And, then they give you hope

In staying with my "keep positive" theme, I won't talk about the Caps game 5 except to say this.  They played like lazy hockey players.  I'm sure Dale was not happy.  I wasn't.  Onward to game 6.

Tonight, in game 6, the Caps showed up to play playoff hockey and beat the Rangers 2-1 to force a game 7 at Madison Square Garden.  Braden Holtby stopped everything he had to and didn't give the Rangers any juicy rebounds.  He snagged pucks out of the air and made ridiculous saves. This game started with his performance and also with Alex Ovechkin's power play goal 1:28 in the first period.  That was sweet.  Even better, it proved that the power play works a lot better when Ovie is not on the point.

Bottom line, the Caps always do things the hard way and tonight wasn't any different, like during that last minute surge from the Rangers when Marion Gaborik scored with 51 seconds left.  It's oh so irritating to be a Caps fan, at times.

Other highlights of notes:

• Matt Hendricks, 4 hits tonight and 54% faceoff wins, not to mention timely hits and gritty play.  The dude is meant to play playoff hockey and is enjoying his moment in the sun.  
• Jason "I'll take Manhattan" Chimera scores his 5th playoff goal against the Rangers.  He has 7 career playoff goals total.  Chimera loves playing against Henrik Lundqvist.  His goal tonight was a thing of beauty as he calmly potted a puck from John Carlson into the net.
• The penalty killers - killed off a 4-minute penalty when Jeff Halpern got caught on a high sticking call.
• The Rangers had 31 shots and 24 of them were blocked by Caps, including 3 by Ovie. Wow, just wow.  I'm not used to Caps teams, of late, giving it their all.  This shows they did.

Anything can happen in a game 7.  Hockey is a game that is all about seconds.  That's what makes it exciting.

Let's go Caps!