Kovacevic: Capitals briefly found themselves, but that'll be too late

WASHINGTON -- At some point or other in this Stanley Cup playoff series, Braden Holtby was bound to make a save of consequence.

He made a bunch early in the third period:







At some point or other, Nicklas Backstrom was bound to make a great play worthy of a great playmaker.



He made one in the third:



At some point or other, Evgeny Kuznetsov was bound to be rewarded for being the series' most surprising player to date.

He was in the third:



At some point or other, Alexander Ovechkin was bound to score a goal worthy of his generation's greatest goal-scorer.

He roofed one in the third:



At some point or other, the Capitals were bound to look like the team that's won consecutive Presidents' Trophies rather than a sorry collection of spooked underachievers.

They were precisely the former in the third.

Honestly, if it's doom or gloom or criticism or cynicism you're seeking in the hasty aftermath of the Penguins' 4-2 loss Saturday night in Game 5 of this Stanley Cup playoff series, you won't find it here. And that's not being a Pollyanna about it. The visitors performed at arguably their peak of the entire postseason for the better part of the evening, they kept it up in the pivotal third ... and the other guys finally showed a little something.

A little.

But almost surely, a little too late.

That's not to suggest the Penguins weren't without their faults, as Mike Sullivan and others accurately recited afterward. But it is to suggest they weren't blown away by what happened. Nor should they have been.

"We obviously gave them life when we gave them that first goal," the coach said, referring to Backstrom's tying strike. "We thought we had pretty good control of the game at that point. We talked about being strong at the lines. That's important at this time of year. I thought that goal was avoidable. But give them credit. They're a good team. They've got good players. They scored a couple key goals."

He paused a bit.

"But I thought a lot of the third period, we had some good pushback, some high-quality chances we didn't convert."

Translation: Big whoop.

"We had some chances there early in the third to build on our lead, and we didn't," Sidney Crosby said. "They gained some momentum there for a short time and put a couple in. You're going to lose momentum sometimes."

Translation: What time's faceoff Monday?

"We had the momentum going into the third, and I think we still had it for the first few minutes, too," Nick Bonino said. "We've got to do a better job. I had a couple really good looks on Holtby, but that's why he's up for the Vezina, why he's one of the best in the league. You expect good goaltending in the playoffs, and they got it tonight."

Translation: They had their night.

I'll be more blunt than these guys: I feel completely comfortable assessing this overall performance as the Penguins' most complete of the entire postseason, Columbus included. What's more, it's come as the result of cumulative improvement, an upward curve that, if it continues, will set the stage for a sequel to last summer.

Take a deep breath and stay with me:

• Crosby returned. And survived. And actually played really well. If you're underplaying this as a direct outcome of this particular game, do so at your peril. Nothing mattered more.

• Nothing about Marc-Andre Fleury's play wavered. Go up and look at those three goals again. Then weigh how he looked every bit the same all night as he has all postseason.

• The team defense -- all five skaters -- was as good as it's been in the series. Better, I'd argue. The Penguins' forwards doggedly tracked back, diligently and effectively, and the defensemen were mobile, poised and quickly turned play the other way.

• OK, OK, but what about all those Washington goals in the third? All I can suggest is going up there and looking at all three again. Two were on badly broken plays, one of them a too-hard Evgeni Malkin pass that Carl Hagelin couldn't corral, the other on a bizarre bounce that Kuznetsov beautifully buried from a bad angle. The other was an exceptional, elegant effort, even if any of three Penguins could have been more efficient in cutting him off. And Ovechkin, once again using Ron Hainsey as a personal piñata, did well to pounce on his puck a second time.

• The Capitals went 0 for 7 on the power play and looked increasingly exasperated with each. That's their anchor. Without it, they're just another opponent. Sullivan is smartly assigning a forward to deny Ovechkin those predictable cross-ice feeds, and he's mostly just standing there.

• If any of those pucks gets by Holtby early in the third, when the Penguins unquestionably were at their very best, we'd have witnessed handshakes.

Don't want to hear it?

Fine, you don't like the result. I get it. But go punch a pillow or something and move on.

Because if you think that this group, with this much talent, this much drive and this much buildup toward showing the best version of themselves for all but a handful of minutes ... if you think these guys are going down in three straight to any team, in what would be tantamount to a total collapse, I dare say you haven't been paying attention.

Game 6 is Monday at PPG Paints Arena.

The Penguins' subsequent game will be there, too.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY