Having four days off showed for the Caps, who looked good at
times, especially early, but who looked stale and discombobulated over long
stretches of the contest. It was enough
for the Hurricanes to hang around, not letting the Caps get out of reach after
the Caps twice took one-goal leads. The
first came in the game’s sixth minute when
Jason Chimera chased down a puck near the left wing wall in the Carolina zone
and in one motion turned and whipped a shot past defenseman Ryan Murphy and
through the pads of goalie Anton Khudobin.
That was how the first period would end, but Elias Lindholm
tied the game mid-way through the second period with his first NHL goal, a
rocket…well, that’s how it will be described years from now… OK, a wrist shot
from near the blue line that appeared to nick Tom Wilson, then John Carlson
before tumbling over goalie Braden Holtby’s left pad on the far side.
Just less than a minute later it was Washington’s turn to
have a puck change direction and find its way to the back of the net, Alex Ovechkin
tipping a Steve Oleksy drive down and bouncing it past Khudobin’s right pad to
restore the Caps’ one-goal lead.
Carolina completed what passed for a flurry of goals in the contest two
and a half minutes later when Alexander Semin pulled one out of the Capitals’
play book on a 5-on-3 power play.
Lindholm tied up Nicklas Backstrom enough on a faceoff to Holtby’s left,
allowing Jeff Skinner to jump in and slide the puck back to Eric Staal at the
right point. Staal sent the puck across
to Semin at the top of the left wing faceoff circle where he let fly with a
one-timer that beat Holtby to the short side.
Carolina took the lead for good in the seventh minute of the
third period when the Caps were caught running around in their own end unable
to move the puck out of trouble. Holtby
turned away a drive by Radek Dvorak and held off a bouncing puck on the
rebound, but Nathan Gerbe snuck in on the left side and slipped the puck past
Holtby for what would be the game-winning goal, sending the Caps to 1-3-0 on
the young season.
Other stuff…
-- The Caps are now 0-for-4 in terms of winning games in
regulation. Last year they did the same
(0-3-1). It is a disturbing trend since
the Caps had not gone their first four games without a win in regulation before
that since the 2000-2001 season (0-3-2-1 through six games).
-- Don’t look now, but John Erskine has been on ice for the
last five even-strength goals allowed by the Caps, dating back to the last
even-strength goal scored by Calgary a week ago in a 5-4 Capitals shootout win.
-- Alex Ovechkin’s streak of games with a power play goal
ended at three, denied a career best four straight games with a power play
goal.
-- The Caps are now 0-2-0 in games in which they score
first.
-- Mike Green did not record a shot on goal in 23-plus
minutes. It is only the second time in
his last 82 games that he recorded no shots on goal in a game where he finished
with at least 20 minutes of ice time.
-- The top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and
Marcus Johansson recorded 10 of the Capitals’ 32 shots on goal. That’s the good part. The not so good is that
Ovechkin had eight of them.
-- The second line of Brooks Laich, Mikhail Grabovski, and
Troy Brouwer had four shots on goal for the night, only two after the first period
(both by Laich).
-- The fourth line of Martin Erat, Michael Latta, and Tom
Wilson had no shots on goal. Not only
that, they did not have a single shot attempt.
-- If Tom Wilson gets two shifts and 1:23 of ice time in a
tied/one-goal game in the third period (none in the last 13 minutes after he
was on ice for the game-winning goal), what is he doing here?
-- From the “not what it seemed” file… the Caps were
unsuccessful on five power plays. That
is the first time the Caps went oh-fer on five or more power plays since they
went 0-for-5 against Philadelphia last February 1st. They had a streak of seven straight instances
broken in which they scored at least one power play goal on five or more
chances. But here’s the thing… those
five power plays consumed a total of 6:01, not the ten minutes five
unsuccessful power plays would have consumed had they been full power plays.
-- Alexander Semin still got it. Oh, yeah, the power play shot, sure. But it was pure Semin to see him go into full
flail and open-mouthed silent scream a moment before he was actually hit by
Alex Ovechkin on a coincidental penalty late in the contest.
-- That was the first time the Caps lost a one-goal decision
to Carolina at home since February 2008.
In the end, the best thing that can be said about this game
is that it’s over. The Caps were not
terrible, although they did have terrible moments (the game-winning goal, for
instance). They had decent moments, but
hardly put together stretches of play that rose to the level of decent,
especially after the first period. Some
of that was Carolina playing a safe, chip the puck along, take the local bus
kind of game (they had only 52 shot attempts in 60 minutes). But the Caps didn’t
help themselves and now have three goals in their last two games and only five
even strength goals in four games. They
have yet to win at all in the “hockey” portion of games (their lone win coming
in the Gimmick). That won’t get it
done. It wouldn’t even get it done in
the old Southeast Division, and it should not escape notice that Carolina used
to be a Southeast Division team, too.
