011-12 semifinals. While the memory of last year’s elimination may still be painful for some of the players, first year coach Adam Oates is not dwelling on it.
”I ignore it,” he said. ”Because I wasn’t involved in it. And every year is different.”
Meanwhile, forward Troy Brouwer said he and his teammates are using last year’s second-round loss as a motivator. ”We felt that maybe we should have won last year,” he said.”We’ve got a little extra fire in us this year to get the job done.”
The Capitals have been been eliminated in the first round in eight of their fourteen appearances over the past fifteen years, advancing to the conference finals just once. They will have a chance to improve that record when they host New York for game one on Thursday.
Nationals
They were chosen to win this year’s World Series by both ESPN and Sports Illustrated before the season ever started. But so far the Nats, who had a breakout year in 2012, have yet to live up to the hype.
This is not to say they are doing poorly–they are not. At 13-12, Washington is in second place in the National League East, just two and a half games behind the Braves. But they have gotten off to a slow start with four consecutive losses, three of which were at home against the St Louis Cardinals.
After getting swept by the Cards, they bounced back winning three of their four home games against Cincinnati. They lost the final game 5-2, after the Reds’ rookie pitcher Tony Cingrani kept them scoreless through six innings.
They next face the Braves, which is a good opportunity for them to close in on their division rival and prove that last year was no fluke. It will also be a chance for Stephen Strasburg (1-4, 3.16 ERA) to snap his four-start losing streak.
When the teams last met earlier this month, the Nats got swept, including a loss for Strasburg. Since then, the Braves have cooled, going 3-7 in their last ten games including a three-game sweep by the Tigers.
Washington manager Davey Johnson believes that despite their disappointing encounters with Atlanta so far this season, the upcoming road series will be a good one.
“They’re in front of us. They’re playing awfully good. We come down there and we got the right match-ups going, so it should be a great series.”
