Washington Capitals: A TWO-point Night -- Game 65: Capitals 3 - Coyotes 2

That was nice.

It was nice to see the other team blow a two-goal lead.

It was nice to see the other team take an offensive zone penalty.

It was nice to see the other team wilt on a penalty kill late.

And it all happened in barely five minutes to the Phoenix Coyotes as the Washington Capitals came from down, 0-2, to catch and pass the Coyotes in the third period and win a game they seemed hell bent on losing, coming out on top by a 3-2 margin in the end.

For almost 50 minutes it looked as if the Caps would go meekly to their fourth straight loss.  Phoenix played a solid road game, keeping things simple and taking advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves. 

One of those opportunities came late in the first period when the Coyotes took advantage of a sluggish line change for the Caps.  As the Caps were swapping out old for new players, Keith Yandle fed the puck past Nicklas Backstrom and up to Brandon McMillan just outside the Caps’ blue line.  McMillan beat Mike Green into the zone, skated in, and snapped a shot from the edge of the left wing circle past goalie Jaroslav Halak at 18:58 to give the Coyotes a lead going into the first intermission.

Phoenix added to their lead in the fourth minute of the second period on a power play.  With Jack Hillen off for tripping, Yandle started the play again, laying the puck out at the top of the Caps’ zone for Michael Stone to take a whack at.  Stone fired, and Halak made the initial save.  He did not field it cleanly, though, and the puck trickled toward the goal line.  Radim Vrbata got to the loose puck before Dmitry Orlov could tie him up, and Vrbata bunted the biscuit into the back of the net.

At that point, and for the next 25 minutes, the Caps looked listless and on their way to another loss.  From the 3:20 mark of the second period to the 9:15 mark of the third period, Phoenix out-shot the Caps, 19-14.  Then, something strange and wonderful happened.

Karl Alzner scored.

It was innocent enough.  Jay Beagle and Keith Yandle were fighting for a loose puck in the left wing corner to goalie Mike Smith’s right.  As they were dueling, Eric Fehr swooped in and gathered up the puck, sliding it out to Alzner at the left point.  With Mike Ribeiro in the shooting lane, Alzner stepped to his left and down the wall to get an opening, then flipped a soft shot toward the goal (kids, take note...a right-handed defenseman on that side cannot make that play; sometimes the "handed" thing works).  As Alzner was snapping his shot at the net, Jay Beagle backed across Smith’s line of sight dragging Yandle with him on the coverage, and the commotion might have provided a distraction.  It was enough to allow the puck to sail untouched into the back of the net, and the Caps were within a goal.

Just 32 seconds later, the game was tied.  Brooks Laich got the goal, but it was Jason Chimera doing the work.  Chimera was behind the Coyote net when Laich chipped him the puck from the right wing corner.  Chimera walked the puck out from behind the net and out to the left wing corner, maintaining control.  Then, with Oliver Ekman-Larsson trying to pin him in the corner against the wall, Chimera flipped a fade-away pass to the goal mouth where Laich was camped all alone.  Laich redirected the puck behind Smith, and Caps fans were happy once more…

(image: CSN)

Phoenix took only two penalties in the game, but they picked a bad time for the second one.  David Moss hauled Dmitry Orlov down as Orlov was circling from around the Caps’ net, and the Caps had a power play. Nicklas Backstrom walked the puck from the right wing wall into the faceoff circle and wristed a shot toward the goal.  Smith got a pad on it and steered it to the weak side of the play. However, it happened to be just where Troy Brouwer was standing, and Brouwer wasted no time in stuffing the loose puck past Smith to give the Caps the lead and their final margin, 3-2.

Other stuff…

-- Say what you will about the two-goal lead being the most dangerous in hockey, but that was the first time the Caps came from behind to win a game in which they faced a two-goal deficit since Game 33, when they came back from a 4-1 third period deficit to beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 5-4, in a Gimmick on December 15^th.  It broke a string of ten straight losses when the Caps faced a two-goal deficit.

-- It might have been for naught if the Caps went down 3-0.  That might have happened had a call gone differently in the first period.  Brandon McMillan, who would score a goal later, might have thought he had one mid-way through the frame when he pushed the puck through goalie Jaroslav Halak’s pads and watched it trickle over the goal line.  However, the referee ruled that McMillan pushed not only the puck, but Halak’s pad over the goal line.  Thus, the goal was disallowed on what was not a decision subject to video review.  Yeah, it was iffy, but after seeing so many video reviews of questionable high-stick deflections go against the Caps this season, there seems hardly any reason to apologize.

-- For Karl Alzner it was his second goal of the season, his first since netting the game-winner in a 5-2 win over Nashville on December 7^th.  Alzner has seven career goals, and the Caps are 4-2-1 in those games, winners in the last three games in which Alzner scored.

-- Mike Green skated 20:35 in this game.  But what is noteworthy about his ice time is that he did not skate on the power play at all.  John Carlson took all 3:10 of power play ice time for the Caps in this contest.

-- Is there something to this whole shots-from-the-outside thing?  Of the Coyotes’ 33 shots on goal, 20 of them came from defensemen.  By way of comparison, only seven of the Caps’ 33 shots came from defensemen.

-- In former Caps news, the trio of former Caps for the Coyotes – Mike Ribeiro, Jeff Halpern, and Martin Erat – combined for a grand total of no shots on goal, none, nada.  Not only that, they finished with no shot attempts among them.

-- The Caps have had their troubles in the faceoff circle lately, and they found themselves on the short end tonight, especially in the offensive end where they won just eight of 22 draws.

-- The win put the Caps over the .500 mark against Western Conference teams as measured in standings points.  The Caps are now 9-8-2 against the West.

-- Troy Brouwer continued his hot run of late.  His goal, the game-winner, was his 18^th of the season and his eighth in his last ten games on a total of 29 shots on goal (27.6 percent shooting).

-- Brooks Laich has goals in consecutive games and in three of his last five contests.  The last time he had goals in consecutive games came back on March 10/11, 2012, both of them game winners, one against Boston in a 4-3 win, the other against Toronto in a 2-0 win.

-- When the Caps allowed a power play goal to Phoenix in the second period, it made it five times in six games that the Caps allowed opponents at least one power play goal.  In the game they did not, against Boston, they did not face a shorthanded situation.  The Caps are 14-for-20 (70.0 percent) killing penalties over their last six games.

In the end…

It was nice to see the other team not quite play 60 minutes.  If Phoenix did not dominate the Caps, they played a solid road game… for about 55 minutes.  But there was that five-minute stretch in the third period when it all came apart, suddenly and emphatically.  And they got contributions from up and down the roster in making the comeback.  Getting goals from Karl Alzner and Brooks Laich was unexpected, but refreshing. Assists from Eric Fehr, Jay Beagle, and Jason Chimera was much the same. 

Add in a power play, and it made for a welcome win that brought the Caps back from, if not the abyss, then a dark place in the standings.  There they still lurk, one point behind Detroit and two behind the New York Rangers as the embark on a big week with a pair of games against Pittsburgh and a home contest against Vancouver.  It looks a lot better than it might have had the Caps lost this game.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Game 65: Coyotes at Capitals, March 8th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

When the Washington Capitals host the Phoenix Coyotes tonight at Verizon Center, the Caps will be looking to rekindle their playoff hopes and end a three-game losing streak.  For the Coyotes it will be the first of what will be a four-game road trip through the Eastern time zone, with stops in Tampa, Florida, and Boston yet to come. Phoenix has not been an especially productive road team. Going into Friday’s games they were 26th of 30 teams in points earned on the road.

This will be the third and final eastern swing for the Coyotes in the regular season. They completed their first trip, a four-game journey, in October, going 3-1-0 with wins over the Detroit Red Wings, Philadelphia Flyers, and Carolina Hurricanes after opening the trip with a loss to the New York Islanders.

Phoenix’ second trip east was in mid-December and did not go nearly as well. After dropping a decision to the Montreal Canadiens, the Coyotes wrapped up their trip with three extra time decisions, losses to the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres wrapped around a win in Ottawa against the Senators.

Of more recent vintage on their schedule, Phoenix stumbled out of the gate to start the post-Olympics portion of the season, losing three straight. Two of those losses came to powerhouses Colorado and St. Louis, though, and the Coyotes come into Verizon Center looking as they have righted themselves with wins in their last two games over Vancouver and Montreal.

Offense has been hard to come by for the Coyotes since the break, Phoenix recording only 12 goals over the five games coming into this weekend.  Shane Doan has three of those goals for the Coyotes and helpers on two others.  For him, the Olympic break appears to have been refreshing.  He said as much as the NHL was about to shut down for a couple of weeks.  He had a six game streak without a point heading into the pause in the NHL schedule.  Doan is 5-7-12 in 21 career games played against Washington.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson is not likely to be a player with whom a lot of Caps fans are familiar, but he has been among the most productive defensemen in the NHL this season.  “OEL” is 2-3-5 for the Coyotes in five games since the Olympic break, including the game-winning goal in Phoenix’ 5-2 win over Montreal on Thursday.  It is not just a short-run fling for Ekman-Larsson, who is among the top-ten in goal scoring for defensemen in the league (10) and top-20 in points (34).  He is 0-1-1 in two career games against the Capitals.

Mike Smith has had the lion’s share of the work in goal for the Coyotes this season, appearing in 53 of 63 games this season and four of five since the Olympic break.  In those four games he is 2-1-1, 1.97, .926, with a shutout over Vancouver last Tuesday.  It is part of a longer run of fine performances for Smith, a 1.62 goals-against average and a .944 save percentage with two shutouts over his last eight appearances.  He is 4-3-1 in those eight appearances.  He has had little success against the Caps, though.  In eight career appearances he is 1-6-0, 4.66, .852.

1.  There is a glass half full, glass half empty quality to the Coyote offense lately.  Over their past seven games Phoenix is 8-for-28 on the power play (28.6 percent), but they have only 15 goals overall.  Only once in those seven games have the Coyotes scored more than two goals, their 5-2 win over Montreal on Thursday.

2.  In five of those same seven games Phoenix allowed two or fewer goals five times, the only times they allowed more coming in losses to Colorado and St. Louis, four goals to each.

3.  Phoenix is a middle-of-the-road offensive team overall (2.71 G/Gm, 15^th in scoring offense), but where they have struggled all year is at the start of games. Only six teams have fewer first period goals.

4.  Keeping games close is what Phoenix does, and they are reasonably successful doing it.  Of their 63 games to date, 28 of them have been decided by one-goal, and the Coyotes are 13-4-11 in those decisions.  In games decided by more than one goal the Coyotes are 16-19.

5.  The Coyotes are not an especially effective possession team.  They rank 17^th in Corsi-for percentage in 5-on-5 close score situations (49.4 percent) and 18^th in Fenwick-for percentage (49.6 percent).

1.  Until the Caps were shut out by Boston on Thursday, the Caps had scored four or more goals in four straight games and in five of six contests.  Offense has not been all that much of a problem for the team.  In their last 13 games, including the shutout at the hands of Boston, the Caps scored four or more goals eight times.  But when they don’t… they have been shut out twice in their last eight games.

2.  The power play has been an all or nothing affair lately.  In their last nine games the Caps have had multiple power play goal games four times and been shut out on the power play five times.

3.  For a while there, it looked as if the Caps penalty killers were improving.  In a three game stretch from February 4-8 they were a perfect 9-for-9 killing penalties.  Over their last five games, though, they are 12-for-17 (70.6 percent) and were perhaps saved from allowing one to Boston on Thursday by not having to endure any shorthanded situations.

4.  The Caps are a “skill” team, it is said.  They play a more wide-open style, many say.  However, of the 64 games played so far the Caps have 34 one-goal decisions.  They are 16-8-10 in those decisions.  When the games are less close?  The Caps are 13-17 when the games are settled by two or more goals.

5.  53.5, 45.8, 48.1, 33.3, 27.1.  That is the progression of Corsi-for percentages in 5-on-5 close score situations over the Caps’ last five games.  The Fenwick-for percentage isn’t any better.  Small wonder the Caps are 2-2-1 since the Olympic break and losers of their last three games.  They don’t have the puck.

The Peerless’ Players to Ponder

Phoenix: Keith Yandle

Four teams in the NHL have two defensemen with at least 34 points: Chicago, Montreal, St. Louis, and the Coyotes.  Oliver Ekman-Larsson we spoke of above.  The other is Keith Yandle.  The Massachusetts native is known primarily as an offensive defenseman. He has topped 30 points in each of the last six seasons, including this one (7-34-41).  He is one of only four defensemen over those six seasons with a combined total of at least 50 goals and at least 240 points (Yandle has 55 and 244).  The others are Shea Weber, Dan Boyle, and the Caps’ Mike Green.  Lately it has been a matter of helpers for Yandle.  He has just one goal over his last 24 games, but he has 13 assists over that same span, including five in his last seven contests.  He is 0-4-4 in five career games against Washington.

Washington: Mike Green

Speaking of helpers, Mike Green has six in his last eight games for the Caps.  He also has three multiple-point games in his last seven contests (3-5-8 overall).  He remains one of the top defensemen in the game on special teams (tied for 17^th place in points), but one wonders if there is, if not a changing of the guard, then more a sharing of responsibilities from the blue line on the power play.  John Carlson leads the Caps in average ice time on the power play among defensemen (3:09 to 2:56 for Green) and has 13 power play points of his own.  Except for the 2:43 he averaged on the power play in 2011-2012 (perhaps due to equal parts Dennis Wideman and Dale Hunter), his 2:56 in average power play ice time this season is well over a minute less than the average ice time marks he had since 2007-2008.  Green is 0-1-1 in four career games against Phoenix.

Keys:

1.  5-on-5. Only eight teams in the NHL have allowed fewer goals at 5-on-5 than the Coyotes.  However, the Coyotes are something of a crap-shoot in 5-on-5 close score situations.  They rank just 15^th overall in goals allowed in such situations and their 66 goals scored and 68 goals allowed ranks them 16^th in goals scored/allowed ratio.  The Caps need to keep Phoenix under that 50 percent mark here.

2.  Chin Up.  The Caps have lost three in a row and have looked progressively worse doing so. Worse, their body English suggests they are starting to look beaten.  Except for a flurry against the Flyers (after the Flyers took a 4-0 lead), the Caps have looked sluggish and indifferent.  The attitude has to change…quickly.

3.  Theft in Plain Sight.  When was the last time a Caps goalie stole a game?  The answer to that question – and the time you take to answer it – might be why Jaroslav Halak is a Capital today and will get the start against Phoenix tonight.  There will be games, especially in this rough stretch on the schedule, in which a goalie is going to have to steal a win or two (or three) in the face of a barrage of shots and relentless pressure.  Phoenix is not among the top offenses that the Caps will see this month, but they still could use a top-notch performance from a goalie if goaltending is the difference in the decision.

In the end…

There really is not a lot left to say about urgency or must-win games or the calendar.  There are games the Caps need to win, and there are games they have to win.  Given what looms on the schedule – a home-and-home, back-to-back set against Pittsburgh next week – this game is both for the Caps.  The Coyotes will be annoying in their style, a diligent, “system” team.  It is not one against which the Caps have a lot of recent success, alternating wins and losses over their five meetings.  The Caps having lost their only decision to Phoenix so far this season (a 4-3 Gimmick loss on November 9^th), it is the Caps’ turn.

Capitals 3 – Coyotes 2

Washington Capitals: And Now, For Something a Little Less Serious...Uniforms

The Washington Capitals introduced their throwback white jerseys in the NHL Bridgestone Winter Classic on New Year’s Night 2011 in Pittsburgh.  It was a rousing success, the Caps defeating the Penguins, 3-1, on a rainy Heinz Field rink.

Three years later, the bloom is off the rose, so to speak.  The Capitals, who have sought for some level of consistent winning performance for much of this season, certainly have not found it wearing the white echoes of the 1970’s and 1980’s.  Here is their record when wearing their throwbacks:

• Tuesday, Dec. 17 - at Philadelphia Flyers: LOSS (2-5)
• Friday, Dec. 20 - at Carolina Hurricanes: WIN (4-2)
• Wednesday, Jan. 15 - at Pittsburgh Penguins: LOSS (3-4)
• Friday, Jan. 17 - at Columbus Blue Jackets: LOSS (1-5)
• Sunday, Jan. 19 - at New York Rangers: LOSS (1-4)
• Friday, Jan. 24 - at New Jersey Devils: LOSS (1-2)
• Saturday, Jan. 25 - at Montreal Canadiens: WIN (5-0)
• Tuesday, Jan. 28 - at Buffalo Sabres: WIN (5-4/OT)
• Thursday, Jan. 30 - at Columbus Blue Jackets: LOSS (2-5)
• Friday, Jan. 31 - at Detroit Red Wings: LOSS (3-4/SO)
• Saturday, Mar. 1 - at Boston Bruins: WIN (4-2)
• Wednesday, Mar. 5 - at Philadelphia Flyers: LOSS (4-5/OT)
• Thursday, Mar. 6 - at Boston Bruins: LOSS (0-3)

A 4-7-2 record, including last night’s loss in Boston, is not one that Caps fans might have hoped for in the alternate duds.  “Duds” might have more than one meaning in this context. 

You could say that since these are exclusively road uniforms (visiting teams wearing white in NHL games), and that the Caps are, like many NHL teams, not as good a team on the road as they are at home, that the Caps should not be expected to have a great record when donning the third jersey.

The thing is, though, while the Caps have that 4-7-2 record in the alternates, they are a respectable 8-8-3 in road games wearing their standard issue jersey.  It has to be the jersey.  Let us delve a bit deeper into the differences…

The offense is marginally better in the standard issue road jerseys than in the alternates (2.89 G/GM to 2.69 G/GM), this despite the fact that the power play is actually more efficient in the alternates (26.0 percent to 23.1 percent). 

But oh, that defense and goaltending.  The Caps allow more than half a goal a game more in the alternate roads (3.38) than they do in the standard issue whites (2.84), and this is reflected in poor penalty killing numbers in the throwbacks (76.9 percent versus 87.3 percent in the standard jerseys) and awful goaltending numbers, a GAA difference of two-thirds of a goal per 60 minutes and a save percentage difference of almost 20 points.  Of the seven times that the Caps allowed five or more goals in road games this season, four of them have come wearing the alternates despite only 13 of 32 road games played in those jerseys.

Consider this as the remainder of the alternate jersey schedule comes up:

Tuesday, Mar. 11 - at Pittsburgh Penguins

Friday, Apr. 4 - at New Jersey Devils

Saturday, Apr. 5 - at New York Islanders

Looking at their road performance so far this season in their different ensembles, it might be true that “clothes make the man,” but when it comes to throwbacks… throw ‘em back.  They’re not helping.

Washington Capitals: A NO-point Night -- Game 64: Bruins 3 - Capitals 0

It is said that the best defense is a good offense.  No, the best defense is when an offense doesn’t show up.  That was the case for the Washington Capitals last night, who left their offense at the hotel in Boston, losing to the Bruins, 3-0, at TD Center.

In a rematch of last Saturday’s contest on the same rink, the Caps could not replicate their start in that game, finding themselves incapable of mounting any consistent pressure.  Boston, on the other hand, was pounding the Caps net and goalie Braden Holtby with shots, and the pressure eventually yielded results in the second period.  With the Bruins skating with an extra attacker on a delayed penalty call, Gregory Campbell redirected a Patrice Bergeron one-timer past Holtby at the 3:05 mark from the top of the crease to Holtby’s right.

Five minutes later Loui Eriksson scored from the same spot of the ice when Carl Soderberg circled behind the Caps net and found Eriksson camped out at the edge of the crease.  Eric Fehr could not tie up Eriksson, and the Boston forward roofed the puck over Holtby’s blocker for a 2-0 lead.

That was more than enough, but the Bruins added an empty net goal by Brad Marchand with 34 seconds left for the final margin, sending the Caps home with their third straight loss.

Other stuff…

-- The Caps were outshot, 43-16, and out-attempted 67-32.  The shot differential tied the largest deficit suffered by the Caps this season.  St. Louis out-shot the Caps, 47-20, in a 4-1 Caps win on November 17^th.

-- The delayed penalty awaiting the Caps that was wiped out by the Campbell goal was the only infraction called in the game.  Neither team served a penalty. 

-- The Caps are now 11-14-7 when failing to score at least one power play goal.

-- The win was Tuukka Rask’s first career victory against the Capitals.  We was 0-3-3 in six career decisions before last night.

-- Alex Ovechkin had one shot on goal for the game.  That is a season low for him and is his lowest shot total since he was held without a shot on goal against the Carolina Hurricanes in a 4-0 loss on March 12^th of last season.  No Capital had more than two shots on goal; Troy Brouwer led in attempts with four.  The top line of Dustin Penner, Nicklas Backstrom, and Alex Ovechkin (although there was a fair amount of scrambling going on) had a total of two shots on goal (Penner, Ovechkin) and five shot attempts (Ovechkin: 3, Penner: 2).

-- Time management apparently played a role in this game, it being the second of a back-to-back (the Caps lost on Wednesday night in Philadelphia).  Only Jack Hillen (23:27) and Mike Green (25:41) played more than 20 minutes of all the skaters dressing for this game.  Only Marcus Johansson (18:43) skated more than 17 minutes among the forwards.

-- Scrambled eggs… The Caps started the game with a forward line of Chris Brown, Eric Fehr, and Joel Ward.  Ninety seconds later the defensive pair taking the ice was Connor Carrick and Cameron Schilling.  Thirty seconds after that the line to take the ice was Marcus Johansson, Dustin Penner, and Troy Brouwer.  The next line was Ryan Stoa, Jay Beagle, and Joel Ward.  Less than three minutes into the game the Caps had Brown and Schiling skating their first shift for the Caps this season, while for Stoa and Penner it was for each their second game in a Caps uniform this season.

-- The 42 shots faced by Braden Holtby was the fifth time this season he has seen at least 40 shots on goal.  This total was exceeded twice – 47 shots in a Gimmick 5-4 win over Winnipeg on October 22^nd, and 47 shots in a 4-1 win over St. Louis on November 17^th. Holtby is 2-3-0 in games this season in which he faced 40 or more shots, the losses (in addition to last night’s) coming against Pittsburgh and Ottawa.

In the end…

The Bruins did everything last night that they did not do against the Caps last Saturday.  They played stifling defense, clogged the middle, won battles, didn’t take penalties, and ground the Caps down.  Not that the Caps offered a lot of resistance.  Their second back-to-back in a week might have had something to do with it, just as the addition of new faces might have caused moments of discombobulation.

Whatever the reason, it is three losses in a row for the Caps precisely when they can least afford an extended losing streak.  It does not get easier.  Washington will now play three games in four nights, a home tilt against Phoenix on Saturday followed by a home-and-home back-to-back against Pittsburgh on Monday and Tuesday. 

You can now say this is it.  These next four days are the Caps’ season.  Either they will find a way to incorporate the new parts quickly and get more production and effort from the other players, or they will, well, have nights like last night and see what is left of their season melt away like last week’s snow, and just as rapidly.

Washington Capitals: A NO-point Night -- Game 63: Flyers 6 - Capitals 4

Well, at least they didn't let a two-goal lead get away.

The Philadelphia Flyers almost did, though, holding off a third period comeback by the Washington Capitals and skating off with a 6-4 win at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

The Capitals let the Flyers skate around as if it was a practice drill for the first 30 minutes or so, allowing the Flyers to post a 4-0 lead by the 11:52 mark of the second period.  Three Flyers had goals in the onslaught – two by Claude Giroux and one each by Jakub Voracek and Michael Raffl – and eight different Flyers had points. 

Washington finally got on the board 14 minutes into the second period when Joel Ward redirected a drive by Mike Green from the right wing faceoff dot on a power play.  The puck changed direction, diving to goalie Steve Mason’s left, bouncing, and then settling in the back of the net.

The Caps made it interesting in the third period when Alex Ovechkin scored his 44^th goal of the season on another power play.  It was standard issue for the Caps, a pass that Nicklas Backstrom threaded through the crease to Ovechkin at the left wing faceoff dot where the winger one-timed it into the net before Mason could scramble across.

Troy Brouwer got the Caps to within a goal less than three minutes later when he was left all alone in front of Mason, three Flyers getting caught on the same side of the ice, at or past the faceoff dot attending to Jack Hillen (of all people), who found Brouwer for the snap shot and score to make it 4-3.

The Caps would not find that game-tying goal, though.  Voracek got his second of the game barely two minutes after Brouwer’s goal to restore the Flyers’ two-goal lead.  Brooks Laich got the Caps back within a goal barely two minutes after that when he redirected another Mike Green drive past Mason to give the Caps their third power play goal of the game.

That would do it for the Caps’ scoring.  Steve Downie added an empty net goal with 52 seconds left to give the Flyers their final 6-4 margin to sweep the home-and-home series and open up a four-point lead on the Caps in the Metropolitan Division standings.

Other stuff…

-- Nicklas Backstrom’s two assists, the second coming on assist on Troy Brouwer’s goal, were his 49^th and 50^th helpers of the season.  He is the third player to hit the 50-mark in assists this season, trailing only Joe Thornton (51) and Sidney Crosby (54).  It is the fourth time in his seven-year career that he reached the 50-assist mark, the first time he did it since he had 68 assists in 2009-2010.

-- For Ovechkin, the goal made it six in his last eight games.  Four of those goals, including last night’s, have been on the power play.  He is on a pace for 24 power play goals this season that, should he reach that mark, would be a career high.

-- Mike Green had another multi-assist night.  His two assists give him five in his last two games and nine in his last seven contests.  He is now tied for 12^th among defensemen in assists despite having played in only 55 of 63 games for the Caps.

-- Tom Wilson recorded 17 minutes in penalties last night.  It put him at the top of the rookie list in that statistic, passing Tampa Bay’s Radko Gudas (122 minutes) with 133 minutes earned.  Here is a way of looking at how big that number is.  Wilson’s 133 minutes exceeds the Capitals rookie total of penalty minutes earned over the last three seasons, combined, including the penalty minutes earned by other rookies this season (90).

-- The three power play goals on four chances make it 7-for-18 (38.9 percent) over the Caps’ last four games.

-- The power play goal allowed makes it four straight games in which the Caps have allowed at least one.  They are 12-for-17 (70.6 percent) killing penalties over that span.

-- Claude Giroux single-handedly manhandled the Caps in the faceoff circle.  He was 19-for-25 (76.0 percent).  The only Cap to win at least 50 percent of the draws he took against Giroux was Jay Beagle (2-for-3).  Giroux was perfect against Backstrom (4-for-4), Brouwer (2-for-2), and Ward (2-for-2).

-- Mike Green was on ice for four goals against.  He did it with three different partners: Jack Hillen, John Carlson (twice), and Karl Alzner.

-- Speaking of Green, has there been a changing of the guard on the Caps’ power play?  It has been underway for a while now, but John Carlson had 5:23 in power play ice time, Green had 1:51.

-- Four goals on 18 shots in 31:52.  That was Braden Holtby’s night in goal.  It is the third time in four games and the fifth time in eight games in which Holtby has allowed at least four goals.  Oddly enough, he is 2-1-1 in those five games (he had a no-decision last night).

-- Conversely, in the “life is not fair” department, Philipp Grubauer stopped ten of 11 shots, but he gets the loss for allowing the Flyers’ fifth goal.

In the end…

March is going about as planned.  And that is not a good thing.  In the Caps’ 14 game death march that started in Boston on Saturday, the Caps have now gone: win, blown lead for overtime loss, almost run out of the building regulation loss.  They are going in the wrong direction, to say the least.  It doesn’t get better.  They get a rematch in Boston tonight, then a home-and-home back-to-back against Pittsburgh after they face the Martin Erat-fueled Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday.

Avert your eyes.

Washington Capitals: When a Window Closes...Find (or Make) Another Window

"The Washington Capitals’ window has closed.   Year after year the Caps said, as the Nats are now saying for the third straight year, we have the talent, we have what it takes, right here in this room, to play for a championship. Our window of opportunity is wide open.

Right up until it isn’t."

Thomas Boswell, the renowned columnist for the Washington Post, authored those words in a column about the Washington Nationals baseball team on Saturday.  It was a warning to the Nationals and their fans that windows of opportunity that open for a professional sports team eventually close, that the team chock full of talent and expectations today can turn into, as he put it, “a decent back-in-the-pack team.”  

While Boswell’s subject is the Nationals, we are left to wonder if the basis for his warning, that the window of opportunity for the Caps has closed, has merit.

Let us begin by saying, he’s right.  The Caps are no longer, as Boswell said, one of six or eight teams that is in Stanley Cup debates.  They are just a decent back-in-the-pack team, and sometimes that description seems charitable.  They are, at this stage of their evolution depending on “a puncher’s chance to find a hot goalie in the playoffs, get their lines right, fall into a couple of advantageous early-round matchups.” In other words, to rely on the fool’s crutch, that “anything can happen” once you get to the playoffs.

If they get there at all.

Getting to the playoffs this season is not what concerns us about Boswell’s argument.  It is whether this club has essentially wasted the blessings of a ping-pong ball falling into their lap to secure the rights to pick first in the 2004 entry draft, a pick they used to select Alex Ovechkin, who has since been the face and the cornerstone of the franchise.

The best we can say about that is, “it depends.”  The team, as currently constituted, is not going to win a Stanley Cup.  It just isn’t, the deluded ramblings of early-season prognosticators notwithstanding.    We could go into the why’s and the how’s, but that is a conversation for another day.  We are concerned with the question of whether the window of opportunity is closed.

Call it the “Home Depot Theory” of team evolution, but if we are going to use the “window” analogy to describe a team’s evolution, then we need to acknowledge that a structure generally has more than one window.  And perhaps as one window closes, another becomes available.

The “window” of which we might speak of these Capitals opened when that ping-pong ball came up “Capitals” in 2004.  That season the Caps drafted Alex Ovechkin, a generational talent.  It also happened to be the season in which they drafted defenseman Mike Green, another young talent around which the Capitals could rebuild in addition to a raw natural talent that the club drafted in 2002 – Alexander Semin. 

After a 2005 league-wide lotto-draft in which the still bottom-rung Capitals were drafting in the middle of the pack, a draft that would eventually yield no player who would ever dress for the Caps, Washington took advantage of another lottery draft slot and selected Nicklas Backstrom with the fifth-overall pick in 2006.  The club also would pick a pair of goalies – Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth – to compete to become the successor to franchise icon Olaf Kolzig.

The Caps had their core, and the “window of opportunity” was about to open.  The first opportunity they had to climb through it was in 2008, following a coaching change and a furious comeback from being dead last in the Eastern Conference at one point in the season.  However, the Caps, with their “young guns” of Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin, and Green, were eliminated from their unanticipated and unlikely Stanley Cup playoff appearance by the Philadelphia Flyers, who won a Game 7 in overtime.

That appearance would start a string of six seasons in which the Caps would reach the post-season Stanley Cup tournament, a string that is current, but in jeopardy.  That six-year run of post-season appearances constitute the “window of opportunity” for this generation of Caps to bring a championship to Washington, an achievement no local major professional sports organization has been able to accomplish since the Washington Redskins won a Super Bowl title in 1992.

Alas, not only has this edition of the Capitals not won a championship, they have not advanced to a conference final and have won a grand total of three playoff series.  The losses have been agonizing.  In the six years in which the Caps appeared in the playoffs they were eliminated in a Game 7 five times, four times at home.

This season, the Capitals are in a fight for their playoff lives.  They are in ninth place in a race in which only eight teams make the playoffs, a tie-breaker behind the Detroit Red Wings, with whom they are tied in standings points, for a wild card spot.  It is part of what has been a long, slow decline since the Capitals set a franchise record (and a record for a non-original six team) 121 standings points and won a Presidents Trophy in 2009-2010.  Since that 54-win season the club has seen its win totals drop to 48 to 42 to a pro-rated 46 (they won 27 times in 48 games in the abbreviated 2012-2013 season) to what is a pace for 38 wins this season.

The window barely makes a sound when it closes, apparently.

Do the Caps have another window to open, though?  Every team turns over its personnel.  The annual entry draft, trades, free agent signings, waiver claims, all are means for a club to remake itself over time.  The flip side is that players and personalities that we become used to, familiar with, and even attached to move on.  For the Caps, the “young guns” that made their appearance in 2007-2008 are a thing of the past.  Alexander Semin has moved on to Carolina.  Alex Ovechkin and Mike Green are not “young guns,” they are engaged to be married.  Nicklas Backstrom is a father.  Time goes on.

Life’s march of time and responsibilities aside, we are left to consider if there is another window for the Caps to open.  Let’s go back in time to consider if this is even reasonable.  First, remember what the Capitals were before they drafted Alex Ovechkin – awful.  Having gambled on splashy trades (well, one),  free agents, and aging stars to bring a Cup to Washington, the gamble failed, and the team sold off its pricey assets for picks and prospects.  The result was a team that won just 23 games in the 2003-2004 season, and even after drafting Alex Ovechkin in 2004 winning only 29 games in 2005-2006 and 28 games in 2006-2007.  In those years the Caps would develop Ovechkin, to whom would be added Green, Semin, and Backstrom to form the core that would make the playoffs in 2007-2008.

Dial the Wayback Machine to 1983.  The Detroit Red Wings, a proud franchise having won seven Stanley Cups, had just finished a five-year run in which they failed to win as many as 25 games.  They missed the playoffs for the 12^th time in 13 seasons, over which time they went through a dozen coaches.  They were a mess.

They also had the fourth overall pick in the 1983 draft.  The Wings were not unfamiliar with high round draft picks, having picked in the top five four times in the previous eight drafts.  In 1983, though, they hit the jackpot.  They selected Steve Yzerman, a center with the Peterborough Petes who racked up 91 points in 56 games in the 1982-1983 season.  Given the state of the Wings and their lack of talent, Yzerman was thrust into the lineup right away to sink or swim.  For him, the rest was history.

We are more concerned with what happened later.  Despite Yzerman’s presence the Red Wings still struggled, enough to realize top-ten draft picks in each of the next three drafts, including an number one overall pick in 1986 (Joe Murphy).  The infusion of talent had an effect.  Yzerman piled up points. Recording 229 goals and 565 points over his first six seasons, culminating in a 65-goal/155-point finish to his sixth season in 1988-1989.  The Red Wings made the playoffs five times in those six seasons, but they advanced past the first round only twice, due in part to the fact that those other top-ten picks did not develop as one might have expected top-ten picks to do, and Yzerman was perhaps too enamored of scoring and not doing the other things great players and great teams do to win championships.

Yzerman continued to produce at a 50-plus goal/100-plus point pace into the early 1990’s, but by the time he completed his tenth season in 1992-1993 (a 58-goal/137-point season), Yzerman was the only member of the 1983-1984 team (his rookie season) left.  He had eight playoff appearances to show for it, but five times in those eight appearances his team was eliminated in the first round.

You would think that any “window” that the Red Wings might have had with one of the most prolific scorers of his era was closing.  There were other things going on, though.  There was the draft.  Having top-ten draft picks was no guarantee of success, but finding gold in later rounds would pay off.  In 1989 the Red Wings went to Europe for their third and fourth round picks, taking a defenseman from Sweden in the third round and a forward from Russia in the fourth.  The next season they would find another Russian forward in the third round.  In 1991 they took a Canadian forward in the first round with the tenth-overall pick and a goalie in the third round, the first time the Red Wings took a goalie that high in the draft in ten years.

The Red Wings still had Yzerman, but now they also had Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Martin Lapointe, and Chris Osgood.  By 1993-1994 all six would play important roles for the club for their new coach, Scotty Bowman.  By 1995, all of them would reach the Stanley Cup finals, and by 1997 they would win it all.

What you have just read might be considered a bit simplistic.  It was not just these six players, in addition to Yzerman, that took the Red Wings to a Cup in 1997, and Hall of Fame coaches do not drop out of trees into the laps of NHL teams.  However, what we can – and do – argue is that a window closing does not preclude another from opening, if managed well.

For the Washington Capitals, the window that opened in 2007-2008 is most assuredly closing.  The task at hand is to find another window to open.  Will that window provide entry for the likes of Evgeny Kuznetsov, Tom Wilson, Andre Burakowsky, Riley Barber, or other prospects?  Will this coaching staff, or perhaps another, find the key to unlock the talents of the old guard of Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Green, and find a way to mesh them with the next generation of Capitals?

That the Red Wings found a way to do it is not meant to serve as a template, it is not the sort of thing that can be replicated in an on-demand basis.  It is only as a example that it can – and does – happen.  But it is rare to find those elements and have them come together just so to make a collection of pieces a championship whole.  It might not be that a single generation of talent takes a club to the highest level.  Perhaps it is another generation that takes its place in the constant evolution of a franchise to build on what that first generation raised from the rubble of mediocrity when they were younger.

Boswell says what perhaps a lot of Caps fans feel, that “if the Caps had made horrid mistakes, the pain of watching them now as they struggle to be average would not be so annoying and poignant. But they didn’t. Their exceptionality just slipped away as the years sped past.”

The Red Wings became exceptional because their success was unexceptional.  It became their standard, a product of a long series of decisions and actions – some the product of good fortune, some unfortunate, some painstakingly taken with the longer view in mind.

In the end, the Caps might have been exceptional, and if these last six years are, in fact, the exception, perhaps that means that their standard is something less or unachievable in the manner the team is organized.  It should not be.  But to raise that standard, they need to find – or make – another window.

Washington Capitals: A ONE point afternoon -- Game 62: Flyers 5 - Capitals 4 (OT)

And that, dear reader, is called “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”

The Washington Capitals seemed to have things safely in hand this afternoon against the Philadelphia Flyers at Verizon Center.  The Caps dominated the first period, taking a 2-1 lead 14 minutes into the game and carrying that to the first intermission.  In the second period, despite being outshot 14-9, the Caps won the period by another 2-1 margin, carrying a 4-2 lead into the third period.

All the Caps had to do in the third period was play with poise and not be stupid.

They did neither.  The Flyers scored twice in the last 8:02 of the game to tie the score, one of the goals coming on a major power play, courtesy of Dmitry Orlov’s major boarding penalty against Brayden Schenn, the other goal coming with just 65 seconds in regulation after the Flyers pulled their goalie. 

Then, 2:45 into the extra session, Vincent Lecavalier put the Caps out of their misery with what would have been a harmless enough wrist shot except for apparently nicking defenseman Karl Alzner on the way through.  It was just enough to allow the puck to elude goalie Braden Holtby’s glove, and a game that looked to be in the bank for the Caps at 2:30 p.m. was a loss by 3:30, a 5-4 Flyers overtime win.

It was an especially cruel turn of events for Capitals defenseman Dmitry Orlov, who got the Caps going with a goal 6:06 into the first period.  After some relentless forechecking pressure, then puck control by the Caps in the Flyers’ end, Troy Brouwer laid the puck back for Orlov from behind the Flyers’ goal line, and Orlov stepped into a slap shot that beat goalie Steve Mason on the far side, high over his blocker.

After Claude Giroux tied the game five minutes later, it was Marcus Johansson’s turn, this time darting in from the weak side of the play to the top of the crease to redirect a centering feed from Jason Chimera over Mason’s right pad.  That was the way the first period would end.

In the second period, Adam Hall scored a shorthanded goal at 12:50 after a ghastly turnover by Alex Ovechkin.  With the puck sliding deep into the Caps’ end of the ice, Ovechkin misread the intentions of teammate John Carlson trailing him and to his left.  Ovechkin left the puck for Carlson at the side of the Washington net to Holtby’s right, but not with enough sauce for the puck to get to Carlson, who had circled wider than Ovechkin seemed to anticipate.  The misstep was enough for Sean Couturier to gather the puck as he was circling around the net from the other direction, beating Carlson to the biscuit.  Continuing up the left wing wall Couturier found Hall skating down the middle and hit him for what would be an uncontested shot from the high slot that Hall fired past Holtby.

Jay Beagle got that one back less than two minutes later by finishing up a 3-on-2 break.  Mike Green had the puck skating down the right side, and when Claude Giroux mistimed a slide to try to interrupt a Green pass to the middle, the puck found its way into a clot of bodies in front of Mason.  It popped out to Mason’s right where Beagle was by himself.  With not much less than an empty net to shoot at, Beagle capitalized, and the Caps had a 3-2 advantage.

Less than three minutes later, Orlov notched his second of the game.  He and Mike Green played catch with the puck at the top of the Flyers’ zone as the play unwound.  Having stepped around Steve Downie to give himself room once already in the sequence, Orlov took a return pass from Green and took advantage of Downie having backed in on defense.  Orlov let it rip from the top of the zone, and with Joel Ward and Jason Chimera causing havoc in front of the Flyers’ net, Mason never saw the shot as it sped by him to give the Caps a two-goal lead.

It would be the most dangerous lead in hockey, it turns out, at least on this day. A great day for Orlov turned sour when he lined up Brayden Schenn and hit him in the nameplate on the back of his jersey, driving him into the boards, resulting in a five-minute major.  The Flyers scored only once on the extended power play, a goal by Jakub Voracek, but the momentum the Caps had was gone.  It would be the Flyers who dominated late, eventually scoring the last three goals of the contest to steal two points that the Caps thought they had safely tucked away.

Other stuff…

-- Yes, Claude Giroux’ goal was a goal, it rimmed around the top inside post of the goal; it did not hit a pipe or the crossbar.  As for the disallowed goal off the stick of Nicklas Backstrom at the other end, that was purely a case of the default call – that being “no goal” called on the ice – lacking conclusive evidence to overturn it.  Good teams shrug those sorts of thing off.

-- Orlov took his boarding call at the 9:33 mark of the third period.  After that point the Flyers outshot the Caps over the rest of the game by a 13-0 margin, scoring three goals in the process.  The Capitals did not record a shot on goal over the last 14:52 of the contest. 

-- The Caps dominated the first period, outshooting the Flyers, 17-6, and out-attempting them, 32-14.  After that, the Flyers outshot the Caps, 30-12, and out attempted them by an almost unbelievable 62-20 margin.

-- Washington was 0-for-6 on the power play.  That matches their worst output at home this season, an 0-for-6 power play in a 1-0 loss to the New York Islanders on February 4^th.

-- On the other side, it was the third straight game in which the Caps allowed at least one power play goal.  The Flyers went 2-for-4, including the Voracek goal on the extended power play.

-- Alex Ovechkin had ten shot attempts in the first 18:06 of the game (five shots on goal, two misses, three shots blocked).  He had five shot attempts over the final 44:39 (one shot on goal, three misses, one blocked shot).

-- It was a bad afternoon for the top defensive pair.  Karl Alzner was on ice for three goals against, John Carlson for four.  For good measure, Ovechkin was on ice for three goals against to lead, so to speak, the forwards.  Oddly enough, the third pair – John Erskine and Connor Carrick – was not on ice for any goals against.

-- Mike Green had his first three-assist game since getting three helpers in a 7-4 win over Ottawa on Feburary 1, 2009.

-- For Dmitry Orlov, it was the first two-goal game of his career in his 100^th NHL game.  Geez, did it have to be a major penalty to undo what should have been a memorable game… in a good way?

-- Until Orlov’s major penalty, it looked as if Steve Downie might end up being the Flyers’ goat for the game… four minor penalties taken in barely ten minutes of ice time.  Had the Caps converted any of those power play chances…

In the end…

That is where the problem lies in this game, the ineffectiveness of the power play, not Orlov’s major.  The Caps had three power plays in the first period, giving them a chance to end the competitive portion of the afternoon early.  As it was, the Caps allowed the Flyers to sneak out of what was, for them, a poor first period down only a single goal.

The Caps let the Flyers off the hook, and then when confronted with adversity in the third period by Orlov’s penalty, they folded.  It just does not seem to be in this team’s DNA to be able to either: a) stand on an opponent’s throat with a ruthless attitude toward closing them out, or b) being able to stand up forcefully when a team makes a run.  For 20 minutes the Caps looked like a team that might be turning the corner, a team that might be making that late-season rush that they need to make to reach the playoffs.  For 40 minutes and change after that, they looked like what they have looked like too much this season, an aimless, uninspired club.  It was another game, another standings point given away in a season full of them.

Washington Capitals: That Was The Week That Was -- Week 20

There were two-and-a-half weeks separating Weeks 19 and 20 for the Washington Capitals, but they started Week 20 as they finished Week 19, as winners.  When the Caps won the second game of the week to close Week 20 they matched their longest winning streak of the season at four games. 

Record: 2-0-0

Week 20 was the second consecutive winning week for the Caps, their first consecutive winning weeks since turning the trick in Weeks 11-12.  The win over Florida to open the week had its harrowing moments, the Caps giving up two-goal leads twice before Alex Ovechkin scored the game-winner with less than five minutes in regulation.  It was a game that served as an example of playing down to an opponent.

In the other game of the week the Caps served as an example of playing up to an opponent.  Washington went out to a 3-0 lead on the Atlantic Division-leading Boston Bruins, held off a charge in the middle period, then won going-away, 4-2.  It made the Caps 17-1-2 in games in which they and not their opponents took “the most dangerous lead in hockey,” a two-goal lead.  Given the nature of the Caps schedule in March, it was a welcome win and a welcome week.

Offense:  4.50/game (season: 2.82 / rank: 10th)

Nine goals represented a continuation of improvement in the Caps’ offensive output.  When added to the two games that closed the pre-Olympic portion of the season, the Caps had 16 goals over their previous four games at the end of Week 20.  It was the first time that the Caps scored 16 goals over a four-game period since recording 16 over four games from December 7-13.

Alex Ovechkin led the Caps in goals (3) and points (5) for the week.  Since going four games without a point to close the 2013 portion of the season Ovechkin is 13-11-24 in 19 games since the calendar flipped to a new year.  Nicklas Backstrom had three helpers for the week and finds himself third in the league in assists (48) behind Sidney Crosby (51) and Joe Thornton (50).

John Carlson also had three assists for the week, securing three of the four points registered by defensemen (Dmitry Orlov had an assist). Carlson is 2-7-9 in his last ten games.  No Capitals defenseman recorded a goal this week.

Defense: 3.00/game (season: 2.85 / rank: T-21st)

The week’s first game of the week was haunted by a demon that has plagued the Caps all season, dicey play with two-goal leads.  The Caps have had at least one two-goal lead in 22 games this season, including two instances when both they and their opponent held a two-goal lead.  In nine of those games the Caps surrendered two-goal leads.  They did so again this week in their game against Florida, twice in fact, allowing the Panthers to tie the game after taking 2-0 and 4-2 leads.  Fortunately for the Caps, they had Ovechkin, and the Panthers did not.  Ovechkin scored the game-winner with under five minutes remaining for the 5-4 win.  Still, the Caps were fortunate to escape with a win after being out-attempted in shots, 63-43, and out-shot, 34-32, against a team that is 28^th of 30 teams in scoring offense.

The Caps were better against Boston, at least in terms of not surrendering a two-goal lead.  Not that there lacked interesting moments.  After extending a 2-0 lead to 3-0 against the Bruins, Boston scored twice in the second period of Saturday’s game to make things close.  Washington added an insurance goal for the 4-2 win.  Still, Boston out-attempted the Caps in shots, 67-44, and out-shot them, 38-31, including 30-16 at even strength.

Goaltending: 3.02 GAA / .917 SV (season: 2.76 / .916 / 3 SO)

Braden Holtby got both starts this week and it was, as many weeks have been for him this season, uneven.  Complicating the issue was persistent chatter that the Capitals were interested in procuring the services of Buffalo goaltender Ryan Miller.  Perhaps that was a distraction that had something to do with Holtby’s recent performance.  In his last 14 appearances before the start of Week 20, Holtby was 5-5-1 (three no-decisions), 3.29, .887.

Holtby’s first game of the week suffered from weak support in front of him.   That is a lingering problem as well. Still, the four goals allowed by Holtby was the seventh time in 14 appearances in which Holtby played the entire game that he allowed four or more goals, and it does not include a four-goals allowed performance in 39:57 against Carolina in December.

His second game this week was much better.  Holtby had not lost to the Bruins in s three career appearances and was the goalie of record when the Caps ousted the Bruins in the first round of the 2012 playoffs.  He continued that mastery in stopping 36 of 38 shots by Boston, including 16-for-16 in the third period of the Caps’ 4-2 win in Boston on Saturday.  The good part ending the week as he did was that he finished Week 20 with a personal four-game winning streak in which he has a goals-against average of 2.00 and a save percentage of .940.  If this is a trend, it comes just in time.

Power Play: 4-for-8 / 50.0 percent (season: 22.7 percent / rank: 2nd)

Week 20 was about as good as it gets as far as the power play goes. Two games, two power play goals in each.  One game was the picture of efficiency, the Caps scoring power play goals on each of their power play opportunities against Florida, requiring only 80 seconds of combined ice time to achieve that result.  The other instance was one of persistent pressure, the Caps recording two power play goals in six opportunities, peppering Bruin goalie Tuukka Rask with 14 shots in just 8:09 of total power play time.

As far as the scoring went, the four goals for the week were split between Troy Brouwer (both against Florida) and Alex Ovechkin (both against Boston).  Eight assists were distributed among six different players, John Carlson and Nicklas Backstrom recording a pair apiece. 

Interestingly enough, Carlson’s two points lifted him within a point for the team lead in power play points among Caps defensemen (12, one fewer than Mike Green).  Carlson now leads all Caps defensemen in power play ice time per game (3:08 to 3:00 for Green).

Penalty Killing: 9-11 / 81.8 percent (season: 81.3 percent / rank: 18th)

The problem this week was not so much the two power play goals allowed, but the 11 opportunities yielded.  Compare that total in two games to the 12 opportunities in four games the Caps allowed in Week 19.  It was the second most opportunities allowed on a per-game basis this season and the most since allowing 17 opportunities in three games in Week 5.  The opportunities problem is reflected in the fact that the shots per minute of penalty killing time was manageable.  In two games the Caps allowed 16 shots in 15:06.  One might like to see shots per minute being under 1.00, but this was not a serious problem.

The problem having been stated, the fact is that the penalty killers might have set a tone – a good one – that provided the foundation for a tough win in Boston.  When Jay Beagle and Tom Wilson were each shown the penalty box for infractions on the same sequence, the Boston Bruins had a full two-minute 5-on-3 power play just 6:57 into what was a scoreless game.  Boston managed only four shot attempts and one on goal over that two-minute 5-on-3.  If Boston converts either part of that power play, the result might have been very different.

Even Strength Goals For/Against: 5-4 (season 5-on-5 GF/GA ratio: 0.92 / rank: T-21st)

That the Caps won the week at even strength, even by the thin margin of a single goal, is noteworthy in that the Caps were outshot by a 53-39 margin for the week at evens.  That 14-shot margin is entirely the product of the Caps being out-shot by a 30-16 margin in their game against Boston, but being held to the same 23 even-strength shots that Florida recorded in the first game of the week should not be ignored, either. 

The possession statistics at even strength were brutal for Washington.  In the two games the Caps had a Corsi-for and a Fenwick-for percentage under 40 percent combined in the two games (38.9/39.7).  They were better in 5-on-5 close score situations (50.8/53.9), but that kind of disparity is the sort of thing that reflects a tendency to allow teams back into games, which is what the Caps did – twice – with two-goal leads in Florida and what the almost did in Boston when the Bruins cut a 3-0 deficit to 3-2.

Faceoffs: 58-124 / 46.8 percent (season: 49.7 percent / rank: 17th)

It was not the strongest of weeks for the Caps in the circles.  Even finishing at 46.8 percent is somewhat deceiving.  Washington was a combined 15-for-40 in the offensive end (37.5 percent) and 16-for-39 (41.0 percent) in the defensive end of the ice.  They were especially ineffective against Boston in the second game of the week, 33.3 percent in the offensive end, 35.0 percent in the defensive end.

Nicklas Backstrom had an especially frustrating week on draws, going 5-for-17 (29.4 percent) in offensive zone faceoffs and 2-for-7 (28.6 percent) in the defensive end.  The odd part about defensive zone draws was that natural wingers – Eric Fehr (4-for-8) and Troy Bouwer (4-for-7) took the most defensive end draws.

Goals For/Against by Period:

The word for the week for the Caps in scoring by period was “balance.”  And, they won or held even in each of the three period for the week.  The only period of the six played this week that the Caps lost was the third period in their 5-4 win over Florida when they allowed the Panthers to erase a 4-2 deficit with a pair of goals before winning the game late on an Ovechkin goal.

In the end…

Two games, two wins.  Whether they were aesthetic masterpieces is irrelevant.  The Caps are into the portion of their season when the words of the late Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis ring loudly… “just win, baby.”  The Caps did just that this week, extending their winning streak to a season-tying high of four games.  It put them in position to reclaim a spot among the top-eight in Week 21 the race for a playoff spot.