SWEET REDEMPTION!!!

11 years of frustration looked like it was going to be 12 years of frustration. The Caps came out flat and were outplayed for the first 40 minutes. But the goaltending of Simeon Varlamov kept them in it and the old man got it done in the 3rd. Who else put Sergei Fedorov could have come though with such a huge goal? What a shot and what an atmosphere at Verizon Center. I wish I could have been there. It must have been unbelieveable. The fans that have packed the arena all season and us fans who have suffered with this team deserved this one. The Capitals deserved this one and finally the light shined on us all. Finally! I can't say enough about the defense the entire game and the checking lines the past 3. The Caps finally realized it takes 12 forwards and 6 defensemen to win a playoff series and they completed the amazing comeback. I will have a sore rotator cuff tomorrow morning, but I don't care. I lost my mind when Feds scored that goal and pretty much threw my shoulder out trying to keep quiet as my 2 year old was sleeping in the next room. My wife pretty much thought I was completely nuts, but she married me, so she knew what she was getting into. (though this was the first series win since I've known her). The celebration was great, but a lot of it was just a sigh of relief. This Capitals team has been around for 34 years. They've pretty much been cursed for 32 of those years. Only 1990 and 1998 were years where things went their way. All the rest of those years usually ended in bitter disappointment. No matter what happens the rest of this postseason, this team has taken that next step. This young team will only get better and perhaps one day we'll end that curse and finally raise the Cup. But first it's our old friends, the Penguins. Thanks to Carolina's amazing finish/the Devils brutal choke job, the Caps will face Pittsburgh in Round 2. The NHL pretty much got exactly what they wanted with a Caps/Pens series. This one should be wild. The Penguins have the edge in playoff experience, but perhaps the Caps finally learned what they have to do in order to win a playoff series, so this one should be a good one. Get ready for the subplots like Crosby vs. Ovechkin. (By the way, have you noticed Crosby's celebrations have gotten a little more wild since he insulted Ovie... hmmmm.) Can Varlamov continue to play well? He will need to because the Penguins are much much much more offensively gifted than the Rangers. But on the flip side, the Rangers were a much better defensive team than the Pens, so these games could be shootouts. In order for the Caps to win, they have to play puck possession a heck of a lot better than they did in Game 7 and the defense must be tough and the Caps need to stay out of the box. I think they can win, but it will not be easy. Then again, they NEVER make it easy. But for one night, it was all good again for the Caps. They won a series and they finally were the victors in a big big game. FINALLY!!!!