Capitals' Trotz: 'We're comfortable being uncomfortable'

Plight wasn't something the Washington Capitals dealt with readily during the regular season.

This is a team that shot out to an insurmountable division lead long before clinching the Eastern Conference with three weeks left in the regular season. They ended up with 120 points - or the most league-wide since the franchise racked up 121 six years prior.

So when their offense was sapped when the Philadelphia Flyers introduced Michal Neuvirth to the first-round series, and when they were clinging to a one-goal lead in their third chance to bury an inferior opponent, this iteration appeared to be experiencing something foreign.

But not unnerving.

"I think we've come full circle, where we're comfortable being uncomfortable, if you will," head coach Barry Trotz said after the decisive Game 6 win.

"Sometimes you're not going to get much, and you have to be patient. That's probably where we've grown the most: in patience and poise."

Of course, just because the Capitals were able to click it into cruise control at times this season doesn't mean they're without resolve. In fact, defenseman Karl Alzner calls overcoming adversity - whether it's erasing deficits or staying with a sputtering attack - the team's "calling card."

And that self-assurance has traveled all the way up to ownership.

"Even I felt stable," team owner Ted Leonsis said.