After-Math -- Caps vs. Hurricanes

No points, Caps fans…

“Hard Knocks, School of”

That’s where the Caps are enrolled now as they get some very hands-on lessons in what it takes to win in the National Hockey League. Last night the boys extended their exercise in offensive futility to 131:47 in a 3-0 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, sinking to 0-4-2 in their last six games overall and 0-4-3 in their last seven home games.

Again, it wasn’t for a lack of effort. The Caps had some difficulty on defense (more than the score might indicate), Carolina failing to find the back of several open nets over the course of the evening as they successfully broke the Caps down in deep on occasion. But the Caps competed for just about all of the 60 minutes.

The difference, as one might expect between a Stanley Cup champion and a team merely aspiring to playing in a playoff round, is skill. But more than that, it is experience. The top line for the Hurricanes – Rod Brind’Amour, Ray Whitney, and Justin Williams – has 2,492 regular season games worth of experience among them. The 18 skaters the Caps iced last night have 3,840 (and Donald Brashear has 832 of that). Ten Caps have fewer than two full seasons worth of experience, four of them less than one full year. A kid who is still learning where to place his fingers to play chords on a guitar isn’t going to play like Jimi Hendrix . . . not for a while at least.

Hidden in the rubble of this game are a few nuggets of good play:

- This was the fourth time in five games that the Caps have held the opposition without a power play goal. They’ve killed the last 14 shorthanded situations in which they’ve found themselves, and 30 of the last 34 (88.2 percent).

- Alexander Semin is trying to find a balance between keeping the puck all to himself and looking for the open player. Offensively, he was the best of the Caps last night (although when you don’t score any goals, that qualifies as faint praise).

- Jeff Schultz accomplished what is one of the most difficult things to do in the NHL – knock Rod Brind’Amour off his feet. Mike Green made Eric Staal pay for a trip to the crease by planting the forward flat on his back.

- Brent Johnson displayed the same acrobatic success he showed in the closing weeks of last season. 42 saves on 44 shots (.955 save percentage). It goes without saying, he deserved better.

But for the time being, look at that image above. That’s the Caps – the donut offense. Nothing in the middle. Last night was primarily “Jiri Novotny Night” as far as auditions go for centering the Alexes (Kris Beech and Brian Sutherby also got a shift or two). Novotny played earnestly, if not effectively. He’s still feeling his way, both in his new surroundings as a Cap and just in terms of ice time (68 total games of experience). Here’s another way to look at the center situation for the Caps. Seven players who are natural centers still in the Caps’ organization (i.e., discounting the contributions of Dainius Zubrus) have taken the ice for the Caps this year: Kris Beech, Brian Sutherby, Jiri Novotny, Brooks Laich, Jakub Klepis, Alexandre Giroux, and Boyd Gordon. Combined, they have 275 games played and are 27-56-83 . . .

27-56-83 . . . that’s Daniel Briere (27-52-79) in 66 games.

No amount of complaining about the Caps’ condition is going to bake this cake any faster. Guys like Novotny need to get games under their belts, and the product of that part of the lesson book is frustrating nights like these, when one bounce, one deflection, one seeing-eye puck could have been the difference between a win and a loss.