Obstacles No Match for Blazing Pens

WASHINGTON -- When Capitals owner Ted Leonsis learned that Game 5 of his team's second-round Stanley Cup playoff series against Pittsburgh would have to be played 24 hours after Game 4 in Pittsburgh because of a Yanni concert scheduled at the Penguins' arena, he complained that the back-to-back games were bad for the league, bad for the teams and bad for the fans.

Personally, I was more concerned to learn that there were enough fans of the Greek crooner to fill a major sports arena. But I digress. Leonsis was right. Yanni shouldn't have been allowed to have any influence on one of our major sport's postseasons, any more than he does on music in this country.

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But the only impact Yanni had on this series was upon the schedule. He didn't have anything to do with the Penguins cranking up 42 shots on goal Saturday night to the Capitals' 31. He didn't have anything to do with the Penguins sticking four of their shots into the net for an overtime win and a 3-2 series lead to put them at the threshold of advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Most important, Yanni didn't have anything to do with what has become the most critical development in this series: the cooling off of the Capitals' once red-hot 21-year-old rookie netminder Simeon Varlamov.

We made a big deal of Varlamov in the Capitals' come-from-behind vanquishing of the Rangers in the opening round of these playoffs, and rightfully so. Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau pulled veteran goalie Jose Theodore after a horrific Game 1 and inserted the then 20-year-old Varlamov. Varlamov seemed immediately to jump on the track to stardom in the NHL playoffs of former rookie playoff sensation goalies like Ken Dryden, Patrick Roy and Cam Ward. He posted shutouts, made highlight-reel saves, and was more the reason that the Capitals escaped the Rangers and advanced to meet the Penguins.

Varlamov started this second series just as stout and led his teammates to a two-wins-to-none lead on the Penguins. He stopped 67 shots in the first two games.

But Friday night in Pittsburgh, he was broken down.

"He struggled," Boudreau told The Washington Post. "He hasn't had a bad game. Arguably there were four soft goals out of the five. But he'll bounce back."

Saturday night back on home ice, Varlamov didn't appear fully recovered. Unless he makes a fast return to his playoff debut, the Capitals will be done.

Saturday night was loss No. 3 in a row for the Capitals. The Penguins have all the momentum headed home.

The Capitals have all the frustration. It's been borne out everywhere, particularly in the Capitals' front office and among their fans, who since Game 4 have been echoing the biggest excuse in losing: refereeing. The fans jeered the refs Saturday and littered the Verizon Center ice with giveaway pompoms and plastic beer bottles after the Penguins slipped out with the victory.

The refs in the end weren't the problem anymore than was Yanni. The Capitals' defense, which wasn't a strong suit until the Rangers series, was their nemesis, and their young goalie couldn't cover up for it.

Varlamov appeared to be wearing down as the game went on, just as he appears to be wearing down as the series moves on. The first period was scoreless. The rest were not.


Varlamov failed to control the puck several times, which appears to be the weakest part of his emerging game. After his teammates battled back to take a 2-1 lead into the third period, he missed what should've been an easy stop to make against Ruslan Fedotenko. Friday night, he let one go right through his glove.

It was apparent after Fedotenko's goal that the Capitals no longer had the most-important weapon in the playoffs, which is not, by the way, an explosive high-scoring player like Alex Ovechkin, who evened the score twice Saturday and assisted another time.

The most important weapon in playoff hockey is, instead, a hot goalie.

Varlamov is no longer. He has been cooled off by the Penguins. To be sure, those were secondary lines that scored against him Saturday night. Sidney Crosby didn't score or register an assist. The Penguins aren't supposed to beat the second seed with their biggest gun held in check.

"We just wanted to keep shooting the puck," Penguins forward Jordan Staal, who notched the game's first goal in the second period, told me afterward. "Putting it to the net gave us more rebound opportunities. That's always the biggest thing for any goalie [to deal with]."

Varlamov wasn't helped much by Capitals defensemen, either, who never handled the pressure applied by Pittsburgh centers and forwards, the ones not on Crosby's line. Varlamov's attackers haven't been able to consistently pressure Pittsburgh's defense, either.

"Our forwards have to come back hard in order for our defense to be able to step up," Crosby said. "It's a group effort out there and they [the Capitals] have a lot of speed. It's not easy to do that [get back] a lot of times, but between the defense stepping up and doing a good job, keeping the gap, and our forwards coming back hard, we have been able to do that."

It will be up to Varlamov's teammates to change that. Varlamov's coach, who so boldly changed goalies after one game against the Rangers, can't go back to his season-long No. 1 goalie now. The curtain has dropped on that show.

Yanni, by the way, opens in Pittsburgh on Tuesday in The Igloo, a day after that Game 6 where the whole cooling off of Varlamov began.