It’s Not You, It’s Me

Looking for a Spark Against the Bolts

There was this guy.  Doubt he reads this, but just in case, let’s call him “Gaston.”

Gaston was a loser.

Not a loooser loser – he was decent and smart and relatively successful, no tool in a douche-hat or anything.  But somehow, Gaston always seemed to come up on the short end of things.

Lots of annoying things.  If he neared a light, it’d flash red.  If he got in line ‘a’, that would be the one that stopped.  The sink in his hotel room would back up.  The ATM would eat his card.  Gaston knew this, and came to expect it.  Minus the wrinkles and coke-bottle glasses, he was Hans Moleman.

No surprise that Gaston was not a lot of fun.  That’s because he was, in the truest sense, a loser.

It wasn’t that the rest of the world was so much better than he was, or working hard to defeat him.  Gaston just stopped trying…and he got exactly what he expected he would get.

The moral of our little gay playlet? Sometimes it isn’t the opponent who defeats you – it’s you.

The Caps aren’t losers in our books – far from it.  They’ve put on too many spectacular displays this season for it to be remembered as anything other than a success.  They’ve fought back against injury and hardship and slumps and come out on top.  Coach B and the boys took a huge roll of the dice in switching styles mid-stream this season – a gamble that eventually paid (as long as the Caps stuck to the game plan.)

There is such a surfeit of individual talent on this team that it’s almost embarrassing – there’s a reason people love – and hate – the Yankees.  Leonsis, GMGM and Boudreau have amassed skilled players like China hoards currency.  They’ve even smoothed out their leadership roles – whatever you want to say about the Ovie Era, the Caps appear to have created formal and informal layers of leadership, with Arnott and Knuble tempering talent like Backstrom, Laich and Semin with experience – much as Federov did a few years back.

Yeah, the Bolts are a really good team with some sick skills, but the Caps played well this season down in their barn.  PuckPal DaveE agrees with Sick, Unbelieveable that Tampa is a better road team and have shown flukey play at home this year, which is good for us…assuming we can get our PP together (although playoffs are not the time to be fixing what should have been fixed long ago.)

We’ve got just about everything in our favor.  Everything except, it seems expectations.

Panic hasn’t set in – yet – in Capsblogistan, but you can practically smell everyone muttering through their teeth about Caps choke, Caps playoff karma, Caps curse.  Waa-waa-waa.  Whatever: fans bellyache – it’s part of the ticket.

But these last two games increasingly felt like watching Gaston – someone who’s already decided they’re going to lose.  The was some hard play but no belief.  Good shots but no kick-in-the-ass slapper.   Great saves but no ‘OMG-We-Luv-U’ dynamics.

In short: we need a spark.  We need someone – Sasha, Mojo, Greenie, Fehr, anyone will do – to stick a finger in the socket and light the team up.  It could be as easy as that.  One amazing play at the right time: ZAP! Caps play like the winners they are.

Gaston is probably still a loser.  We don’t believe the Caps are.  Tonight we’ll see if we’re right.

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5 Responses to It’s Not You, It’s Me

  1. magnolia says:

    i have the feeling something BIG is coming tonight. last game was just so, so close to being ours…

  2. knxvil says:

    Here’s hoping that all the red lights tonight are lamp-lighting goals, and not of the traffic sort. Also, I hope Le Petit Chien (subliminal message: call me) gets his chance–he’s doing no good with his ass warming the bench! Allez, allez!

  3. Dark Stranger says:

    @knxvil,

    Maybe it is time to put some of the Hershey guys in the lineup, like Beagle, as you say. (I assume you meant Beagle by your “petit chien”.)

    @magnolia,
    I hope you’re right on something special happening.

  4. david says:

    a poem. by hans moleman.. i think that i shall never see. [a stanley cup in washington d.c..]

    kinda sums it all up….

    ~ cheers…..

    ps.. i was saying boo-urns…

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