The Washington Capitals started a three-game road trip last
night by visiting the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The trip did not get off to a good start, the Caps dropping a 4-3
decision to the Penguins at Consol Energy Center. It was
Washington’s third consecutive loss and ninth in their last dozen games.
It was another case of the Caps being unable to hold a
lead. They had three opportunities to do
so. The first one came after Brooks
Laich opened the scoring in the first period with a shorthanded goal. In the 14th minute, with Joel Ward
off for tripping, Laich picked up a loose puck at the Penguins’ blue line, and
seeing room on the left side, he stepped up. Defenseman Kris Letang tried to poke
the puck away, but Laich held on, stepped around Letang and snapped a shot over
goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s blocker to start the scoring.
After Letang got the goal back with one of his own midway
through the second period, finishing what was a 4-on-2 rush, Jason Chimera gave
the Caps a 2-1 lead. It started with
Joel Ward skating the puck behind the Penguins’ net and sending a pass out to Dmitry Orlov at the left point. Orlov
stepped to the middle and sent a pass deep to Marcus Johansson at the bottom of
the right wing circle. Johansson wasted
no time moving the puck to the middle where Chimera was waiting in the
slot. Chimera, who was left alone by the
Penguin defense, had an almost empty net at which to shoot, and he buried the
shot.
Pittsburgh tied the game less than two minutes later, Taylor
Pyatt snapping a pass from Olii Maatta past goalie Michal Neuvirth before
defenseman John Erskine could tie him up.
That did it for the scoring in the second period, the teams tied at
2-2. That score held into the ninth
minute, but then the Caps took their third lead of the night. After having his stick slashed out of his
hands in the left wing faceoff circle by Brooks Orpik, Alex Ovechkin retrieved his stick and
one-timed a pass from Johansson past Fleury at 8:35 of the period
It was another lead that would not last long. Precisely three minutes, in fact. Jussi Jokinen tied the game for the third
time at 11:35 when he redirected a centering feed past Neuvirth. It was actually a case of defenseman Dmitry
Orlov getting his stick on the puck first, but in his shooting motion Jokinen
hit Orlov’s stick, the action thus batting the puck into the net past
Neuvirth’s blocker.
To that point the teams alternated goals, but the Caps would
not keep the chain going. Pittsburgh
scored next and last, Olli Maatta shooting through a screen from the top of the
left wing circle with just 1:54 left to end the scoring for the evening, the
Pens skating off with a 4-3 win.
Other stuff…
-- The loss dropped the Capitals to third in the
Metropolitan Division behind the Philadelphia Flyers by virtue of the Flyers
having more wins in the same 47 games played.
-- Holding the Penguins’ top scorers – Evgeni Malkin and
Sidney Crosby – to as many points (two) as penalties taken (two, both by
Malkin) would be considered an achievement and would normally have been a
recipe for a better ending. The Caps did
not count on rookie Olli Maatta tying a career high of two points.
-- Karl Alzner’s assist on Brooks Laich’s shorthanded goal
was his tenth helper of the season. He
jumped into second place among Caps defensemen in assists, one ahead of John Carlson. Mike Green leads the defensemen with 20
assists.
-- The Caps outshot the Penguins by a 4-1 margin in the
first eight minutes. In the last 12
minutes of the first period the Penguins shelled the Caps by a 16-6 margin, yet
the Caps took the 1-0 lead into the first intermission. Michal Neuvirth was sharp, keeping the Caps
in the game.
-- The second period was a bit different and a matter of
competing trends. The Penguins went into
the game having scored 54 second period goals for the season, the Caps scoring 57. It was the Penguins winning the
period, 2-1, this despite the Caps outshooting the Penguins, 13-8.
-- Giving up four goals on 37 shots meant that Neuvirth had
the longest active streak among Caps goaltenders of .900-plus save percentage
games ended at five.
-- Marcus Johansson’s two points made it seven points in his
last seven games (2-5-7).
-- The one-goal decision is becoming a habit. It was the fifth straight one-goal game for
the Caps and their tenth in their last 12 contests. The Capitals are 3-2-5 in those ten one-goal
decisions.
-- The loss dropped the Capitals to 14-17-2 in games not
decided in the Gimmick. Only the New
York Islanders (14-23-4 in such games) are further under .500 than the Caps in non-Gimmick games.
-- The Capitals finished with a flurry on Fleury after the
Maatta go-ahead goal: shot, missed shot, missed shot, shot. It reflected good pressure, but the Caps, as
they have so often against this team, were just a bit short.
In the end…
We are 47 games into the season, and the Caps are still
trying to figure things out. A reworked
first line, a reworked second line, ditto for the third line, a relatively new
second defense pair, God-knows-what is going on with the third defensive pair, and then there are the goalies. What it has meant in the recent portion of
the schedule is that the Caps are a day late and a dollar – or more precisely,
a goal – short.
What is particularly unnerving about it is that when they
get good defense, such as allowing only a couple of goals, they can’t score. Four times in their last nine games they
allowed only two goals, and they lost three of those contests, all of them in
the Gimmick. Then, when they do score,
they get leaky on defense. In that same
nine-game stretch the Caps scored three or more goals five times and lost in
three of them, twice by one goal, one of those in overtime.
On the one hand, the optimist might say that the Caps are this
close to turning it around. The
pessimist might say, this team has no stability, no structure, how are they
going to magically turn it around?
The Caps have the unenviable task of having to figure this
out with seven of their next eight games on the road and only 11 games left before
the freeze on trades for the Olympic break.
Get to work, boys.
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