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Varlamov Catapults Caps Back Into Series

Apr 22, 2009, 5:45 PM UTC

Last Friday, I wrote about how the eyes of Washington hockey fans were all upon Jose Theodore and whether or not he had the stuff to continue as the goalie for the Capitals this postseason. Last Saturday, Caps head coach Bruce Boudreau gave a rather emphatic answer: no, at least for now, and he turned the keys over to 20-year old rookie Simeon Varlamov.â†µâ†µWhile Washington still lost Game Two of their playoff series with the New York Rangers by a score of 1-0, the loss couldn’t be blamed on Varlamov, who was left exposed on a 2-on-1 break by his teammates on the game’s only goal by New York’s Ryan Callahan. And since then, Varlamov has held up his end of the deal, playing more than 112 minutes of shutout hockey while helping his team climb back into the series, backstopping the Caps to a 4-0 win in Game Three.â†µ

â†µâ†µNo, Varlamov wasn’t the only reason the Caps managed to win on Monday night, but he certainly made life more comfortable for his teammates, stopping pucks at moments in time when Theodore has become infamous for giving up soft goals and maddeningly inconsistent play. And it certainly doesn’t hurt to be lucky, as Varlamov discovered early in Game Three.â†µ

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â†µAfter Alexander Semin had given Washington a 1-0 lead, it wasn't long before the Rangers drove back into the Washington defensive zone and Callahan unleashed a shot on net that hit the left post and trickled through the crease behind Varlamov. Unfortunately for New York, that was as close as the puck ever got to the back of the Caps net all night long, as Washington collected the puck, cleanly broke out of its own end and saw Semin promptly scored his second goal of the period to give the Caps a 2-0 lead they would never relinquish.â†µ

â†µâ†µTo say the momentum has shifted in this series would be a complete understatement. You could sense the ice begin to shift with Alex Ovechkin’s impromptu appearance at New York’s pre-game skate on Monday afternoon, an action that Ovechkin admitted was calculated to anger New York head coach John Tortorella. And it didn’t take long on Monday night to see that Washington, after going through the motions in Games One and Two, had finally decided to commit themselves to a playoff-brand of hockey, complete with more physical play that seemed to knock New York off kilter.â†µ

â†µâ†µAs for Varlamov, he seems to be taking it all in stride. Despite seeing plenty of Rangers winger Sean Avery in his crease in Game Three, Varlamov refused to be cowed by the NHL’s resident bad boy -- partly due to the fact that he couldn’t understand half of what Avery was saying because of his limited English skills. Still, when the time came late in the third period, Varlamov managed to give Avery a little love tap that goaded the Ranger into taking a 10-minute misconduct penalty that knocked him from the game.â†µ

â†µâ†µBy dint of Varlamov’s play -- he’s turned away 56 of 57 shots he’s faced while becoming only the fourth goalie in NHL history to post a playoff shutout before his 21st birthday -- Boudreau is going to have a tough time lifting him from the lineup even if his play falters a bit. Inside the organization, Varlamov has been seen as the goalie of the future ever since the Caps selected him with the 23rd overall pick in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. But what no one anticipated was that the future would come so soon. And truth be told, if you talked to hockey fans around town, his ascension to the starting job really just came in the nick of time.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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