The Caps were blue, too

I didn't watch Saturday's Caps game until yesterday, and almost wish I hadn't bothered.  I think it was the first game this season where they never felt competitive.

I thought it was odd to have Peters in net (so far, he's been in for the second half of every back-to-back), although he did more than respectably.

The Caps were just blown out of the water for the first ten-fifteen minutes of the game.  The Blues only scored one goal, but that was thanks to Peters and some puck luck.  It felt like that entire span was spent in the Caps defensive zone.  The shots were only like 12-5, but it felt worse than that.  The Blues getting the only power play didn't help that either, although the Caps killed that penalty with only one shot allowed.

The ending bits of the first period felt better, although the shot numbers were really getting closer, so it might have just been in my head that it was better.

The second period certainly started out better, culminating in Ward's goal in the seventh minute that trickled through Elliot's arms and pads.  But that was pretty much the high point.  There were a few good shifts that didn't result in goals, but it was still fairly well controlled by the Blues (and again, the Blues were helped by getting the only power play).  And six minutes after Ward's goal, St Louis re-established their lead.

The Caps held them off, including keeping them shotless in that power play, but still went into the second break down a goal.

And the third opened very quickly, with Peters mishandling the puck behind the net leading to a nice pass (from Berglund, who took the puck from Peters, and probably could have finished himself.  But he took no chances) to a finish into the empty net by Backes.

That was enough for me.  I usually wait for a larger margin before turning a game off, but I was fairly disgusted with what I'd seen.  And I was right; the only remaining score came from Berglund with three minutes and change left.

I'm guessing the Caps got the day off yesterday, and got a bag skate this morning.  They just looked outplayed and outclassed six ways to Sunday.  I hope we won't be seeing more play like that, because that would make for a very depressing season.