WASHINGTON -- No one is ceding this first-round playoff series to the Washington Capitals no matter how impressive they were in beating down the plucky New York Islanders 5-1 in Game 5 Thursday night to take a 3-2 lead.

The playoffs teach hard lessons to anyone, fan, player, coach, reporter, who dares to announce a series over before the final horn sounds.

Ask the San Jose Sharks of a year ago.

Or the Vancouver Canucks in the 2011 finals.

Or these same Capitals in the first round of the '10 playoffs.

Or, well, you get the point.

The Islanders are a good hockey team, and they have played better than many people, including this ink-stained wretch, believed they were capable of playing.

But on Thursday night, for the first time, we felt the tilting of the scales, felt not the ebb and flow of the first four games but a tidal wave moving the series inexorably to a Capitals win. It's a feeling, nothing more, based in part on the physical wear and tear on the Islanders. (Likely missing in Game 6 will be blueliners Travis Hamonic, Lubomir Visnovsky and Calvin de Haan, who was injured in Game 5.) This Capitals team seems to be tracking on an upward arc.

Game 5 evolved from a back and forth hit-fest -- with the two teams trading thunderous checks and quality scoring chances in the first half -- to complete domination by the Capitals. Washington took the lead in the middle of the game and then poured three more goals past Jaroslav Halak in the first portion of the third period. The display revealed the Capitals team the fan base in the nation’s capital has been pining for.

"I think in the last 30 minutes, we didn't leave the game to chance," coach Barry Trotz said before the Capitals flew to Long Island for Saturday's matchup.

A game of chance in some ways describes the Capitals flirtations with playoff success in the past.

When Trotz took over for Adam Oates last offseason, Trotz determined that the team was committed to outscoring the opposition but not to stopping them.

"They weren't really comfortable playing close games," Trotz said.

The Capitals either won big or lost big. And success was more often than not predicated on whether stars Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom were successful -- and often, as an extension of their performance, whether the power play was working.

There was a dysfunction with how the team viewed the game, Trotz said. They wanted to play one way, but often that kind of game didn't present itself. "They weren't sure how to handle it," Trotz said.

Under Trotz, the team learned to adapt.

"We've become very comfortable playing close games," Trotz said. "By doing that we've been able to win games a lot of different ways. The game plan is not the same every game."

They are not a perfect team by any stretch. In Game 5, the Capitals did not get a point from either Ovechkin or Backstrom, and their power play was 0-for-3 (1-for-10 for the series). But they are a different team now.

The Capitals have given up the first goal in four of five games and all three games played at Verizon Center. Would previous incarnations of this team have rallied to get to this point?

"Never," longtime broadcast analyst and former Capital Alan May told ESPN.com Friday. "All of these guys are just so much more determined."

It didn't happen overnight. In fact, May said it wasn't until early December that it seemed Trotz's game plan started to click.

"People weren't allowed to be the same," May said.

Defenseman Karl Alzner, for instance, is putting more pucks on net, using his physicality to pinch and make plays.

The entire team's commitment to winning individual battles along the boards and to create a significant presence in front of the opposing net is also wholly different than in the past, May said.

Almost every goal scored by the team in this series has involved some sort of net-front presence.

"I've never seen that in all my years covering the Caps," May said.

May cited the play of Joel Ward in Game 5 as an example, protecting the puck along the boards and then making plays from that position.

"There's so many little elements of the game that are different," May said.

"There's just so much structure."

In the grand tote board of the playoffs, the Capitals have done next to nothing. They've won three games. They aren't even out of the first round let alone making something approaching a run.

But watching them is to understand there's been an evolution; that they are on a different path no matter where it ends up or when.

"I think we're closer to that being our DNA and being part of the culture of the group," Trotz said of that hard-nosed play that we have seen in this series and dating to the regular season.

The buy-in from Ovechkin and Backstrom on down has been good.

"It's a pretty easy sell," the coach said.

Now we'll see where exactly this metamorphosis will take this franchise after so many years of pining for exactly this moment.