WASHINGTON, D.C. – As time ticked off the clock in the third period of Tuesday night's Game Seven with the score tied, one couldn't help but wonder if the Capitals felt like they were in the midst of a recurring nightmare.

 

One year ago, the Caps battled back from a 3-1 series deficit in the opening round of the playoffs against the Philadelphia Flyers and went into Game Seven with home ice advantage and all the momentum. But the Flyers played a tight game and held on down to the wire to force overtime, eventually winning on a Joffrey Lupul power play goal.

Tuesday night, the opponent was donning Rangers blue and red instead of Flyers orange and black, but the situation was nearly identical. Cue the wily veteran who'd been there before, re-writing the script and turning the nightmare into a fantastic dream.

With five minutes left in regulation and the Caps and Rangers tied at one, where they'd been since the first period, 39-year-old Sergei Fedorov ripped a shot over Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist's left shoulder and into the net to send the Caps into the Eastern Conference Semifinals.

"This is incredible," Caps defenseman Mike Green said. "You see the teams that move on and how excited they get, and last year we fell short but it's definitely a good feeling right now."

With the tension palpable in Verizon Center late in the third period and 18-thousand strong ready to blow the roof off the place, Fedorov gave them a reason. The three-time Stanley Cup winner got a pass from Matt Bradley and flew into the offensive zone, made a hard stop to create separation between him and Rangers defender Wade Redden, then roofed a hard wrist shot that beat Lundqvist glove side.

It was Fedorov's first goal of the playoffs, and Bradley's assist on the play was his first helper, as well.

"All I remember is just, not much going on, so I decided to shoot the puck, and I stop, and I did it," Fedorov said. "I knew D's giving me short side, I guess Henrik went down and I shot it top shelf. ... It's pretty standard for what we practice, I guess," he added, downplaying the effort.

"When he gets a chance to get that thing off, he can shoot it," Caps Head Coach Bruce Boudreau said in his post-game press conference. "Let's face it, experience sometimes pays off and he knew what he had to do and when to do it and that's what makes him one of the greatest players ever."

"He's our best guy. He have more experience than anybody in this locker room," said Alex Ovechkin after the game. "He just shows his leadership."

For the next 4:59, the capacity crowd didn’t let up for a second, roaring their team on to their first playoff series victory since the 1997-1998 season. That year, the Caps made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals before losing to Fedorov's Detroit Red Wings.

"The city is very excited about hockey right now," Caps defenseman Brian Pothier said. "The fans tonight were exceptional. My ears were popping the last five minutes of the game. It was almost painful."

"My ears are still ringing. It felt like the AC/DC concert I went to in the beginning of the year," said Caps Captain Chris Clark. "I won't be able to hear all night, but it's a great feeling, knowing that our fans are on our side like that."

With the win the Caps became just the 21st team to come back and win a series after trailing 3-1. Two hundred nine others have failed to successfully climb out of that hole.

Early in the game, you never would have known the Caps had won the previous two games, as the Rangers came out with all the energy and put the pressure on Washington's defense.

The New Yorkers got the game's first big scoring chance just 40 seconds into the game when forward Nik Antropov got behind the Caps defense and caught a long pass from out of the Rangers defensive zone. Antropov went in alone on Simeon Varlamov, but the Caps goalie sniffed out the in-tight move and stuffed Antropov with his right leg pad. The momentum of Varlamov's push across the crease knocked the net out of place, stopping play and ending the threat.

But Antropov wouldn't miss on his second opportunity. Five and a half minutes into the game, Rangers agitator Sean Avery controlled the puck in the corner of Washington's defensive zone despite a barrage of hits from Fedorov and Pothier. Avery finally broke free and got a centering pass to Brandon Dubinsky, who attempted to bring the puck across the front of the net but was poke-checked by Varlamov. Unfortunately for the Russian rookie, the puck squirted right to Antropov, who quickly ripped a high shot into the net to give the Rangers an early 1-0 lead.

It was Antropov's second goal of the series. Dubinsky's assist was his third helper and Avery's was his second.

"We knew they were going to come out no holds barred tonight and that's what they did," Caps defenseman Tom Poti said. "Give them credit, they played a great game."

The Caps evened the score with a fluke goal almost exactly 10 minutes later, just after killing a Green goalie interference penalty. Green burst out of the box as his penalty expired, picked up the puck in the neutral zone and then sent it forward to Nicklas Backstrom. Backstrom skated it into the Rangers zone and flicked a pass toward the blue line to Alexander Semin, who pulled back for a wrist shot. As he did, Rangers forward Ryan Callahan slid in from across the zone looking to block the shot, but instead Semin's shot rolled up Callahan's stick and deflected off his body, sending it fluttering over a stunned Lundqvist and into the net.

Semin's goal was his fifth of the series, which tied him with Carolina's Eric Staal for the most in the first round. Backstrom's assist was his seventh, which led the league, and Green's helper was his fourth.

The goal came on just the second shot of the game for the Caps, and the home team must have gone into the first intermission feeling lucky to have a 1-1 tie as they were outshot, 8-2, and had several defensive lapses that led to Rangers scoring opportunities.

The Caps reversed the pressure in the second period, though, earning the first dynamite opportunity about two minutes into the frame. Alex Ovechkin nabbed a loose puck in the neutral zone, brought it into offensive territory and got a low shot on net. Lundqvist made the stop but the puck came out to Caps winger Viktor Kozlov, who brought the puck around the front of the net and appeared to have the Rangers goalie down and out, but Kozlov failed to get the shot up and Lundqvist was able to lunge back and swat the puck down with his catching glove.

The Caps had another great chance late in the second period when Ovechkin got the puck in front of Lundqvist and passed to a wide-open Chris Clark on the doorstep, but Clark had his stick lifted and whiffed with half the net open in front of him.

In the third period the Capitals defense took over and allowed only one Rangers shot. That set the stage for the tense final moments, until Fedorov stepped up with the winning goal.

"You look at our team and you think offense ... with the superstars we have up front and the snipers we have up front, so obviously our defense is going to take a backseat to those guys," Poti said. "Defense wins championships and ... defense got us the win this series."

"We've been ... maybe criticized a little bit on the defensive game throughout the season, but it seems like we're starting to pull together defensively, and if we're going to win that needs to happen," said Green.

Washington now goes on to face the rival Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round, and there is no shortage of playoff history between the two teams.

They faced each other in the playoffs seven times in the 11 seasons from 1990 to 2001, with the Penguins taking six of those series. The first of those was the only second round series of the bunch, and the Penguins won that one en route to their first of back-to-back Stanley Cup Championships.

The story, of course, will be Ovechkin and Semin versus Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, but Varlamov has certainly earned some attention.

The Caps netminder, who just turned 21 on Monday, stopped 14 of 15 Rangers shots on Tuesday to complete the series with a stunning .952 save percentage and 1.17 goals against average over six games. He also shut the Rangers out twice.

On feeling the pressure of Game Seven, Varlamov said through an interpreter after the game: "The pressure is not really something new for me. We have that back in Russia."

The second round series starts when the defending Eastern Conference Champions from Pittsburgh come to D.C. on Saturday for a 1 p.m. Game One. As Boudreau said, referring to the Caps-Penguins series: "Welcome to the circus."


NOTES:
The Caps improved their record to 2-5 in the seventh game of series. Their only other win was in 1988 against the Flyers, in another series in which they came back from down 3-1 to force a Game Seven at home.

Caps enforcer Donald Brashear was suspended six games by the NHL on Tuesday: One game for shoving Rangers enforcer Colton Orr during warm-ups and five games for a high, late hit on Blair Betts. Clark stepped in for Brashear on the fourth line, making his first appearance since January 27 as he battled a lingering wrist injury.

The Rangers called up forward Artem Anisimov to replace Betts, who suffered a fractured orbital bone on the hit by Brashear in Game Six.