Maybe this is the year for Washington Capitals?

Marcus Johansson has experienced the painful embarrassment of Washington Capitals’ playoff losses.

Not all of them. He wasn’t there for the previous heart-stopping scare from the Eastern Conference’s lowest seed, when the Capitals lost to the Montreal Canadiens in 2010. Or that seven-game second-round loss to the Penguins in 2009.

But he was there for the second-round sweep by the Lightning, the three straight Game 7 losses to the New York Rangers and last season’s six-game defeat to the Penguins.

Each time, we wondered if this was “the year” for the Capitals.

Each time, it wasn’t.

So what about this year?

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What about a year where the Capitals don’t fold in the face of adversity but endure and overcome it? What about a year when a young team, flying around the ice without the burden of expectations anchored to them, is dispatched in six immensely entertaining games that went to overtime five times, but ended before the palpable uncertainty of a seventh?

Is this the year?

“It was a tough series. A lot of credit to them. They gave us everything they had. We had to stick with it for a long time. It shows a lot of character in our group,” said Marcus Johansson, who scored both goals for the Capitals, including the overtime winner. “I think it’s good for us that we got a start where everything didn’t go smoothly.”

Smoothly, it did not go. Not with Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs outplaying them for stretches, and showing the potential that will eventually (and finally) bring a Stanley Cup back to Toronto one day.

“We knew it was going to be a tough series. We knew it more than most of the media, and the general public,” said coach Barry Trotz.

And not with those supernatural, “here we go again” moments like the bounce that gave Matthews a chance to score the first goal of Game 6 in the third period.

“We kept on getting better and better as the pressure got higher,” said goalie Braden Holtby. “We responded. We didn’t play the victim.”

As Trotz said: “That says a lot about us.”

Psychoanalysis of the Capitals has become a cottage industry over the last decade. One imagines they’ll be on the analyst’s couch for the next few days, leading up to their series opener against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night.

The Sidney Crosby vs. Alex Ovechkin stuff. The Braden Holtby vs. the Penguins stuff. The Washington Capitals vs. getting out of the second round stuff, or vs. getting out of their own way stuff.

Passing this difficult first-round test … is this the year?

“I like where are team is going, as terms as the growth and finding the next level of maturity,” said Trotz. “Every experience that you have in the playoffs, you grow a little bit. It adds a layer of hardness. A layer of understanding. A layer of will, or competitive backbone, when you have these series.”

The Capitals showed some backbone in beating the Leafs. Let’s see what else they can show against the Penguins.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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