Mike Sullivan guides Penguins back to conference finals

It is too simple. “In Ottawa, if you assume that most people are at least casually interested in the Sens or at least would rather have the Sens win than have them lose, it’s not as important,”.

The Ducks won two of the three regular-season meetings between the teams, but previous year Nashville ended Anaheim’s season with a seven-game, first-round upset. This is what they do.

“The memories of this team, I didn’t want to be this way”, said the pending unrestricted free agent who turns 36 next fall. They may not look as good on paper as their conference-final forerunners, but those teams also lost before they could sip from Lord Stanley’s mug. Same old song; call it Washington In The Spring.

Ovechkin declined an invitation to play for Russian Federation at the World Championship because of his injuries.

Ovechkin had to be helped off the ice after taking a low hit from Toronto’s Nazem Kadri on April 21 but returned for the start of the next period. It’s just not the mentality of the capital, says Eric MacIntosh, an associate professor in the school of human kinetics at the University of Ottawa, whose research includes fan behaviour. It’s a philosophy that was proven to be the right one, a lesson that was solidified when he had the opportunity to sip from the Stanley Cup last June at the SAP Arena in San Jose.

Nothing particularly earth-shattering came out of the day’s proceedings, and numerous players’ answers echoed their sentiments after last year’s endings. I just think we didn’t execute. He was seen visibly shaking at times as he answered questions. Backstrom will be 30 next season and Ovechkin will be 32 after already showing a considerable decline in his goal-scoring and five-on-five play this season. In his mind, the Sens pose as many headaches as the Washington Capitals, the team his Penguins just eliminated in seven games. “We’ve been starting both series at home and if we can surprise them the first game then we put a lot of pressure on their team”. Or via a Game 7 loss – yet again.

“I think they’re all past that now”.

“Tonight, I don’t think we gave ourselves a chance”, Holtby said. That doesn’t mean that going forward we’re not going to be good, but. something’s got to give because of the roster we have. We can handle either effect. “He’s played so well for us and he’s really at the top of his game”.

This offseason could mark a big shift for the franchise. At five-on-five, they were outshot 8-3.

In the West, Nashville netminder Pekka Rinne has stopped an NHL-best 95.1 percent of playoff shots against him. What does that say?

Karl Alzner revealed Friday that it was a broken bone in his right hand that kept him out of six games across the Maple Leafs and Penguins series. That’s a team, in the biggest moment of its life, unable to play anything resembling its best hockey.

Murray was going to be The Guy the Penguins leaned on this season as they attempted to become the first team to repeat as champs since the 1997-98 Detroit Red Wings.

Maybe though, Ovechkin will be the modern Ray Bourque-traded at the end of his career in a quest to finish a life-long goal. Game 7, Justin Williams; Oshie; defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk, the prize acquisition of a boring trade deadline. The Capitals will have around $23 million in cap room, but have four younger players – Evgeny Kuznetsov, Nate Schmidt, Dmitry Orlov and Andre Burakovsky – who are in line for raises. Daniel Alfredsson scored 14 while leading Ottawa to the Cup finals in 2007.

“They showed a lot of resiliency”, Capitals coach Barry Trotz said.

But how do they continue to believe they can do it? It can be hard to overcome those past experiences. “I thought we did a pretty solid job in containing that”. All it takes is one year. We need to fix it more. “You can’t ask for a better teammate than Flower with what he’s gone through the last couple years and to step up the way he has”. At the most critical time of the season when we needed him, he was at his best. “You still got to go out there and do it”.

The Penguins had plenty of chances to take control but produced nothing out of four first-period power plays, including 45 seconds of a 5-on-3 that went nowhere.

They could not come through.