That vibration you feel is the Caps’ playoff hopes getting more and more shaky by the day.
The Ovechkin-less Washington Capitals hooked up with the Florida Panthers for a crucial meeting at Capital One Arena on Thursday night, and the Caps lost for the second time in as many games since their captain had to take a leave of absence from the team to travel to Russia to be with his family, following his father’s death.
What started out as a rage-inducing, pathetic performance by the Caps ended in a furious comeback attempt that almost had the game tied. But it was too little, too late for the home team.
The Panthers got out to a 1-0 lead on a wrist shot by Gustav Forsling that Darcy Kuemper probably should’ve stopped. And that would become a part of the story in this game: Shots that Kuemper probably should’ve stopped.
The Panthers then took a 2-0 lead on a point shot by Marc Staal that somehow found its way into the back of the net. That’s also been a theme recently: Pucks somehow finding their way – somewhat inexplicably – through mazes of legs and sticks and into the back of the Capitals’ net seemingly every single time. But, credit to the opposition for shooting the puck, something that the Caps seem incapable or unwilling to do recently.
The Panthers would then go up 3-0 after the Caps were putting on relentless pressure at the other end but couldn’t score, and the Panthers got one break back the other way and made it count, with Colin White deking past a helpless Kuemper.
Then, late in the 2nd period, the Caps would finally get one back, with another relentless shift in the offensive zone this time resulting in a reward for the home team with Dylan Strome’s tip of a TJ Oshie shot-pass from the point.
The building was roaring, as they could feel the Caps had been coming on but hadn’t yet been rewarded for it until now. There was lots of time left. Momentum was now firmly on the side of the home team.
And then, just as quickly as they had seized the momentum, Darcy Kuemper took it away.
Barely a minute after the Caps had finally gotten on the board, Kuemper gave up another soft goal on a shot that he absolutely has to have at that point in this game. Aleksander Barkov slid it right through his legs on a play that just looked way too easy.
And this was definitely the turning point of this game, as Barkov’s goal also came just seconds after the Caps had created a 2-on-1 opportunity for themselves, but Evgeny Kuznetsov – who’s usually as close to automatic as you can get on a 2-on-1 – couldn’t connect the pass and the Panthers came back down the other way and scored.
So instead of being 3-2, it was 4-1 and you kind of felt like that was going to be the end of the night for the Caps.
To the Caps’ credit, they did fight back hard in the 3rd period, and actually almost ended up tying up this thing. But aside from the obvious fact of not ending up with a crucial standings point or two that they desperately need, I’m actually kind of glad that they DIDN’T tie it up as I think that would’ve sent the wrong message to the guys in the room. I think that’d be learning the wrong lesson, that you can play like a bag of sh*t for 40 minutes and not get burned by it. The way that they played those first 40 or so minutes tonight, they deserved to get burned.
So the lessons here are:
- 1) You’ve got to start on time.
- 2) You’ve got to shoot the puck in order to score goals. By the time they started shooting the puck tonight, it was too late.
- And 3) Guys have got to find a way to start burying some of their chances. Because this game could’ve been a lot different, even in spite of the poor start. The Caps’ offensive touch is just a little bit off right now, and that’s got them sliding down the standings pretty quickly.
Nicolas Aube-Kubel again created a ton of scoring chances for himself using his elusive speed, but he still couldn’t quite bury any of them. Sonny Milano nearly had a clean-cut breakaway from the blue line in coming out of the penalty box after a successful Caps’ PK, but the pass to him just missed. Sergei Bobrovsky got extremely lucky with the knob of his stick just barely getting a piece of Dmitry Orlov’s shot on a breakaway. Lars Eller had numerous chances in front that he couldn’t bury. Strome rang the iron in the last minute of play. The list goes on and on and on.
Of course, Strome, Nicklas Backstrom, and Kuznetsov did find the back of the net for the Caps, but as we already alluded to, it wouldn’t be enough.
They nearly authored an unbelievable comeback, but I’m not going to lie, this game was pretty infuriating to watch through the first 40 minutes given the circumstances and playoff implications. There’s obviously a playoff spot on the line, and then you can throw in how vocal the Caps were before the game that they really wanted to play well to help pick up their captain Alex Ovechkin, who’s obviously going through one of the toughest times of his life right now with losing his dad. All of the Caps players spoke before this game about how many countless times Ovechkin has lifted them up, both on and off the ice, and how they really wanted to pay that back to him now by playing well, by winning games while he’s away so that he still has something to come back to in the way of a playoff spot when he returns.
It’s not off to a good start so far. And believe me, I get that it’s been a very emotional few days around the Caps’ locker room. In fact, I unfortunately probably get that better than most. They all loved Ovi’s dad. For some of the guys who have been here for a long time, they’ve described Mikhail Ovechkin as being like a dad to all of them. That’s a very hard thing when you lose that, so I don’t want to discount that at all here.
But… While it wouldn’t fix his broken heart, wouldn’t it at least be a hell of a lot nicer for Ovi to return to his team – whom he also loves immensely, albeit obviously in a different way – already being in a playoff spot, so that he doesn’t have to also worry about carrying them back into it? Because you just know he’s going to put that pressure on himself, regardless of what he’s already going through in his own personal life. That’s just the type of player, the type of person that he is.
… Something to think about for the rest of the Caps players, when they look themselves in the mirror tonight.
Goodnight.
