from Thomas Bosewell of the Washington Post,

The boos started in Verizon Center with 33.5 seconds left to play and all hope gone — again. The wave of disappointment from Washington fans, to give them credit, was not terribly loud, a kind of ritual admonition administered annually with only middling conviction to the incorrigible child of American pro sports: the Washington Capitals.

The punishment perfectly fit the crime because the Caps played with merely middling conviction themselves in their season-ending 2-0 loss to Pittsburgh in Game 7 of their second-round Stanley Cup playoff series, the exact postseason juncture at which this pupil with “A” talent almost always hands in a “D” paper on the final exam.

Some of the red-clad Caps fans trickled out of Verizon during a last desperate, pathetically pointless Washington timeout. But the huge majority stayed seated. Who has the bad manners to stand up and walk out before the funeral is finished?

This was, indeed, a funeral for hockey hope. The Caps, who claimed publicly long ago that they would win multiple Stanley Cups in the Alex Ovechkin Era, and who were predicted to win the Cup often, including this year, may never be so strong again. Or face a central foe so wounded as the Penguins, who were without their best goalie, their best defenseman, Kris Letang, and, in Game 7, useful veterans defenseman Trevor Daley and winger Carl Hagelin, too.

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