Kevin Blackistone Nhl

WASHINGTON -- Just a couple of minutes into the second period of Wednesday night's big hockey game at the raucous arena here nicknamed The Phone Booth, let's just say the line went dead. All of a sudden, you could barely hear a thing, except for that scraping sound that metal blades make sliding across the ice.

At this particular point, they were the skates laced to the feet -- the clay feet, as it turns out -- of Simeon Varlamov, the young goalie for the hometown Capitals. He was skating to the swinging door of his team's bench, head down, and would not come back. A fourth puck had just screamed past him and into the back of the net

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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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Eleven of its playoff games have been decided in the final minute, or in overtime. That includes seven overtime contests and four last-minute scores in regulation to decide games.

Two series required ultimate seventh games. And the second round of its playoffs just commenced.

WASHINGTON – It became custom sometime ago that the hero in a victorious Capitals locker room received a shower of shaving cream from his happy teammates.

After a fake news report, a six-game suspension, an allegation of biting, and a coach being banished to a suite for turning a water bottle into a projectile against opposing fans, it is hard to imagine there being anything more unexpected in a mere first-round hockey playoff series. But there is something more unanticipated in this set of great interest now between the Rangers and Capitals. It is that the series wound up where it is scheduled to be Tuesday night -- at a deciding Game 7.

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Alexander Ovechkin is on the verge of accomplishing something in hockey that hasn't been witnessed in over a decade: winning consecutive Hart Trophies as the NHL's MVP. (Maybe that's what got under Sidney Crosby's sweater.)

Another mere Hart, however, would be selling Alexander the Great short.