(More from the other side...jtf)
December 20, 2018
Tom Wilson #43 of the Washington Capitals is checked by Jack Johnson #73 of the Pittsburgh Penguins during the second period at Capital One Arena on December 19, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
The NHL has tried to promote a great rivalry between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Washington Capitals for the 14 years since Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin emerged as the two great players of this ice age. However, the rivalry never had a true chance to become epic — until now.
When Crosby and Ovechkin started screaming at each other from their benches, barely 10 feet apart, in the early minutes Wednesday night at Capital One Arena, that’s when I started grinning. Been waiting 20 years for this. Finally, both teams are totally under each other’s skin, not just the Penguins tormenting the Caps.
“Why don’t you fight him,” Crosby yelled at Ovechkin, referring to Pittsburgh’s 6-foot-7, 255-pound Jamie Oleksiak, who had just been helped off the ice, dazed and bloodied, as the result of one punch from the Caps’ Tom Wilson.
Was Crosby implying that big, tough Ovi lets others do his team’s fighting?
“Why don’t I fight you,” Ovechkin yelled back as NBC’s rink-side announcer relayed the conversation, word for word, to the hockey universe. Crosby, with the best hands in hockey, wouldn’t risk a knuckle for world peace.
Should we change the name of Capital One Arena to World of Beer?
The night ended with a 2-1 Penguins victory but one in which two Caps shots trickled within an inch of entering the Penguins goal before they were swept away at the last desperate microsecond. Ovechkin snapped his stick like a twig as he left the ice in disgust. The larger point of the game, however, was its overall brilliance, joy in battle and May intensity in December. Just like a real two-way rivalry.
In fact, with the Penguins and Caps as winners of the past three Stanley Cups and Crosby and Ovechkin as the preeminent stars in their sport, this battle probably has grown up to become the No. 1 Real Rivalry on the national sports scene. That the teams have such long-lasting dislike for each other doesn’t hurt.
Minutes after the Oleksiak knockout, Ovechkin responded to some shoving instigated by the Penguins’ Kris Letang with a face-to-face discussion against the glass. Usually, Ovechkin, as is a star’s prerogative, ignores such annoyance. This time, Ovi hounded and pounded Letang every chance he got.
“These are the games that are fun to play,” Nicklas Backstrom said after just the Caps’ third loss in their past 15 games. “Everyone is getting involved and a lot of emotions. Even if we lost, these are the games you want to play because you can see how the crowd is into it, too. We love it.”
In other words, the Caps knew they had been worthy of the Penguins’ full attention, unlike past years when the Penguins could point at their three rings from the Crosby era. For once, it was the Penguins who needed to use a midseason game as a message to the reigning champs.
After all, how can a champ really hate a chump? How can you have a rivalry with a team that never beats you when it matters and has no Cups, just hardware?
There are limits to the heights of ill will that can be reached when one team wins titles and the other side mostly hears itself called chokers. That’s why Caps-Penguins games, wonderful as they have been, will be on a higher level going forward.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics had a fine long-running NBA battle in the 1960s with Jerry West and Bill Russell as the central figures. But to this day, West bemoans the inability of his Lakers to reach full playoff equality with Boston — in the eyes of the Celtics. West was, ultimately, someone else’s foil.
The Lakers-Celtics faceoffs didn’t become totally wonderful or command national attention until the main actors were Magic Johnson and Larry Bird — and each side won multiple titles.
For almost a century the Boston Red Sox thought they had a huge rivalry with the New York Yankees. When I started covering their contretemps in the 1970s, I was surprised to discover that the Yankees’ view of the rivalry was: “With them?”
That’s why the Boston comeback from three games behind the Yankees in the 2004 playoffs was so important. The rivalry became real — both ways. And the Red Sox have had much the best of it ever since. Once mystiques of inherent superiority are punctured, they don’t get reestablished for decades.
What the Caps and Penguins are engaged in this season is no less tectonic. Now the Stanley Cup is in Washington’s hands. And the Penguins don’t want what happened to the Celtics in the 1980s and the Yankees in the 2000s to happen to them. When you inherit the upper hand in a not-quite-yet-a-true-rivalry, you sure don’t want the tables turned, because they can get reversed for a long time.
The Caps and their fans think they have had a rivalry with the Penguins since their first playoff battle in the spring of 1991. But hate must be a two-way street.
Until this spring, the Penguins had won nine of 10 of those postseason meetings with me frequently on hand to write the Washington obits, which often could have begun: “Ibid — for details, see last year’s final Caps-Penguins game.”
Now everything is altered. It’s not the same old Caps that the Penguins must deal with now, much as the Penguins would love to change the balance of power back to how things used to be. Now the Penguins must poke the champs to get a rise out of them. And it’s the Penguins, with some justification, who want to settle scores from last season.
After that May series, Pittsburgh was still boiling at Wilson, who got a three-game suspension for breaking the jaw of the Penguins’ Zach Aston-Reese with an illegal hit. Penguins GM Jim Rutherford said, “When Jamie [Oleksiak] challenged him [to fight], Wilson couldn’t run quick enough to get away from him.”
So on Wednesday, Oleksiak needed just five seconds on the ice to take a run at a Caps player against the boards, akin to Wilson’s attack on Aston-Reese. Four seconds later, Wilson arrived at the scene. Unfinished business. Gloves off.
“I think both parties knew,” said Wilson, who missed the first two Caps-Penguins meetings this season because he was suspended for injuring an opponent with an illegal hit in an exhibition game. “I read the stuff that [was] said after last season. . . . Yeah, I think it probably had to be done sooner or later, give him a chance to defend his teammate after what happened last year.”
To many Washington fans, the Caps-Penguins confrontations have been a highlight of the sport’s year for a long time. But we may be too close to see the larger picture. It took 14 years, but finally both Crosby and Ovechkin have rings, and neither team has ghosts. You can be sure the players sense the change.
“That monkey is definitely off this team’s back — [not able to] play their best in the playoffs. That can’t be said anymore,” Lars Eller said. Now “when you play Pittsburgh it’s just knowing that you’re going up against one of the best teams in the league and a contender. Those are the fun games to play.”
As equals. At last.
For more by Thomas Boswell, visit washingtonpost.com/boswell.
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