Dose: How open is that window?

When the Washington Capitals fell to the New York Rangers in Game 6, I got into a discussion with my buddy Corey Griffin about what kind of storylines might emerge if the Capitals ended up losing Wednesday’s Game 7 to boot. After quickly slash-and-burning the hacky hot takes that would surely surface, I stumbled across a discussion that I think is a whole lot more interesting: the often tough-to-gauge “windows” each sports team has to win big.

As a mostly dormant fan* of the NBA’s Phoenix Suns, I’ve learned quite painfully that windows can shut suddenly and shockingly. Merely seeing Amare Stoudemire as a shell (albeit likely a ludicrously wealthy shell, unless his money people are REALLY corrupt) of himself as a Dallas Maverick was a bittersweet reminder of that notion, which I guess has rattled around my head and heart for some time.

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Anyway, the talk of windows centered around Alex Ovechkin, but it’s an interesting thing to ponder considering Tuesday’s results and Wednesday’s upcoming Game 7 … not to mention the remainder of the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs.

Ovechkin and the Capitals - It feels like Washington has been building anew endlessly since they tried to make Bruce Boudreau dance to a tempo that his feet couldn’t respond to. For better or worse, the Capitals at least have a clear path with Barry Trotz in the cockpit.

The feeling is that this is the “groundbreaking” of the “hey Ovie finally gets it!” era … which is faulty logic enough, but even if that was true, the sobering fact is that Ovechkin will be 30 when the 2015-16 season starts. The big three-oh might not bite someone as once-in-a-generation as Ovechkin, yeah you have to think that he’ll slow down a bit at some point.

Worse yet, moves that I believe were a mistake will come back to bite the Capitals. Mike Green is a UFA and seems like a good bet to bolt being that Washington has $5.75 million wrapped up in Matt Niskanen (meh) and $5.5M going to Brooks Orpik (good gravy). Restricted free agents or not, Braden Holtby and Evgeny Kuznetsov could eat up a lot of the cash that would go to giving Ovechkin some support. If you’re a big Joel Ward fan, he’s a UFA too.

Does this mean the Caps are doomed after this year? Not necessarily, but the problem has just about always been not giving Ovechkin enough help, and that might be simply the way things persist.

Let me run down other perceived window situations in lesser detail:

Canadiens conundrum: Marc Bergevin has distinguished himself as, in my opinion, a quite competent GM. Still, I think his most important job is to can Michel Therrien.

It said a lot to me that the Habs couldn’t “find that extra gear” to really even threaten Tampa Bay last night with their season on the line, even with a nice gap between Games 5 and 6. I’ve long felt that Therrien is a “bridge” coach - one who can get you from bad to good - but can’t hit that extra level. Montreal may just waste the peak years of Carey Price and P.K. Subban if they don’t find a coach who can better balance tight D with at least some offensive aggression.

Lightning: My feeling is that Tampa Bay’s window is large. Then again, Ryan Callahan and his unfortunate injury luck may not be a bigger problem than Callahan’s contract possibly making it tough to retain the Bolts’ barrel of promising young talent.

Rangers: A team going all-in at the tail end (presumably?) of Henrik Lundqvist’s prime makes sense … although what if Cam Talbot’s for real? Scoff at that all you want, but recall that Lundqvist was a seventh-round draft pick.

The weird thing about GM Glen Sather is that he seemed better off making measured moves, yet he just can’t help himself with all-in moves in management poker. Sometimes that’s lucrative (Rick Nash) and sometimes it’s questionable (Keith Yandle). But hey, it’s been awhile since he’s made a Holik/Redden type blunder …

Ducks: Anaheim’s stocked well enough with young talent that they could be good for a while, as long as Bruce Boudreau stays healthy to remain a wildly underrated coach (watching his face turn red so often makes me worry, something I’ve mentioned before).

That said, the West is so strong, you never really know.

Chicago and the cap: The Blackhawks have been battling budgetary limitations for years, but how long can they walk that tightrope? They probably feel like they’ll be conference finalists forever, but you never know …

Anyway, enough pontificating on the future of these teams, especially since this spitballin’ will probably seem dumb in retrospect. Let’s get on to last night’s game.

LIGHTNING 4, CANADIENS 1 (Tampa Bay advances to ECF)

-- It’s remarkable that every member of the Lightning’s real/other top line equals or exceeds Steve Stamkos’ three goals so far in the 2015 postseason. Ondrej Palat - that slacker - ties Stamkos with three. Nikita Kucherov scored twice in Game 6 to give himself six. Tyler Johnson went pointless on Tuesday, but Jon Cooper will probably let it slide, what with his eight goals and 12 points in the playoffs so far and all.

-- Let’s not get too wrapped up in Stamkos goal talk, though. He’s getting points more often than not. Tuesday represented his third tally of the playoffs, but he has 10 points in 13 contests. He’s three points away from tying his postseason career-high of 13 in 18 games back when Tampa Bay lost in Game 7 of the 2011 Eastern Conference finals, which may feel like a torch hand-off moment for the Lightning franchise in retrospect.

-- I love P.K. Subban for trash-talking (we need more of this, sports are supposed to be fun), but the risk is getting burned in defeat. Ben Bishop got him pretty good with his horseshoe barb, I’d say.

Bishop’s updated 2015 playoff stats: 8-5-0, .931 save percentage, 1.81 GAA and one shutout. He enjoyed a successful “quantity over quality” 2014-15 campaign to some extent, but he’s been fantastic so far in the postseason. I don’t see much of reason not to recommend drafting him (if the time is right) aside from the fact that talented competition is coming his way sooner or later in Andrei Vasilevskiy.

(That and goalies are strange, strange beasts.)

-- Silly to pin much on Carey Price, who finished the postseason with a .920 save percentage. That said, it backs up the belief held by some - myself included - that Montreal couldn’t afford Price dropping from all-world to merely very, very good.

-- Very difficult playoffs for Tomas Plekanec. I recall some of his previous scoring struggles coming from a pretty ridiculous defensive workload last season in particular, yet I’m not sure what was wrong in these playoffs after a nice regular season. The only thing I could find from others is a reasonable tweet wondering why David Desharnais - a player I refer to as French Canada’s Tyler Bozak - wasn’t getting comparable heat. Anyway, I don’t know, but it’s a bummer for the Habs either way. Obviously.

(Actually, there was something about a missed opportunity and a turnover in Game 6, but I’m more intrigued about his bigger-picture struggles than a couple tough moments.)

-- The Lightning fared better against the Rangers than the Capitals during the regular season, but I’m not so certain that makes a difference in which team Tampa Bay fans should hope to see. Maybe getting home-ice against Washington but not New York would tip the scales?

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* - NHL and NBA seasons/playoffs run parallel to each other to such a degree that I essentially missed the “Suns have Isaiah Thomas, not the new Isiah Thomas” era.