I didn't watch all of the Caps game last night; I was putting the new wheels on my bike (finding that I didn't have enough vertical clearance for the 28mm tires meant I had to put the tires on twice, so it took considerably longer than it should have). Anyway, I had watched the first period live, but that delayed me until late enough that I was too tired to watch the third period on delay.
I didn't miss much, though. In fact, I wouldn't have missed much skipping the second period.
The game opened decisively, with MarJo putting the Caps on the board. The goal was a bit of a weird one; Brouwer had gotten the puck up top, in the middle, and threw it towards the goal, where MarJo was headed. The puck bounced around a bit between defenders and goalie, with MarJo swooping in, kicking it across the net to his stick, and calmly sliding the biscuit into the basket.
It took only six minutes for the Caps to strike again, this time on a 5-on-3 advantage (hey, another advantage of Trotz over Oates; the Caps can score 5-on-3). It was a normal OV PPG one-timer.
The Jackets cut the advantage in half two minutes later, when Atkinson took a one-timer shot off a clean face-off win, but the Caps still seemed fully in control.
And they asserted more of that control several minutes later when OV intercepted the puck in neutral (hey, he's playing defense now... how about that?), facing his own net. His second touch was a pass backwards to Backstrom cutting across the ice, who sent a one-touch back-pass to Beagle, charging up the other side. OV, meanwhile, has skated around behind Beagle and took the very nice drop pass (I don't take back any of what I've said about Beagle and scoring chances, but this was a beautiful drop pass) for a quick slap shot to the upper corner. Gorgeous play from start to finish. The Jackets never came close to recovering from the turnover.
So the period ended with the Caps ahead 3-1, and leading in shots 13-5 (and frankly, it felt less even than that). So there was definitely some temptation to head straight to bed after finishing with the bike.
But I did turn on the second, and though Columbus scored the only goal for the period, and even though play was much more even than in the first, it still didn't feel like Columbus had any chance of winning (especially not the way they've been brutalized by injuries). So I went to bed there.
Therefore, I missed Hartnell's breakaway (off a steal from a Beagle pass. Making up for the nice drop-pass earlier, I guess) that rang off the crossbar, and, with five minutes left, MarJo's insurance goal. He broke into the zone, dropped to Bura, kept skating around, and Bura hit him with a return pass as he was going behind the net. He carried it around and scored on a wraparound (looking much like one of a couple of goals he scored two seasons ago). Nice eyes by Bura to see it developing.
A couple of notes of interest. I've noticed the Caps, this season, have gone to a different configuration on a 5-on-3. They lay it out like a big X. OV and Green at the points, Brouwer at the apex, Backstrom on the goal-line, right, and Ward on the goal-line, left. I hadn't realized that was the configuration at the time, but this is what Ward scored one of his power-play goals on, several games ago. I had wondered how he got that pass in that position, and now we know. It's just a set position.
And to get back to MarJo a bit. It was hard not to see last season as a disappointment, even though most of his lack of scoring was due to an abysmally low (unsustainably so, especially accounting for where the shots were originating) shooting percentage. This season, he's shooting more, and scoring on a higher percentage. There was no reason to suspect he'd be tied for the team lead in goals at this point (nor is there any reason to expect him to sustain that position) in the season, but there was certainly room for a lot of optimism. Especially when he compared favorably, at the beginning of the season, to several eventual Hart Trophy winners at that age.
Anyway, he's looked fantastic so far, and not just on those goals. He also drew one of the penalties (the second, I believe) that led to the 5-on-3. And it's certainly fair to attribute some of his success to being centered by Bura (conversely, MarJo is a significant factor in Bura looking so good, as well).
All that said, next game is Friday against New Jersey. The Devils aren't nearly as hot as they were the last time the two faced off, but they're certainly not ones with whom to be trifled.
Showing posts with label marjo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marjo. Show all posts
20131106
Marching down the isle
I wasn't able to watch last night's Caps game until the kids were in bed, which probably means I started it in the first half of the third period. But the important part is that I was able to watch the entire game without interruption (and mostly without commercials, yay).
And it started out looking pretty good, with the Caps generating some good pressure, until Grabo got called for a high sticking penalty. It was a bit of a weird call, though, as his stick came up and hit Tavares as he was going down from being tripped by Tavares.
In any event, the PK unit went to work, but not very well. Five shots were allowed on the ensuing power play, and a goal was scored less than a second after the penalty had expired. The one good part was that Holtby looked very good on the power play; he made several routine stops and one or two very good ones.
Anyway, the Caps showed no signs of a letdown after that, working hard for the rest of the period, even though they weren't able to solve Nabokov.
Going into the second, both teams had close to half their total goals on the season in the second period (the Isles were at half, and the Caps weren't far off), so it was expected that scoring would pick up a bit. And it did not disappoint; the first goal came only three minutes in, with Carlson succeeding on a risky keep-in at the blue line. He pushed it past the forward trying to get by him with the puck, then fired a laser of a shot into the far side of the net.
The Caps pressure continued, and they were rewarded with a power play a minute and a half later. OV potted one on a fairly weak wrister (odd, for him; he rarely shoots at less than full power) off the ensuing faceoff, and things were looking great. But the team had another letdown, as they allowed Okposo to score only seventeen seconds later (the Okposo/Tavares/Vanek line was buzzing all night, even if this was their only score; they caused a lot of problems for the Caps, and had nineteen shot attempts between them).
It was pretty much all Caps from there on out, though. The Caps scored again (MarJo, on a rebound in the crease) two minutes later, and again a minute and a half after that (Urbom on a top-corner snipe from the point off a nice pass from Wilson, who was on his ass a few feet from the goal). And they didn't let up; they kept pressuring, although it took a penalty on newly-acquired Tomas Vanek for the Caps to get on the board again.
Vanek was called for interference with about three minutes left in the period, and it took all of nineteen seconds for the power play to strike again, with OV potting a really nice feed from next to the goal, by MarJo. (Credit that one partially to the Islanders defenseman who failed to cut off that passing lane, although it was a good job by MarJo to see it.)
That finished out the scoring for the period, although not for the game. The other thing that made me happy about this game was that the Caps didn't collapse back into a shell, even with a three-goal lead. Not even when the Islanders tried to make things quite chippy (there were a lot of penalties handed out in the last two minutes of the game). And in Washington's one power play in the third, they managed to get another score, as OV fed Wilson for a tip-in about fifteen seconds into the power play.
It really wasn't much of a goal, but it was a nice reward to Wilson for a very strong game (even discounting the goal and assist, he looked very dangerous all game), although his playing time was still only ten minutes. Congrats to Wilson for converting, and getting his first points of the season; we're looking for more of that. :)
For the rest of the team... Well, OV had a great game (the two goals and an assist were merely the punctuation marks); he was mostly playing with Backstrom and Erat, and those two gave him several one-on-one chances over the course of the game. I really liked watching that line.
MarJo had a good game, and not just on that goal. His line had quite a bit of zone time, and a few good chances. His line was still the weakest, but it wasn't a sinkhole. As long as they can maintain that status, this is looking like a really good lineup.
Grabo's line looked very good again, with a number of good chances, and very good possession.
And the fourth line looked pretty good too. As I said, Wilson looked very good, and the others weren't stopping him from doing things.
On the defensive side, the top defenders looked like top defenders. Schmidt continued his excellent play, although he did make two small mistakes (one was an ill-advised point-to-point pass, and I forget the other). And the third pairing looked pretty good as well.
What I couldn't figure out was why Fehr was a healthy scratch. That is, if they weren't lying about him being healthy. Because if he was healthy, I can't figure it; he's been playing well.
Dima was also a healthy scratch. Hard to fault that one, though; no obvious pick of whom he would replace. Urbom, I guess, would be most likely, but he looked decent enough all night. But I'd like to see more of Dima; he was certainly exciting (in a good way) two seasons ago.
The one thing that didn't thrill me, and that I should mention is that there was some serious line-shuffling going on, primarily in the top two lines, over the course of the game (especially in the second period). I'm not sure I understand that, but it's hard to argue with results.
As I said, I liked the top line, and hope it continues. The second line seems decent, although I'd move Fehr to MarJo's left (since he seems to be the only player Oates will play on his off-hand wing) and send Laich down to the fourth.
I wouldn't mess with the third, and would be left with a fourth of Laich, Latta, and Wilson, which would make a heck of a checking line. And could be trusted for more than seven minutes a game.
The power play was, again, very good. In fact, four of the goals were PPGs. On the six opportunities, the Caps got eight shots in only three minutes and forty seconds. No way to argue with that.
In fact, even though the Caps had one more power play opportunity, they had six minutes and twenty seconds less power play time. Pretty good.
The penalty kill was five for five, but allowed another thirteen shots (not counting the shot that scored right at the end of the first power play). They actually looked really, really good on one penalty (the "holding the stick" penalty that Chimmer took, early in the third), but generally allowed way too much zone time for the Islanders. I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but expecting a .980 save percentage to continue when down a man is highly unrealistic.
The one goal in forty opportunities is certainly nice, but they're there mostly due to luck, not skill. Something has to be done to improve the PK. I'm not sure what needs to be done (getting better at holding the blue line, maybe?), but something certainly does. I hope someone on the coaching staff is thinking about that.
Getting away from that, one last thing to talk about, which is possession. Despite being way down in power play time, and despite being way ahead for about half the game, the Caps still came out of the game with good possession numbers. All-situation Fenwick, they were up one. 5-on-5 close Fenwick (twenty-one and a half minutes, roughly, and it was Corsi and shots, as well) was over 60% in the Caps favor. Really, there was nothing not to like in last night's game.
Minnesota is coming to town Thursday, though, and they're a very strong possession team. That'll be a good test of whether last night was really a sign of significant improvement, or just a mirage. Also, look out for that first period. Minnesota has a hair over a third of their goals in the first, while Washington has less than a fifth of theirs. Also, if it goes to overtime, neither team has an overtime goal on the season. Go Caps!
And it started out looking pretty good, with the Caps generating some good pressure, until Grabo got called for a high sticking penalty. It was a bit of a weird call, though, as his stick came up and hit Tavares as he was going down from being tripped by Tavares.
In any event, the PK unit went to work, but not very well. Five shots were allowed on the ensuing power play, and a goal was scored less than a second after the penalty had expired. The one good part was that Holtby looked very good on the power play; he made several routine stops and one or two very good ones.
Anyway, the Caps showed no signs of a letdown after that, working hard for the rest of the period, even though they weren't able to solve Nabokov.
Going into the second, both teams had close to half their total goals on the season in the second period (the Isles were at half, and the Caps weren't far off), so it was expected that scoring would pick up a bit. And it did not disappoint; the first goal came only three minutes in, with Carlson succeeding on a risky keep-in at the blue line. He pushed it past the forward trying to get by him with the puck, then fired a laser of a shot into the far side of the net.
The Caps pressure continued, and they were rewarded with a power play a minute and a half later. OV potted one on a fairly weak wrister (odd, for him; he rarely shoots at less than full power) off the ensuing faceoff, and things were looking great. But the team had another letdown, as they allowed Okposo to score only seventeen seconds later (the Okposo/Tavares/Vanek line was buzzing all night, even if this was their only score; they caused a lot of problems for the Caps, and had nineteen shot attempts between them).
It was pretty much all Caps from there on out, though. The Caps scored again (MarJo, on a rebound in the crease) two minutes later, and again a minute and a half after that (Urbom on a top-corner snipe from the point off a nice pass from Wilson, who was on his ass a few feet from the goal). And they didn't let up; they kept pressuring, although it took a penalty on newly-acquired Tomas Vanek for the Caps to get on the board again.
Vanek was called for interference with about three minutes left in the period, and it took all of nineteen seconds for the power play to strike again, with OV potting a really nice feed from next to the goal, by MarJo. (Credit that one partially to the Islanders defenseman who failed to cut off that passing lane, although it was a good job by MarJo to see it.)
That finished out the scoring for the period, although not for the game. The other thing that made me happy about this game was that the Caps didn't collapse back into a shell, even with a three-goal lead. Not even when the Islanders tried to make things quite chippy (there were a lot of penalties handed out in the last two minutes of the game). And in Washington's one power play in the third, they managed to get another score, as OV fed Wilson for a tip-in about fifteen seconds into the power play.
It really wasn't much of a goal, but it was a nice reward to Wilson for a very strong game (even discounting the goal and assist, he looked very dangerous all game), although his playing time was still only ten minutes. Congrats to Wilson for converting, and getting his first points of the season; we're looking for more of that. :)
For the rest of the team... Well, OV had a great game (the two goals and an assist were merely the punctuation marks); he was mostly playing with Backstrom and Erat, and those two gave him several one-on-one chances over the course of the game. I really liked watching that line.
MarJo had a good game, and not just on that goal. His line had quite a bit of zone time, and a few good chances. His line was still the weakest, but it wasn't a sinkhole. As long as they can maintain that status, this is looking like a really good lineup.
Grabo's line looked very good again, with a number of good chances, and very good possession.
And the fourth line looked pretty good too. As I said, Wilson looked very good, and the others weren't stopping him from doing things.
On the defensive side, the top defenders looked like top defenders. Schmidt continued his excellent play, although he did make two small mistakes (one was an ill-advised point-to-point pass, and I forget the other). And the third pairing looked pretty good as well.
What I couldn't figure out was why Fehr was a healthy scratch. That is, if they weren't lying about him being healthy. Because if he was healthy, I can't figure it; he's been playing well.
Dima was also a healthy scratch. Hard to fault that one, though; no obvious pick of whom he would replace. Urbom, I guess, would be most likely, but he looked decent enough all night. But I'd like to see more of Dima; he was certainly exciting (in a good way) two seasons ago.
The one thing that didn't thrill me, and that I should mention is that there was some serious line-shuffling going on, primarily in the top two lines, over the course of the game (especially in the second period). I'm not sure I understand that, but it's hard to argue with results.
As I said, I liked the top line, and hope it continues. The second line seems decent, although I'd move Fehr to MarJo's left (since he seems to be the only player Oates will play on his off-hand wing) and send Laich down to the fourth.
I wouldn't mess with the third, and would be left with a fourth of Laich, Latta, and Wilson, which would make a heck of a checking line. And could be trusted for more than seven minutes a game.
The power play was, again, very good. In fact, four of the goals were PPGs. On the six opportunities, the Caps got eight shots in only three minutes and forty seconds. No way to argue with that.
In fact, even though the Caps had one more power play opportunity, they had six minutes and twenty seconds less power play time. Pretty good.
The penalty kill was five for five, but allowed another thirteen shots (not counting the shot that scored right at the end of the first power play). They actually looked really, really good on one penalty (the "holding the stick" penalty that Chimmer took, early in the third), but generally allowed way too much zone time for the Islanders. I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but expecting a .980 save percentage to continue when down a man is highly unrealistic.
The one goal in forty opportunities is certainly nice, but they're there mostly due to luck, not skill. Something has to be done to improve the PK. I'm not sure what needs to be done (getting better at holding the blue line, maybe?), but something certainly does. I hope someone on the coaching staff is thinking about that.
Getting away from that, one last thing to talk about, which is possession. Despite being way down in power play time, and despite being way ahead for about half the game, the Caps still came out of the game with good possession numbers. All-situation Fenwick, they were up one. 5-on-5 close Fenwick (twenty-one and a half minutes, roughly, and it was Corsi and shots, as well) was over 60% in the Caps favor. Really, there was nothing not to like in last night's game.
Minnesota is coming to town Thursday, though, and they're a very strong possession team. That'll be a good test of whether last night was really a sign of significant improvement, or just a mirage. Also, look out for that first period. Minnesota has a hair over a third of their goals in the first, while Washington has less than a fifth of theirs. Also, if it goes to overtime, neither team has an overtime goal on the season. Go Caps!
20131021
Putting it together
I wasn't able to watch the Caps/Blue Jackets game until it was close to over. Fortunately, the DVR didn't hose me up, and I didn't get any hints before I got the recording started.
I was aware of the line shakeup that happened before the game. So I knew Erat was up to the second (replacing Grabo, rather than Laich, which confused me), Grabo went down to the third, Fehr went down to the fourth. I still don't think they're icing their best team, but it's a step in the right direction (I'd like to see a second of Erat-Grabovski-Brouwer (or maybe even E-G-Wilson), with a Chimmer-Laich-Ward third and Volpatti-Fehr-Wilson/Brouwer fourth. That'd make the third line the checking one, and the fourth a cycling/scoring/energy line). Anyway, my hope is that Oates is still experimenting. If he doesn't consider this a work-in-progress, then I'm going to be a bit disturbed.
Let me just take a minute to talk about Wilson vs Brouwer on the second. Brouwer's a slightly better hitter and shooter (I think; neither is cut and dried), but otherwise inferior to Wilson. I'll have another point in a few paragraphs. But I think Wilson is already better at positioning and overall possession. For sure, neither one is going to be driving the play (this year; Wilson, obviously, still has upside down the line).
Getting to the game, it was interesting. Oates had obviously talked to the defensemen about being more aggressive going on offense. This was apparent as, within the first couple of minutes, Alzner was up on a break and Green tried to break into the O-zone 1-on-4. Interestingly, Alzner's charge worked out better than Green's, in that it did lead to a decent scoring chance.
While the breakout actually looked better in this scenario, it did lead to quite a few chances going the other way, over the course of the game. So, I'll call it a qualified improvement. Meaning, when the wings get better at covering the back end, I'll call this a win. Or maybe it was just a one-game change focused on Columbus. I guess we'll have to see on that.
The other thing I found interesting, strategically, were the power play adjustments. Columbus was playing to keep containment on Ward/Brouwer-Backstrom-MarJo, stretching to prevent the Backstrom->Green pass. It really looked, at least for the first three power plays, that the only thing that could stop the Caps, despite that, was Brouwer (who took a dumb penalty to cancel one of the man-up opportunities. Another facet where Wilson is probably already superior to Brouwer. Especially considering that it was the second time this season). Trouble getting the puck to OV didn't stop them. OV still had some very good chances; the first time the puck got there, he got two good whacks at it. The second, he buried (and this one did go through Green).
Despite those chances, on the fourth power play, the Caps swapped OV and Green. That wasn't horrible, but I'm not a fan of the arrangement. I'd really prefer to see OV shooting from closer. Perhaps it was just an attempt to throw off the Blue Jackets' defense. In which case, ok, but I hope it doesn't become a regular thing (especially for a power play still clicking at one-in-three).
The other main thing to point out was that Holtby's excellent game did a lot to cover up those holes the defensive aggressiveness opened. The Caps did do a pretty good job at keeping play at the correct end of the ice. The downside was that when the Jackets got to the Caps zone, they got very good opportunities. Really, this was a game that could have gone south in an awful hurry with less-than-stellar goaltending.
The numbers look reasonably good, though, for the Caps. With the score tied, at evens (ie: through the first, and the first minute and a half of the second), the Caps were heavily ahead. That first Caps goal, scored on the power play, did not indicate further tilting of the ice, though. In fact, for the next (almost) six minutes, the Jackets had a heavy edge in Corsi and Fenwick (+8 and +9, respectively).
But Erat's line (despite Laich being the center, it was very obvious that Erat was the driver) continued to play very well, and broke through at 7:43 of the second, with a heaping helping of Oleksy curl-and-drag. Oleksy's drive to the net pulled almost the entire defense to his side of the net, leaving Laich open for a tap-in when Oleksy passed across to him.
The rest of the game was played pretty close, possessionally, with the Caps having a one event edge in Corsi and the Jackets having a one even edge in Fenwick (both calculated at five aside). But Brouwer got his second goal (nicely set up by Erat), and OV got that power play to put the exclamation point on the game.
Columbus did claw one goal back with five minutes left, and did force quite a few more good saves from Holtby, but the outcome had long-since stopped being in doubt.
I'd call it Washington's best game of the season, and it's really got me licking my chops at the thought of Erat and Grabovski on the same line, but there's definitely still some holes.
I'm fine with the aggressive defense, but the wings have got to do a better job covering that (Alzner had a second charge, later in the game, that took him all the way behind the net, and nobody covered the point before he got back there. That's no way to win games). Holtby's mighty good, but he can't be relied on for .971 save percentage (nobody can).
In the bigger picture, the Caps said that Wilson will stay up for the season. I'm definitely not a fan of that decision, as long as Wilson keeps getting only six-nine minutes (he got almost nine Saturday, which is 1-2 more than I thought he'd gotten). If he starts getting 11-13 minutes, then maybe it's not a terrible idea. But burning a year of his ELC for so little play is just terrible asset management.
Oh, and I called out Erat and Holtby for excellent play already. Schmidt continued to look good as well; I only saw one miscue by him on the night. And MarJo is definitely looking better this year. It isn't an automatic turnover when gets to the boards. He also doubled his shot count for the season! Volpatti also looked decent, I thought (yeah, my expectations were pretty low, that I feel like mentioning that).
OV had a pretty decent game (which is to say, an inferior game by his standards); he was good, but not dominating. Oh, and his line's first two shifts were... not good. And Carlson worried me when he took a penalty in the first. He gets, by far, the most PK time on the team, so I was a bit concerned with him in the box. Happily, they handled it well.
In fact, I need to give kudos to the PK team. In one of the opportunities, they managed to go over a minute before the Jackets got set up (two chances to play "four corners" in one PK. It was very, very encouraging to see that they got them, and even more so that they took them).
We'll see where things go, but there were definitely some good signs. Five on five play still needs to improve, but it looks like it's headed in the right direction.
I was aware of the line shakeup that happened before the game. So I knew Erat was up to the second (replacing Grabo, rather than Laich, which confused me), Grabo went down to the third, Fehr went down to the fourth. I still don't think they're icing their best team, but it's a step in the right direction (I'd like to see a second of Erat-Grabovski-Brouwer (or maybe even E-G-Wilson), with a Chimmer-Laich-Ward third and Volpatti-Fehr-Wilson/Brouwer fourth. That'd make the third line the checking one, and the fourth a cycling/scoring/energy line). Anyway, my hope is that Oates is still experimenting. If he doesn't consider this a work-in-progress, then I'm going to be a bit disturbed.
Let me just take a minute to talk about Wilson vs Brouwer on the second. Brouwer's a slightly better hitter and shooter (I think; neither is cut and dried), but otherwise inferior to Wilson. I'll have another point in a few paragraphs. But I think Wilson is already better at positioning and overall possession. For sure, neither one is going to be driving the play (this year; Wilson, obviously, still has upside down the line).
Getting to the game, it was interesting. Oates had obviously talked to the defensemen about being more aggressive going on offense. This was apparent as, within the first couple of minutes, Alzner was up on a break and Green tried to break into the O-zone 1-on-4. Interestingly, Alzner's charge worked out better than Green's, in that it did lead to a decent scoring chance.
While the breakout actually looked better in this scenario, it did lead to quite a few chances going the other way, over the course of the game. So, I'll call it a qualified improvement. Meaning, when the wings get better at covering the back end, I'll call this a win. Or maybe it was just a one-game change focused on Columbus. I guess we'll have to see on that.
The other thing I found interesting, strategically, were the power play adjustments. Columbus was playing to keep containment on Ward/Brouwer-Backstrom-MarJo, stretching to prevent the Backstrom->Green pass. It really looked, at least for the first three power plays, that the only thing that could stop the Caps, despite that, was Brouwer (who took a dumb penalty to cancel one of the man-up opportunities. Another facet where Wilson is probably already superior to Brouwer. Especially considering that it was the second time this season). Trouble getting the puck to OV didn't stop them. OV still had some very good chances; the first time the puck got there, he got two good whacks at it. The second, he buried (and this one did go through Green).
Despite those chances, on the fourth power play, the Caps swapped OV and Green. That wasn't horrible, but I'm not a fan of the arrangement. I'd really prefer to see OV shooting from closer. Perhaps it was just an attempt to throw off the Blue Jackets' defense. In which case, ok, but I hope it doesn't become a regular thing (especially for a power play still clicking at one-in-three).
The other main thing to point out was that Holtby's excellent game did a lot to cover up those holes the defensive aggressiveness opened. The Caps did do a pretty good job at keeping play at the correct end of the ice. The downside was that when the Jackets got to the Caps zone, they got very good opportunities. Really, this was a game that could have gone south in an awful hurry with less-than-stellar goaltending.
The numbers look reasonably good, though, for the Caps. With the score tied, at evens (ie: through the first, and the first minute and a half of the second), the Caps were heavily ahead. That first Caps goal, scored on the power play, did not indicate further tilting of the ice, though. In fact, for the next (almost) six minutes, the Jackets had a heavy edge in Corsi and Fenwick (+8 and +9, respectively).
But Erat's line (despite Laich being the center, it was very obvious that Erat was the driver) continued to play very well, and broke through at 7:43 of the second, with a heaping helping of Oleksy curl-and-drag. Oleksy's drive to the net pulled almost the entire defense to his side of the net, leaving Laich open for a tap-in when Oleksy passed across to him.
The rest of the game was played pretty close, possessionally, with the Caps having a one event edge in Corsi and the Jackets having a one even edge in Fenwick (both calculated at five aside). But Brouwer got his second goal (nicely set up by Erat), and OV got that power play to put the exclamation point on the game.
Columbus did claw one goal back with five minutes left, and did force quite a few more good saves from Holtby, but the outcome had long-since stopped being in doubt.
I'd call it Washington's best game of the season, and it's really got me licking my chops at the thought of Erat and Grabovski on the same line, but there's definitely still some holes.
I'm fine with the aggressive defense, but the wings have got to do a better job covering that (Alzner had a second charge, later in the game, that took him all the way behind the net, and nobody covered the point before he got back there. That's no way to win games). Holtby's mighty good, but he can't be relied on for .971 save percentage (nobody can).
In the bigger picture, the Caps said that Wilson will stay up for the season. I'm definitely not a fan of that decision, as long as Wilson keeps getting only six-nine minutes (he got almost nine Saturday, which is 1-2 more than I thought he'd gotten). If he starts getting 11-13 minutes, then maybe it's not a terrible idea. But burning a year of his ELC for so little play is just terrible asset management.
Oh, and I called out Erat and Holtby for excellent play already. Schmidt continued to look good as well; I only saw one miscue by him on the night. And MarJo is definitely looking better this year. It isn't an automatic turnover when gets to the boards. He also doubled his shot count for the season! Volpatti also looked decent, I thought (yeah, my expectations were pretty low, that I feel like mentioning that).
OV had a pretty decent game (which is to say, an inferior game by his standards); he was good, but not dominating. Oh, and his line's first two shifts were... not good. And Carlson worried me when he took a penalty in the first. He gets, by far, the most PK time on the team, so I was a bit concerned with him in the box. Happily, they handled it well.
In fact, I need to give kudos to the PK team. In one of the opportunities, they managed to go over a minute before the Jackets got set up (two chances to play "four corners" in one PK. It was very, very encouraging to see that they got them, and even more so that they took them).
We'll see where things go, but there were definitely some good signs. Five on five play still needs to improve, but it looks like it's headed in the right direction.
20131004
Snatching victory...
I don't have a lot of time to write this, but I wanted to jot down a few notes about last night's Caps game, which I was finally able to watch tonight. I wasn't feeling great about it, as last night I turned it on a few seconds after the Flames opened the scoring.
And it didn't really go all that well after. The Flames scored more before seventeen minutes had been reached, and Hillen suffered a leg (probably knee) injury in there as well. Wilson responded to that with a few good punches and a nice takedown on the person delivering the hit that caused the injury (on replay it looked pretty clean, but in full speed I didn't think so). But Holtby was pulled after that third goal.
The Caps did get a few chances in there (OV was close a couple times), but nothing sustained. It really wasn't looking good by the end of the period. The only encouraging thing was that the shots were close (in fact, the Caps were up one, which surprised me quite a bit).
And things didn't look much better for a while in the second. Then Carrick got a hooking minor (weird call; looked like Carrick was the one being fouled). The PK did well this time (the third goal in the first was a PPG, so it hadn't started well), and at the expiration, MarJo got the puck and found Carrick at the other blue line. Carrick took it in on the breakaway and deked Ramo down, calmly depositing the puck behind him.
But, a minute and a half later, Neuvy misplayed the puck behind the net fairly badly, and gave up an open-net goal to restore Calgary's three-goal margin. And the play still wasn't looking too good for the home team, although they did have the occasional chance. Then Jones hit Carlson in the face with his stick to give the Caps the man advantage (and I'm impressed the refs saw this one. It was there, but was very quick).
The Caps won the faceoff, worked it around for a bit, then fed OV for the one-timer for a goal on the first shot (sadly, though, it was the Caps first shot since Carrick had scored).
The Caps got within one four minutes later with OV again finding the back of the net. Off an icing call, Backstrom won the faceoff over to MarJo, who dumped back to OV, who rocketed it into the net.
And the Caps looked great for the remaining four minutes or so of the period. Lots of chances, many of them very close. But none were converted, which took us into the third (other than the bench minor with thirteen seconds left).
The team was doing a good job killing that penalty for the first 59 seconds, then Erskine (with time) cleared it the length of the ice, and over the glass at the far end. How often does that happen? Well, for the Caps, this season, every game, apparently. To their credit, the team did a great job killing the two-man advantage. The remainder of the delay of game wasn't quite as smooth, but they got the job done.
The Caps drew two more penalties, and the second of those provided the tying score. OV wristed it into a defender laying in front of him, the puck bounced around some skates to Grabo, who calmly passed over to Backstrom, who settled it and wristed it between the defender's legs, and past Ramo.
Things didn't look too good after that, but they managed to get into overtime with the tie. The overtime felt pretty heavily Calgary's way, but shots were equal. In fact, they were equal for the entire game, which surprised me. The Caps really didn't seem to have equal control of the play, other than five or six minutes at the end of the second. Although score effects would, normally, help equalize quite a bit. I'm sure it wasn't nearly even when the score was close.
Anyway, they managed to drag it out into the shootout, where Grabo and OV both deked forehand, then scored on the backhand. And Neuvy stopped Baertschi and Hudler to cement the win.
It wasn't pretty (though you've got to figure that being short a defender didn't help with that), but they got the job done. It was actually less encouraging than the Chicago loss, but the result was better.
Holtby definitely had a bad game. Neuvy, outside of that one puck-handling misadventure, looked very good. Erskine did not; he mostly looked pretty terrible (though I'm surprised to see he was even on the night). MarJo was, quietly, very good. In addition to his beautiful helper for Carrick, he had assists on both of OV's goals. And OV was a force; the two goals, nine more shots, second assist on Backstrom's goal, and the shootout winner. The only weakness was taking his second slashing minor, but at least he had company going to the box, this time.
And Grabo looked great. He had a number of nice passes, and was regularly threatening. Fehr's line, I noticed several times looking good, although I suspect I'm forgetting several (maybe many) not-so-good plays. Erat and Wilson looked pretty good; unfortunately, Beagle was centering them. They managed to get a few pretty good chances despite him. But again, I suspect I'm forgetting a number of not-so-good times.
Anyway, hard to know what to make of the game. It was a win, which was nice, but it was a butt-ugly one. Not to mention feeling a bit like the old Cardiac Caps. And I never liked that feeling. Still, we'll take it. Dallas is tomorrow night; we'll get to see Eakin again. Hopefully, the game will go a bit better.
And it didn't really go all that well after. The Flames scored more before seventeen minutes had been reached, and Hillen suffered a leg (probably knee) injury in there as well. Wilson responded to that with a few good punches and a nice takedown on the person delivering the hit that caused the injury (on replay it looked pretty clean, but in full speed I didn't think so). But Holtby was pulled after that third goal.
The Caps did get a few chances in there (OV was close a couple times), but nothing sustained. It really wasn't looking good by the end of the period. The only encouraging thing was that the shots were close (in fact, the Caps were up one, which surprised me quite a bit).
And things didn't look much better for a while in the second. Then Carrick got a hooking minor (weird call; looked like Carrick was the one being fouled). The PK did well this time (the third goal in the first was a PPG, so it hadn't started well), and at the expiration, MarJo got the puck and found Carrick at the other blue line. Carrick took it in on the breakaway and deked Ramo down, calmly depositing the puck behind him.
But, a minute and a half later, Neuvy misplayed the puck behind the net fairly badly, and gave up an open-net goal to restore Calgary's three-goal margin. And the play still wasn't looking too good for the home team, although they did have the occasional chance. Then Jones hit Carlson in the face with his stick to give the Caps the man advantage (and I'm impressed the refs saw this one. It was there, but was very quick).
The Caps won the faceoff, worked it around for a bit, then fed OV for the one-timer for a goal on the first shot (sadly, though, it was the Caps first shot since Carrick had scored).
The Caps got within one four minutes later with OV again finding the back of the net. Off an icing call, Backstrom won the faceoff over to MarJo, who dumped back to OV, who rocketed it into the net.
And the Caps looked great for the remaining four minutes or so of the period. Lots of chances, many of them very close. But none were converted, which took us into the third (other than the bench minor with thirteen seconds left).
The team was doing a good job killing that penalty for the first 59 seconds, then Erskine (with time) cleared it the length of the ice, and over the glass at the far end. How often does that happen? Well, for the Caps, this season, every game, apparently. To their credit, the team did a great job killing the two-man advantage. The remainder of the delay of game wasn't quite as smooth, but they got the job done.
The Caps drew two more penalties, and the second of those provided the tying score. OV wristed it into a defender laying in front of him, the puck bounced around some skates to Grabo, who calmly passed over to Backstrom, who settled it and wristed it between the defender's legs, and past Ramo.
Things didn't look too good after that, but they managed to get into overtime with the tie. The overtime felt pretty heavily Calgary's way, but shots were equal. In fact, they were equal for the entire game, which surprised me. The Caps really didn't seem to have equal control of the play, other than five or six minutes at the end of the second. Although score effects would, normally, help equalize quite a bit. I'm sure it wasn't nearly even when the score was close.
Anyway, they managed to drag it out into the shootout, where Grabo and OV both deked forehand, then scored on the backhand. And Neuvy stopped Baertschi and Hudler to cement the win.
It wasn't pretty (though you've got to figure that being short a defender didn't help with that), but they got the job done. It was actually less encouraging than the Chicago loss, but the result was better.
Holtby definitely had a bad game. Neuvy, outside of that one puck-handling misadventure, looked very good. Erskine did not; he mostly looked pretty terrible (though I'm surprised to see he was even on the night). MarJo was, quietly, very good. In addition to his beautiful helper for Carrick, he had assists on both of OV's goals. And OV was a force; the two goals, nine more shots, second assist on Backstrom's goal, and the shootout winner. The only weakness was taking his second slashing minor, but at least he had company going to the box, this time.
And Grabo looked great. He had a number of nice passes, and was regularly threatening. Fehr's line, I noticed several times looking good, although I suspect I'm forgetting several (maybe many) not-so-good plays. Erat and Wilson looked pretty good; unfortunately, Beagle was centering them. They managed to get a few pretty good chances despite him. But again, I suspect I'm forgetting a number of not-so-good times.
Anyway, hard to know what to make of the game. It was a win, which was nice, but it was a butt-ugly one. Not to mention feeling a bit like the old Cardiac Caps. And I never liked that feeling. Still, we'll take it. Dallas is tomorrow night; we'll get to see Eakin again. Hopefully, the game will go a bit better.
20130910
Lineup (for now) Complete
Well, I read in the paper yesterday that MarJo has finally been signed by the Caps. Yay.
And the cap hit isn't bad, at $2M/yr. That's about where I was expecting things to go (give or take a couple hundred thousand); he just didn't have any leverage, even though that's probably slightly below what he deserves, based on his play.
I'm glad to see it, although with only $700k cap space left, I'm not sure what the Caps will be able to do for the rest of the season.
That is, they're in pretty decent shape, but could really use another defenseman to push Erskine down to the third pairing, and don't have the money.
There's also the possibility of Kuznetsov coming over after the Olympics. I don't think there's any money for that, either.
But, in the grand scheme of things, these aren't terrible problems to have. Maybe McPhee can convince the Toronto brass that they need another heavy-weight knuckle-chucker. Honestly, with his contract, I'd be happy to see him traded for a bag of pucks (sorry, John. I don't think you're a bad player, but you're heavily overpaid for what you bring to the table).
And there's also the thought of Wilson. Not sure how things work if he comes up after the OHL season ends, but they definitely can't afford the cap hit to bring him up to start the season. Again, not a terrible problem to have.
I think the Caps are in great shape if Dima can work his way back up to the Show, although last season is certainly worrisome in that regard. But his showing two seasons ago certainly leaves room to hope. But if he can't, they're going to be pretty exposed defensively. We'll keep our fingers crossed.
Oh, and it was definitely weird to find out about a roster move in the paper. Definitely wouldn't have happened on a weekday.
Update: Heard yesterday that Kuznetsov has another shoulder injury, though should be back soon enough to still compete in Olympics (assuming it doesn't keep him from making the team, of course).
And the cap hit isn't bad, at $2M/yr. That's about where I was expecting things to go (give or take a couple hundred thousand); he just didn't have any leverage, even though that's probably slightly below what he deserves, based on his play.
I'm glad to see it, although with only $700k cap space left, I'm not sure what the Caps will be able to do for the rest of the season.
That is, they're in pretty decent shape, but could really use another defenseman to push Erskine down to the third pairing, and don't have the money.
There's also the possibility of Kuznetsov coming over after the Olympics. I don't think there's any money for that, either.
But, in the grand scheme of things, these aren't terrible problems to have. Maybe McPhee can convince the Toronto brass that they need another heavy-weight knuckle-chucker. Honestly, with his contract, I'd be happy to see him traded for a bag of pucks (sorry, John. I don't think you're a bad player, but you're heavily overpaid for what you bring to the table).
And there's also the thought of Wilson. Not sure how things work if he comes up after the OHL season ends, but they definitely can't afford the cap hit to bring him up to start the season. Again, not a terrible problem to have.
I think the Caps are in great shape if Dima can work his way back up to the Show, although last season is certainly worrisome in that regard. But his showing two seasons ago certainly leaves room to hope. But if he can't, they're going to be pretty exposed defensively. We'll keep our fingers crossed.
Oh, and it was definitely weird to find out about a roster move in the paper. Definitely wouldn't have happened on a weekday.
Update: Heard yesterday that Kuznetsov has another shoulder injury, though should be back soon enough to still compete in Olympics (assuming it doesn't keep him from making the team, of course).
20130428
Treading water
I can't say as I went into last night's Caps game with high expectations, or anything. And the first two shifts did nothing to raise them, as most of both shifts were spent playing defense. But then Perreault's line came out and moved play in the the right direction, so it felt a little better.
It was back and forth for a bit, then the Caps started to get the better of the play.
But nobody could find the net for the rest of the period (both goalies were excellent).
In the second period, things went far more Ottawa's way. There weren't a whole lot of shots, but the Senators had a comfortable margin of them. And one of those Borealic shots went off of Karlsson's stick, and was deflected past Neuwirth by Silfverberg.
The third period was almost all Neuwirth, as the Caps were completely dominated (to the tune of 23-4 in shots, likely with a healthy helping of blocked shots as well, although I don't have the breakdown on those). The only reason it wasn't completely Neuvy was that MarJo sprung OV behind the defense (helped by a bit of a misplay by the defender who had a chance to cut off the pass), and OV put it behind Anderson to tie the game up.
That was as good as it got for the Caps. As I implied, Neuvy held the fort enough to keep Ottawa from extending or retaking the lead, and it went into overtime. Ribeiro didn't help matters by taking two bad penalties in the third (one of which carried over into the OT). In the overtime session, the Caps couldn't finish killing that penalty, and hence, never even got a shot off.
As I said, my expectations on the night weren't high, so I can't say as they really disappointed me, but I certainly had hopes of more. Mostly, I'm just hoping it was a bit of a blip, because twenty shots a game just isn't going to get it done.
But the game didn't have any real meaning for the Caps, so it's hard to read anything into it. I just ended up hoping that Saturday's Boston game would go better.
It was back and forth for a bit, then the Caps started to get the better of the play.
But nobody could find the net for the rest of the period (both goalies were excellent).
In the second period, things went far more Ottawa's way. There weren't a whole lot of shots, but the Senators had a comfortable margin of them. And one of those Borealic shots went off of Karlsson's stick, and was deflected past Neuwirth by Silfverberg.
The third period was almost all Neuwirth, as the Caps were completely dominated (to the tune of 23-4 in shots, likely with a healthy helping of blocked shots as well, although I don't have the breakdown on those). The only reason it wasn't completely Neuvy was that MarJo sprung OV behind the defense (helped by a bit of a misplay by the defender who had a chance to cut off the pass), and OV put it behind Anderson to tie the game up.
That was as good as it got for the Caps. As I implied, Neuvy held the fort enough to keep Ottawa from extending or retaking the lead, and it went into overtime. Ribeiro didn't help matters by taking two bad penalties in the third (one of which carried over into the OT). In the overtime session, the Caps couldn't finish killing that penalty, and hence, never even got a shot off.
As I said, my expectations on the night weren't high, so I can't say as they really disappointed me, but I certainly had hopes of more. Mostly, I'm just hoping it was a bit of a blip, because twenty shots a game just isn't going to get it done.
But the game didn't have any real meaning for the Caps, so it's hard to read anything into it. I just ended up hoping that Saturday's Boston game would go better.
20130317
Cutting through opposition
I only watched the first period of tonight's game against the Sabres. It started awfully well, as the Caps won the draw, dumped it in the zone, got the Sabres to ice it, won the resulting face-off, and scored within twenty seconds. The goal was OV's 702nd point, with Backstrom and MarJo both managing assists. The rest of the period continued to go well for the Caps, although that was the only goal scored. The Sabres got a couple of good chances, but most of the play was within the Sabres zone.
Well, that's what it felt like, watching it. Now that I look at the boxscore, shots were even at five (a startlingly low number, frankly) for the period.
And things seem to have broken open in the second. The Caps scored three more (allowing two), despite being outshot 17-10. Weird period, it seems. The Caps got both of the power plays, but only one of the goals was scored then (Brouwer, from Ribeiro and Backstrom). And Chimmer finally got off the schneid, getting help from Brouwer and Ribeiro. The third Caps goal came from MarJo (Perreault and Ward); I like that line, btw. Wonder if we'll see more of it.
The third period did have the Caps with the edge (shots 10-8), although goals were split at one apiece. The Caps goal was a pretty one by Perreault, who took it in the D zone in the middle, did a short give-and-go with Ward getting over the blue line, then had a beautiful deke to lose the defender. Meanwhile, Chimmer came to a stop at the edge of the crease on the far side (from Ward), then got bumped into Miller, giving Matty a lot of net to shoot into. A very nice, whole-line score, even if Chimmer didn't get any credit on the score sheet.
Not too much else to say; Hillen finally returned from the injury he suffered at the beginning of the season and played quite a few minutes. Four blocked shots and a penalty were his main contributions. I suppose it beats having to call up another Hershey defender.
Poti was back from his undisclosed upper body injury, and managed to be -1 despite only playing 8 minutes in the win. OV had four more shots and three hits to go with his goal. MarJo had three more shots, in addition to his goal and assist.
Incidentally, it's been rumored that part of the reason he was playing so poorly in the beginning of the season is that he might have suffered another concussion when he and OV ran into each other in practice at the beginning of the season. Not sure what needs to be done, but something sure does. In any event, if he can stop being a black hole, possession-wise, he might start helping the team. I don't really think there's any longer a chance of him taking over at 2C, but he might still make a decent second-line winger.
Perreault obviously had a good game with the goal and assist. Why was he scratched the last couple of games, again? And why was Wolski still there?
This team is definitely still a work in progress. I still think they need to trade Ribeiro, and hope for a high draft pick to try to pick things up quickly next season (and really look for progress the year after, when Forsberg and Kuznetsov will be on the team). Next game Tuesday in Pittsburgh. Let's hope it doesn't end in embarassment.
Update: It has come to my attention that I missed Hillen being present in the Bruins game the other day, so this was not his first game back. Sorry about that.
20120118
On the Forum-check
Well, a game that looked pretty good, superficially, for the Caps tonight. They got great netminding from Neuvirth, no doubt. And 3-0 feels a lot better when you're not on the zero end of things.
But most of the same thing continued. Very few shots (fewer than last night, actually), too many giveaways (it didn't feel like it, but there were even more than last night), way too many penalties (though a couple were kind of... curious, but I'll come back to that). The one mitigating factor was that at least scoring chances were in their favor through two (11-9).
But, basically, we saw almost the same performance except that a couple of shots went in.
Ok, that's not entirely true, the passing was crisper, and more accurate. The penalty killing was also a lot more effective, though that could be as much due to Montreal's deficiencies as to the Caps efficiencies. The power play also managed to convert one opportunity (though it took most of a four-minute advantage). But it was still mostly the same as we've seen recently, and that's not a good thing.
The lineup was not entirely the same tonight. Perreault came back into the lineup, scoring a goal despite playing only eight shifts (two of which were very short; nhl.com doesn't even list him as having played, despite crediting him with the goal). Erskine was also back, as expected. Not so expected was that he never dished out any punishment on Bourque.
In fact, the only "punishment" dished out was to Hendricks, who fought Bourque very early on, but didn't do much.
MarJo had a very eventful night. He had the second goal on a close-in shot to the top shelf, took a stick to the face that led to the aforementioned four-minute power play, and suffered through a knee-on-knee collision with about 2:30 remaining in the game. Let's hope it isn't a serious injury. Heck, any injury that takes him away, even just for a very short time, will be very debilitating for the team. They'd end up having to play Laich on the top line, Halpern on the checking line, with Eakin and Perreault, I guess, taking the remaining two positions. That is not a line down the middle that would inspire fear into the opposition.
Boy, I hadn't thought about it before. That's just scary. Let's not think about it, and hope MarJo's ok.
I mentioned some curious penalty calls. To elaborate, two of the third-period calls (plus several non-calls) were a bit... questionable. Erskine got quite the whammy of a call on a hit on Darche. He ran into Darche, gliding, standing up, and got a minor for elbowing and a double-minor for high sticking. His elbow did hit Darche, probably in the head, but it was against his body at impact. It came up on his follow-through, but that should not be a penalty (as I understand the rules). It's almost impossible to avoid doing that.
Some I'm a little confused about the elbowing call. The high sticking part I can't figure out at all. I watched the replay on it eight or ten times, and I can't see contact with the stick at all. Before, during, or after the hit. So I'm utterly baffled by that part of the call. Here's the video.
The other curious call was on OV for delay of game. It looked pretty clearly, to me, like it hit the glass on the way out, but that's not the way it was called. (That makes two games in a row for strange penalties on OV. His crosscheck against the Islanders involved him hitting someone with his hands together on the stick. How that could possibly be a crosscheck is beyond me. Didn't think to save the video on it, though.)
Anyway, that's about it for tonight's game. Let's hope we see the team playing even better Friday in Carolina. Like the Islanders game last night, this is one the Caps should win. Let's hope things don't go the way they did in that one.
But most of the same thing continued. Very few shots (fewer than last night, actually), too many giveaways (it didn't feel like it, but there were even more than last night), way too many penalties (though a couple were kind of... curious, but I'll come back to that). The one mitigating factor was that at least scoring chances were in their favor through two (11-9).
But, basically, we saw almost the same performance except that a couple of shots went in.
Ok, that's not entirely true, the passing was crisper, and more accurate. The penalty killing was also a lot more effective, though that could be as much due to Montreal's deficiencies as to the Caps efficiencies. The power play also managed to convert one opportunity (though it took most of a four-minute advantage). But it was still mostly the same as we've seen recently, and that's not a good thing.
The lineup was not entirely the same tonight. Perreault came back into the lineup, scoring a goal despite playing only eight shifts (two of which were very short; nhl.com doesn't even list him as having played, despite crediting him with the goal). Erskine was also back, as expected. Not so expected was that he never dished out any punishment on Bourque.
In fact, the only "punishment" dished out was to Hendricks, who fought Bourque very early on, but didn't do much.
MarJo had a very eventful night. He had the second goal on a close-in shot to the top shelf, took a stick to the face that led to the aforementioned four-minute power play, and suffered through a knee-on-knee collision with about 2:30 remaining in the game. Let's hope it isn't a serious injury. Heck, any injury that takes him away, even just for a very short time, will be very debilitating for the team. They'd end up having to play Laich on the top line, Halpern on the checking line, with Eakin and Perreault, I guess, taking the remaining two positions. That is not a line down the middle that would inspire fear into the opposition.
Boy, I hadn't thought about it before. That's just scary. Let's not think about it, and hope MarJo's ok.
I mentioned some curious penalty calls. To elaborate, two of the third-period calls (plus several non-calls) were a bit... questionable. Erskine got quite the whammy of a call on a hit on Darche. He ran into Darche, gliding, standing up, and got a minor for elbowing and a double-minor for high sticking. His elbow did hit Darche, probably in the head, but it was against his body at impact. It came up on his follow-through, but that should not be a penalty (as I understand the rules). It's almost impossible to avoid doing that.
Some I'm a little confused about the elbowing call. The high sticking part I can't figure out at all. I watched the replay on it eight or ten times, and I can't see contact with the stick at all. Before, during, or after the hit. So I'm utterly baffled by that part of the call. Here's the video.
The other curious call was on OV for delay of game. It looked pretty clearly, to me, like it hit the glass on the way out, but that's not the way it was called. (That makes two games in a row for strange penalties on OV. His crosscheck against the Islanders involved him hitting someone with his hands together on the stick. How that could possibly be a crosscheck is beyond me. Didn't think to save the video on it, though.)
Anyway, that's about it for tonight's game. Let's hope we see the team playing even better Friday in Carolina. Like the Islanders game last night, this is one the Caps should win. Let's hope things don't go the way they did in that one.
20120108
In the shark tank
I didn't go into last night's game against San Jose with a great feeling; not only was there the long string of losses and a tie in San Jose, but Backstrom was declared unavailable because of that elbow to the head.
Things started out pretty well though. They played a pretty much mistake-free game for the first period, and managed to tilt the ice in their own favor (though not heavily; like 12-8 on shots). The period ended scoreless, however, so they didn't get much out of that excellent play.
In the second, things stayed pretty quiet for five minutes. But then Demers put in a fluky shot from the point (it deflected off a defender (OV, I think), off the back boards, off of both of TVo's legs, and slid into the net). The Caps responded well, though, helped by a very obvious goaltender interference call a minute later. The Caps won the faceoff, and put on a pretty passing display with WIdeman putting the puck in the net half a minute after the call.
Things continued to look pretty good for the rest of the period (though slightly in San Jose's favor), but then Wideman missed on a lift check and hit one of the Sharks in the face. They looked like they were going to escape the period despite that, but San Jose managed to put one past TVo with eight seconds left. Ugh. Suddenly, things weren't looking so good.
I didn't realize it until a little bit into the third, but things were actually looking even worse than I thought. Green only took three shifts in the second, and never returned for the third. Ugh. Ugh.
They got things off to a good start in the third, with the checking line potting a goal forty-five seconds in (Ward got it, from Wideman and Chimmer). But things quickly went downhill, as the Sharks' top line put one in on a defensive breakdown (Alzner lost his man) only sixteen seconds later. The rest of the game wasn't terrible, but it sure wasn't good, either, as they ended up allowing two more goals (one and empty-netter), and had very little sustained pressure (MarJo's line had one awesome shift, which I believe was in the third, with basically the entire shift in the offensive zone).
Overall, I'd rate it as a decent game. They came out strong, and played really well for almost two periods before surrendering. The power play looked good in its lone opportunity. The PK was so-so, with one allowed on two chances.
The team was definitely missing Backstrom (and, for half the game, Green). While I hope neither is rushed back before they're ready, I do hope they're ready soon. We'll keep our fingers crossed. One good thing is that both Shultz and Erskine are with the team, and can step in for Green in LA (Geeze, I hope it's nothing serious; but it wasn't anything really obvious, and I only remember him getting hit once. Maybe he aggravated his groin pull. Of course, if so, that'll keep him out for a while).
Anyway, tomorrow night's game is in LA. Let's hope we can learn something from Columbus' win there last night or the night before.
Things started out pretty well though. They played a pretty much mistake-free game for the first period, and managed to tilt the ice in their own favor (though not heavily; like 12-8 on shots). The period ended scoreless, however, so they didn't get much out of that excellent play.
In the second, things stayed pretty quiet for five minutes. But then Demers put in a fluky shot from the point (it deflected off a defender (OV, I think), off the back boards, off of both of TVo's legs, and slid into the net). The Caps responded well, though, helped by a very obvious goaltender interference call a minute later. The Caps won the faceoff, and put on a pretty passing display with WIdeman putting the puck in the net half a minute after the call.
Things continued to look pretty good for the rest of the period (though slightly in San Jose's favor), but then Wideman missed on a lift check and hit one of the Sharks in the face. They looked like they were going to escape the period despite that, but San Jose managed to put one past TVo with eight seconds left. Ugh. Suddenly, things weren't looking so good.
I didn't realize it until a little bit into the third, but things were actually looking even worse than I thought. Green only took three shifts in the second, and never returned for the third. Ugh. Ugh.
They got things off to a good start in the third, with the checking line potting a goal forty-five seconds in (Ward got it, from Wideman and Chimmer). But things quickly went downhill, as the Sharks' top line put one in on a defensive breakdown (Alzner lost his man) only sixteen seconds later. The rest of the game wasn't terrible, but it sure wasn't good, either, as they ended up allowing two more goals (one and empty-netter), and had very little sustained pressure (MarJo's line had one awesome shift, which I believe was in the third, with basically the entire shift in the offensive zone).
Overall, I'd rate it as a decent game. They came out strong, and played really well for almost two periods before surrendering. The power play looked good in its lone opportunity. The PK was so-so, with one allowed on two chances.
The team was definitely missing Backstrom (and, for half the game, Green). While I hope neither is rushed back before they're ready, I do hope they're ready soon. We'll keep our fingers crossed. One good thing is that both Shultz and Erskine are with the team, and can step in for Green in LA (Geeze, I hope it's nothing serious; but it wasn't anything really obvious, and I only remember him getting hit once. Maybe he aggravated his groin pull. Of course, if so, that'll keep him out for a while).
Anyway, tomorrow night's game is in LA. Let's hope we can learn something from Columbus' win there last night or the night before.
20120105
Flame on!
I watched the Caps/Flames game the other night, but I almost feel like I didn't. I was only half-watching the first half of the game (needed to keep the kids out of trouble), and don't remember a whole lot from the second half.
I did see all of the goals live, which was something.
It was really nice to see the team come out and take an early lead, and then extend it. In fact, the Caps dominated the first period pretty well, with an 8-4 shots lead and a 4-1 scoring chance lead. The second period was slightly in favor of Calgary, with them having a 9-8 shots deficit, but a 6-3 scoring chance lead. But the Caps had taken a 1-0 lead in the first on a pretty power play goal by OV from MarJo, and stretched that margin in the second with a not-so-pretty power play goal from Brouwer stuffing in the rebound on an OV shot and a nice play with Backstrom passing from behind the net to WIdeman in front for the score. The latter play was actually created by MarJo, too, by him taking both defensemen out of the play on the initial rush.
I'm starting to feel less good about the Caps play, overall, though, as it feels like they're giving up too many shots. They're blocking something like half of the shots they're seeing, so it looks better, but I have my doubts about how sustainable that is as a winning strategy. Yes, it worked great for Montreal in the playoffs a couple of seasons ago, but that felt a lot more like a fluke than anything sustainable. Hopefully, I'm worried about nothing.
The power play was pretty good, scoring on two of their three opportunities, but that was only on four shots, so it wasn't quite as good as it looked.
The penalty kill was very solid, stopping all four chances, and giving up only three shots.
TVo, through the night, was looking very good. The one goal he allowed was on a good play by Calgary (maybe helped by a blown coverage by one of the forwards (Ward was closest, although I'm not sure if that was his man)), so we won't hold that one against him. He also had some very, very good stops on Calgary's one or two breakaways.
And OV, again, looked like OV from a couple of years ago. It's a lot of fun to watch. And Backstrom has remained quietly dominant.
Backster did take an elbow to the head in the third, and only played two more shifts the rest of the way. Hopefully, that's just a migraine and not a concussion. The latter would be a serious blow to the team, and apparently tests yesterday were inconclusive. We're keeping our fingers crossed. On the plus side, Rene Bourque, who delivered that blow, got a five-game suspension. Let's hope that dissuades him from trying to scramble the brains of other players.
In any event, the team's about to embark on a pretty rough stretch, with days off today and tomorrow, but then five games in nine days. And those five start with San Jose, in the Tank, where the Caps haven't won since 1993. Ouch. It isn't a lot of games, but still, ouch.
I did see all of the goals live, which was something.
It was really nice to see the team come out and take an early lead, and then extend it. In fact, the Caps dominated the first period pretty well, with an 8-4 shots lead and a 4-1 scoring chance lead. The second period was slightly in favor of Calgary, with them having a 9-8 shots deficit, but a 6-3 scoring chance lead. But the Caps had taken a 1-0 lead in the first on a pretty power play goal by OV from MarJo, and stretched that margin in the second with a not-so-pretty power play goal from Brouwer stuffing in the rebound on an OV shot and a nice play with Backstrom passing from behind the net to WIdeman in front for the score. The latter play was actually created by MarJo, too, by him taking both defensemen out of the play on the initial rush.
I'm starting to feel less good about the Caps play, overall, though, as it feels like they're giving up too many shots. They're blocking something like half of the shots they're seeing, so it looks better, but I have my doubts about how sustainable that is as a winning strategy. Yes, it worked great for Montreal in the playoffs a couple of seasons ago, but that felt a lot more like a fluke than anything sustainable. Hopefully, I'm worried about nothing.
The power play was pretty good, scoring on two of their three opportunities, but that was only on four shots, so it wasn't quite as good as it looked.
The penalty kill was very solid, stopping all four chances, and giving up only three shots.
TVo, through the night, was looking very good. The one goal he allowed was on a good play by Calgary (maybe helped by a blown coverage by one of the forwards (Ward was closest, although I'm not sure if that was his man)), so we won't hold that one against him. He also had some very, very good stops on Calgary's one or two breakaways.
And OV, again, looked like OV from a couple of years ago. It's a lot of fun to watch. And Backstrom has remained quietly dominant.
Backster did take an elbow to the head in the third, and only played two more shifts the rest of the way. Hopefully, that's just a migraine and not a concussion. The latter would be a serious blow to the team, and apparently tests yesterday were inconclusive. We're keeping our fingers crossed. On the plus side, Rene Bourque, who delivered that blow, got a five-game suspension. Let's hope that dissuades him from trying to scramble the brains of other players.
In any event, the team's about to embark on a pretty rough stretch, with days off today and tomorrow, but then five games in nine days. And those five start with San Jose, in the Tank, where the Caps haven't won since 1993. Ouch. It isn't a lot of games, but still, ouch.
20111220
Be wehwy, wehwy quiet, we'h huntin' predatuhs
Tonight was another very uneven game for the boys in red. It got off on a high note, celebrating Knuble's 1000th NHL game. Then they proceeded to play a nearly perfect first period, one of the best they've played all year. After goals from Backstrom and Ovechkin (playing on separate lines), they went into the dressing rooms without allowing one in return. The power play even looked good; no goals, but four shots.
Chances were 8-2 in favor of the good guys, and Neuvy was looking excellent.
The second period saw the Caps outplayed by a fair bit, which wasn't helped by the quartet of minor penalties (two of which were very stupid, and another was a rare mistake by Alzner). They were especially out-hit, including one shift by Tootoo where he threw two Caps to the ice in impressive fashion. But they managed not to break under the pressure, with the PK looking especially good. Chances in this period were 4-2, bad guys.
The third period continued with very good play from Nashville, as they flat-out dominated the first half of the third period. They kept Washington penned in, and scrambling, and scored one to pull it back to a one-goal game.
But Washington broke out in the second half, triggered by Semin's beauty of a wrister from the left side ten and a half minutes in. It was a nice rush, with MarJo pulling the defense and leaving a drop pass for Semin. Semin skated in a little bit, then planted the puck all the way in the far side, top corner (really, he couldn't have placed it better by hand).
Brouwer rounded out the scoring with his first power play goal of the season three minutes later, tipping in a Wideman shot. That one also got MarJo his second assist of the night (no goals for his 100th game, but we'll take those assists any day).
In all, it was a very good game. Actually, what was depressing was that Locker said, right after Brouwer scored, something to the effect of it being their largest lead of the night. That was true, but the depressing part was thinking back to the last time they had a three goal lead. Now that I've looked, it was six weeks ago, against Carolina. Ugh.
Let's see if they can find a way to do it again on Friday, when they visit the Devils.
Chances were 8-2 in favor of the good guys, and Neuvy was looking excellent.
The second period saw the Caps outplayed by a fair bit, which wasn't helped by the quartet of minor penalties (two of which were very stupid, and another was a rare mistake by Alzner). They were especially out-hit, including one shift by Tootoo where he threw two Caps to the ice in impressive fashion. But they managed not to break under the pressure, with the PK looking especially good. Chances in this period were 4-2, bad guys.
The third period continued with very good play from Nashville, as they flat-out dominated the first half of the third period. They kept Washington penned in, and scrambling, and scored one to pull it back to a one-goal game.
But Washington broke out in the second half, triggered by Semin's beauty of a wrister from the left side ten and a half minutes in. It was a nice rush, with MarJo pulling the defense and leaving a drop pass for Semin. Semin skated in a little bit, then planted the puck all the way in the far side, top corner (really, he couldn't have placed it better by hand).
Brouwer rounded out the scoring with his first power play goal of the season three minutes later, tipping in a Wideman shot. That one also got MarJo his second assist of the night (no goals for his 100th game, but we'll take those assists any day).
In all, it was a very good game. Actually, what was depressing was that Locker said, right after Brouwer scored, something to the effect of it being their largest lead of the night. That was true, but the depressing part was thinking back to the last time they had a three goal lead. Now that I've looked, it was six weeks ago, against Carolina. Ugh.
Let's see if they can find a way to do it again on Friday, when they visit the Devils.
20111207
Playing to completion
The Caps, tonight, played one of their most complete games of the season (not their most, but top 5, I think), downing the Senators 5-3. They came out strong, forechecking well to keep Ottawa from getting anything set up in the offensive zone. They also were constantly threatening, putting up fifteen shots in the first period. Unfortunately, that hard work didn't pay off, as Anderson did a stellar job in net, keeping the Sens in the game.
In fact, the penalty kill even looked great, getting a breakaway led by Chimera that led to two penalties. Unfortunately, the power play still couldn't solve Anderson, even with almost the whole two minutes of 5-on-3. But they did generate a number of chances (four, IIRC), so I can't say it was a terrible effort. They still weren't moving around as much as they should, but it wasn't terrible.
Early in the second, they finally put one past Anderson off a rebound of Brouwer's shot that Halpern managed to get his stick on, despite being tripped as he was shooting. Instead of giving the Caps momentum, however, they stopped forechecking as hard (or maybe just weren't as successful at it) and played more evenly for the rest of the period. And Ottawa had two pretty goals during that time, put in by Condra and Foligno.
The Caps didn't get too discouraged, though, and came out pretty hard in the third. It took them a while, but they finally managed to solve Anderson on the power play, with a pretty top-shelf shot by Backstrom off the rush. OV, then, finally managed to break through (he'd had a number of good opportunities earlier in the game) with a beautiful stop and shot that went five-hole. That was followed, fifteen seconds later, by MarJo setting up Brouwer on the doorstep for a third goal.
That looked like it was pretty much going to do it (some people started leaving the arena), but Ottawa got a power play (on Semin, increasing his lead for team PIMs) and scored five seconds later on a defensive breakdown and a nice play by Michalek.
That made things pretty tense for a while, especially when the Sens got another power play (on Ward, with his second slashing penalty of the period) with three minutes left. But Carlson managed to clear it all the way down right at the end of that power play (when Anderson had been pulled), and Halpern, on the returning breakout, deflected an attempted pass in right to Carlson. This time Carlson had a second to line up his shot, and stuck it right in the center of the net to provide the final margin with forty-five seconds left.
So, things looked good for the guys in white tonight. More particularly, Brouwer had an excellent game with the Gordie Howe hat trick. Carlson had a goal and two assists for his second consecutive three-point night.
And OV played his best game of the season, I think; he was threatening all night long and had seven shots. He also looked really happy when he scored the goal; we haven't seen enough of him smiling this season. His move to beat the defenseman (Karlsson, who's a very good skater in his own right), was a thing of beauty. He was going full-tilt away from the goal, stopped on a dime, turned, faked the slap shot, and then put a wrister between the legs. The only negative on the night was a cheap shot with his stick to the groin of Neil. Wasn't happy to see that, but I'm more ambivalent if that's what it's going to take to bring OV back.
Semin had a decent game. He got a good opportunity a minute or so in, going in alone on the wing, but lifted the shot high and out of play. He generally looked good after that, although the penalty wasn't a good one.
Dima Orlov looked very good, although I was disappointed when he failed to take advantage of a good hip-check opportunity on a Senator cutting to the net. But he was solid, and even had the second assist on OV's goal.
Schultz actually looked pretty good while he was in, but, for some reason, he was only in for four minutes on the night. Not sure what was going on, there. Alzner and Carlson were mostly the ones who picked up the slack, as they ended up with over 27 minutes on the night. I hope that isn't going to be a regular occurence; they're great, but will get worn down with that kind of workload. Come back soon, Greenie.
Anyway, that's about it for tonight. Let's hope the strong play continues Friday against Toronto, because they're playing very well at the moment.
In fact, the penalty kill even looked great, getting a breakaway led by Chimera that led to two penalties. Unfortunately, the power play still couldn't solve Anderson, even with almost the whole two minutes of 5-on-3. But they did generate a number of chances (four, IIRC), so I can't say it was a terrible effort. They still weren't moving around as much as they should, but it wasn't terrible.
Early in the second, they finally put one past Anderson off a rebound of Brouwer's shot that Halpern managed to get his stick on, despite being tripped as he was shooting. Instead of giving the Caps momentum, however, they stopped forechecking as hard (or maybe just weren't as successful at it) and played more evenly for the rest of the period. And Ottawa had two pretty goals during that time, put in by Condra and Foligno.
The Caps didn't get too discouraged, though, and came out pretty hard in the third. It took them a while, but they finally managed to solve Anderson on the power play, with a pretty top-shelf shot by Backstrom off the rush. OV, then, finally managed to break through (he'd had a number of good opportunities earlier in the game) with a beautiful stop and shot that went five-hole. That was followed, fifteen seconds later, by MarJo setting up Brouwer on the doorstep for a third goal.
That looked like it was pretty much going to do it (some people started leaving the arena), but Ottawa got a power play (on Semin, increasing his lead for team PIMs) and scored five seconds later on a defensive breakdown and a nice play by Michalek.
That made things pretty tense for a while, especially when the Sens got another power play (on Ward, with his second slashing penalty of the period) with three minutes left. But Carlson managed to clear it all the way down right at the end of that power play (when Anderson had been pulled), and Halpern, on the returning breakout, deflected an attempted pass in right to Carlson. This time Carlson had a second to line up his shot, and stuck it right in the center of the net to provide the final margin with forty-five seconds left.
So, things looked good for the guys in white tonight. More particularly, Brouwer had an excellent game with the Gordie Howe hat trick. Carlson had a goal and two assists for his second consecutive three-point night.
And OV played his best game of the season, I think; he was threatening all night long and had seven shots. He also looked really happy when he scored the goal; we haven't seen enough of him smiling this season. His move to beat the defenseman (Karlsson, who's a very good skater in his own right), was a thing of beauty. He was going full-tilt away from the goal, stopped on a dime, turned, faked the slap shot, and then put a wrister between the legs. The only negative on the night was a cheap shot with his stick to the groin of Neil. Wasn't happy to see that, but I'm more ambivalent if that's what it's going to take to bring OV back.
Semin had a decent game. He got a good opportunity a minute or so in, going in alone on the wing, but lifted the shot high and out of play. He generally looked good after that, although the penalty wasn't a good one.
Dima Orlov looked very good, although I was disappointed when he failed to take advantage of a good hip-check opportunity on a Senator cutting to the net. But he was solid, and even had the second assist on OV's goal.
Schultz actually looked pretty good while he was in, but, for some reason, he was only in for four minutes on the night. Not sure what was going on, there. Alzner and Carlson were mostly the ones who picked up the slack, as they ended up with over 27 minutes on the night. I hope that isn't going to be a regular occurence; they're great, but will get worn down with that kind of workload. Come back soon, Greenie.
Anyway, that's about it for tonight. Let's hope the strong play continues Friday against Toronto, because they're playing very well at the moment.
20111112
Win one, lose one
I was at a bar last night with some friends to watch the Caps game. And we kind of did that, but I must admit that I didn't get much out of it. (Which is ok, the main goal was to talk with friends, one of whom hasn't lived in the area in quite a few years.)
The paper made a big deal out of Semin being benched for much (all?) of the third period, and not playing much of the second either. I think the goal, there, is a good one. Show that everyone, including Semin, is being held accountable, although I'm skeptical of whether it'll actually accomplish anything vis a vis Sasha. But maybe it says something to the rest of the team important enough to overlook that.
In any event, the team seemed to be doing well, and the returns were certainly good. I was shocked (though in a good way, of course), when Chimmer buried that breakaway, shorthanded. And I was amused to see Marjo get another goal from so close to the net. I'm loving that, but it's definitely not what I was expecting from him.
Tonight, I was able to watch pretty close to all of the game. I did miss them saying, at the beginning, that Green (well, he was expected, after last night) and Erskine (didn't hear what happened to him) were out, so I was a bit confused at Laich being on the blue line.
Brouwer's goal was very nice (in fact, thinking about it, maybe he should have gotten a chance in the shootout), and Chimmer did a nice job of vulturing Carlson's goal. I kid; it was well-played. It was nice to see the Caps come out of the first with a lead, for once, and without surrendering a goal, which was even nicer.
But the Caps looked terrible for most of the second period. They did have one really, really nice shift, that ended when MarJo drew a tripping penalty behind the net. I can't remember if they actually got any shots out of that shift, but I loved watching them keep it in the offensive zone for so long. But that was pretty much the only bright spot of the period. They had only two shots, which is terrible. And that's also how many goals they allowed, which is also pretty bad.
A lot of credit certainly goes to the Devils, who played an excellent period, but the Caps just didn't seem to want it nearly as bad as NJ.
In the third period, down another defender with Hamrlik in the dressing room, the Caps actually played better, and generated some chances. Not as many as I would have liked, but more than the second. And they looked much better while doing it, as well. Plus, they didn't give NJ nearly as many chances. Oh, and the top line was especially buzzing. I don't think I'd want to keep Ward up there (I'd rather keep him on the shut-down line), but he did look good there.
But nobody got on the board in the third, so we ended up with overtime. The Caps looked good for the first minute or so of overtime, but the Devils basically took over from there, getting almost all the chances from then on (helped by getting away with a lot of interference).
But again, nobody scored, so we went into the coin flip portion of the game. And that did not go so well, but it is what it is (which is to say, a terrible way to end a hockey game).
So, while the result was disappointing, in the larger picture the Caps did take three of four points in the home-and-home, and that is hard to really get upset about.
Time to start a road trip to Nashville (where I'm sure Ward will be happy to take on his old mates), Winnipeg, and Toronto. I guess we'll find out something more about all the blue-line injuries; and maybe we'll finally get a look at Orlov. We can hope, at least, although Collins is more likely, if they need someone from Hershey.
The paper made a big deal out of Semin being benched for much (all?) of the third period, and not playing much of the second either. I think the goal, there, is a good one. Show that everyone, including Semin, is being held accountable, although I'm skeptical of whether it'll actually accomplish anything vis a vis Sasha. But maybe it says something to the rest of the team important enough to overlook that.
In any event, the team seemed to be doing well, and the returns were certainly good. I was shocked (though in a good way, of course), when Chimmer buried that breakaway, shorthanded. And I was amused to see Marjo get another goal from so close to the net. I'm loving that, but it's definitely not what I was expecting from him.
Tonight, I was able to watch pretty close to all of the game. I did miss them saying, at the beginning, that Green (well, he was expected, after last night) and Erskine (didn't hear what happened to him) were out, so I was a bit confused at Laich being on the blue line.
Brouwer's goal was very nice (in fact, thinking about it, maybe he should have gotten a chance in the shootout), and Chimmer did a nice job of vulturing Carlson's goal. I kid; it was well-played. It was nice to see the Caps come out of the first with a lead, for once, and without surrendering a goal, which was even nicer.
But the Caps looked terrible for most of the second period. They did have one really, really nice shift, that ended when MarJo drew a tripping penalty behind the net. I can't remember if they actually got any shots out of that shift, but I loved watching them keep it in the offensive zone for so long. But that was pretty much the only bright spot of the period. They had only two shots, which is terrible. And that's also how many goals they allowed, which is also pretty bad.
A lot of credit certainly goes to the Devils, who played an excellent period, but the Caps just didn't seem to want it nearly as bad as NJ.
In the third period, down another defender with Hamrlik in the dressing room, the Caps actually played better, and generated some chances. Not as many as I would have liked, but more than the second. And they looked much better while doing it, as well. Plus, they didn't give NJ nearly as many chances. Oh, and the top line was especially buzzing. I don't think I'd want to keep Ward up there (I'd rather keep him on the shut-down line), but he did look good there.
But nobody got on the board in the third, so we ended up with overtime. The Caps looked good for the first minute or so of overtime, but the Devils basically took over from there, getting almost all the chances from then on (helped by getting away with a lot of interference).
But again, nobody scored, so we went into the coin flip portion of the game. And that did not go so well, but it is what it is (which is to say, a terrible way to end a hockey game).
So, while the result was disappointing, in the larger picture the Caps did take three of four points in the home-and-home, and that is hard to really get upset about.
Time to start a road trip to Nashville (where I'm sure Ward will be happy to take on his old mates), Winnipeg, and Toronto. I guess we'll find out something more about all the blue-line injuries; and maybe we'll finally get a look at Orlov. We can hope, at least, although Collins is more likely, if they need someone from Hershey.
20111031
Canuck"led"
I watched the Washington/Vancouver game on Saturday, not feeling real great about it. And the game didn't leave me feeling like that was unwarranted. It started out with the Caps getting dominated solidly for quite a while. They were spending way too much time being hemmed in at their own end of the ice, and not nearly enough attacking. When they were able to attack, they weren't able to sustain it for any length of time.
The first period ended with them down 3-1, and that's about how it felt. The shots were 17-10, I believe, and it definitely didn't feel that close. The first goal was a really bad misplay of the puck by Vokoun, where he went to play the puck behind the net and didn't do it well (I really wish he weren't so ambitious; this is the first time it's really bit him in the butt, but it has worried me regularly). The other two goals, IIRC, were both on the power play, as the Caps couldn't seem to do much to slow down that power play unit.
The second period went much more the Caps way. The Caps didn't dominate it like Vancouver had the first period, but they did manage the opposite goal differential, leading to a tie by the end of the period. And, perhaps most importantly, they weren't dominated again. I didn't see the shots for the period, but I believe they went pretty well in the Caps favor.
The third period did not go well at all. I think it was closer, in terms of balance of play, than the first period, but the goals were even more lopsided, with Vancouver getting all three. I turned off the TV in disgust when the third goal went in. I must admit to not remembering too much, specifically; I guess I was putting more effort than I thought into reading The Son of Neptune.
One thing about the game that was a little weird was that Boudreau tried to shake things up a bit by replacing Vokoun after the first period. I don't have too much feeling about whether that was a good idea or not; I thought Neuvy was only ok, but TVo hadn't been great either. I would have been happy if Neuvy had started the game in net; TVo is a workhorse, but he still needs the odd break. And that was the eighth in a row for TVo.
Other than that, I thought the power play looked decent, and the penalty kill didn't. The good part was that the effort was definitely there. The first line regularly looked like a wrecking crew (as they should), in particular. The fourth line didn't, although I still thought Perreault did a good job. I was a bit irked, though, that Boudreau felt the need to tinker, again, and started mixing up the lines in the middle of the game. I was particularly irked at the first and third lines being played with. The former was looking great, and the latter has been doing well all season. I know that's Bruce's MO, but I was hoping that he might be getting past that (finally). False hope, it seems.
Other than that, I thought MarJo and Knuble both looked good (although I must admit to not having a good feeling about Knuble facing Luongo; it was a pleasant surprise when that one trickled into the net). But that's basically where the good news ends.
I'm hoping that, tomorrow night, Bruce gets back to just rolling all four lines, and doesn't tinker as much with the combinations. We'll see. And I'd like to see the start of another winning streak. Duh.
The first period ended with them down 3-1, and that's about how it felt. The shots were 17-10, I believe, and it definitely didn't feel that close. The first goal was a really bad misplay of the puck by Vokoun, where he went to play the puck behind the net and didn't do it well (I really wish he weren't so ambitious; this is the first time it's really bit him in the butt, but it has worried me regularly). The other two goals, IIRC, were both on the power play, as the Caps couldn't seem to do much to slow down that power play unit.
The second period went much more the Caps way. The Caps didn't dominate it like Vancouver had the first period, but they did manage the opposite goal differential, leading to a tie by the end of the period. And, perhaps most importantly, they weren't dominated again. I didn't see the shots for the period, but I believe they went pretty well in the Caps favor.
The third period did not go well at all. I think it was closer, in terms of balance of play, than the first period, but the goals were even more lopsided, with Vancouver getting all three. I turned off the TV in disgust when the third goal went in. I must admit to not remembering too much, specifically; I guess I was putting more effort than I thought into reading The Son of Neptune.
One thing about the game that was a little weird was that Boudreau tried to shake things up a bit by replacing Vokoun after the first period. I don't have too much feeling about whether that was a good idea or not; I thought Neuvy was only ok, but TVo hadn't been great either. I would have been happy if Neuvy had started the game in net; TVo is a workhorse, but he still needs the odd break. And that was the eighth in a row for TVo.
Other than that, I thought the power play looked decent, and the penalty kill didn't. The good part was that the effort was definitely there. The first line regularly looked like a wrecking crew (as they should), in particular. The fourth line didn't, although I still thought Perreault did a good job. I was a bit irked, though, that Boudreau felt the need to tinker, again, and started mixing up the lines in the middle of the game. I was particularly irked at the first and third lines being played with. The former was looking great, and the latter has been doing well all season. I know that's Bruce's MO, but I was hoping that he might be getting past that (finally). False hope, it seems.
Other than that, I thought MarJo and Knuble both looked good (although I must admit to not having a good feeling about Knuble facing Luongo; it was a pleasant surprise when that one trickled into the net). But that's basically where the good news ends.
I'm hoping that, tomorrow night, Bruce gets back to just rolling all four lines, and doesn't tinker as much with the combinations. We'll see. And I'd like to see the start of another winning streak. Duh.
20111018
Finally, one to be proud of
The Caps really wanted this one; they came out firing, and determined to take it to the Panthers. And they did. They maintained pressure steadily through the period; I was surprised when they finished the period with so few shots. But they did manage to take a 1-0 lead when MarJo slipped it through the pads of his friend, Markstrom, on the power play.
As has generally been the case this season, the third line led the way, shutting down Florida's top line and getting chances of their own. In fact, they started a beautiful sequence towards the end of the period where the Caps kept the puck in the offensive zone for a minute and a half or two minutes. I can't remember if they managed one or two shift changes while keeping it in; but it was a thing of beauty.
Florida, perhaps encouraged by being down by only one, despite being solidly outplayed, came out flying to start the second. I was worried that the team was going to just mail it in the rest of the game, as the Cats kept the pressure up pretty steadily for five minutes or so. But the Caps rocked back from their heels, and started throwing their own punches (metaphorically), playing steadily for the rest of the period.
And in the third, they got things going quickly, with Semin putting one just over Markstrom's arm, hitting the inside edge of the post on the way into the net. That was less than two minutes in, and pretty much set the tone. Despite Florida being pretty desperate, the Caps continued to outplay them for the rest of the period, limiting Florida's chances while generating a number of their own.
And with a minute left, Chimmer put the last nail in the coffin, backhanding one into the empty net from the red line. Hands of stone? I've certainly said it before, but this line is making the most of his talents, and I'm loving to see it. I don't think he'll continue to lead the team in goals for long, but that's ok. If they continue to solidly shut down the other team's top line, I don't care if he doesn't score another goal this season. And if he does continue to score, well, that's just some very tasty gravy.
And to revisit some of my earlier comments, I was concerned that we might be paying too much for Ward, based on one really good playoffs, but I'm loving his game. He works hard, he's a beast on the boards, and he plays smart. I wouldn't call it pretty, but I'm already tempted to get a jersey (though I think I'll stick with my original plan to get an Alzner one, instead). Of course, the season is still young enough for "small sample size" to be a reasonable concern, but I'm not basing it on a few big events, just lots of little ones. So hopefully that isn't the case.
Other than that, Carlson and Alzner continue to be awesome. One thing that was a bit weird was that Alzner was the one getting shots off tonight, but that certainly isn't a major thing.
OV wasn't looking too good for most of the game. In fact, through the first two periods (I think that's when it changed), he seemed disinterested when not on the attack. As in, he would immediately start coasting as soon as the puck turned over, even if it was close to him. He looked much better in the third, so maybe he got a good talking to about his effort. And hopefully, it will carry over to future games.
MarJo looked pretty good, although he didn't get nearly as many chances as I expected. And I was disappointed when, in the middle of the first, he got a clean run down the outside of the offensive zone, but didn't go for the wraparound. I forget what he did do, but I remember that it didn't work.
Perreault looked pretty good, although he didn't get much ice time, either (the least on the team by quite a bit). I wish he'd get more chances; as I said, he looked good when he was out there.
Hamr didn't look all that great when he was out there. He had some nice blocks of shots, but he was kind of all over the zone when playing defense. He's the only Caps defender I saw playing above the circles in the D-zone. Hopefully, he only did it the one time I noticed, because if he's been doing that, then we know why he's been on the ice for so many goals against. He also took a pretty foolish penalty trying to stop a rush when there were already others back.
Finally, let's get to the man of the night, Mr Clean-sheet Vokoun. He looked great stopping shots; he scared me a couple of times with his stick-work (I thought he was going to lose the stick one time he stuck it out), but was fabulous when facing shots. He was even ready to stop a weird bounce off the end-boards that led to a sudden, close-in shot. So I'm glad to see him get the shutout; hopefully the first of many.
And let's also give a shout-out to Markstrom, who got his first NHL start tonight. He lost, but only allowed two goals on thirty-one shots (some of which were really tough). He should be proud of the performance, as should Panthers fans.
So now we wait for the first game of the season with the Flyers, on Thursday. They're only one point behind the Caps in the standings, and probably deserve their record more than the Caps do. So it should be a pretty tight game, likely going into overtime again. But not if the Caps play like they did tonight. Time will tell.
As has generally been the case this season, the third line led the way, shutting down Florida's top line and getting chances of their own. In fact, they started a beautiful sequence towards the end of the period where the Caps kept the puck in the offensive zone for a minute and a half or two minutes. I can't remember if they managed one or two shift changes while keeping it in; but it was a thing of beauty.
Florida, perhaps encouraged by being down by only one, despite being solidly outplayed, came out flying to start the second. I was worried that the team was going to just mail it in the rest of the game, as the Cats kept the pressure up pretty steadily for five minutes or so. But the Caps rocked back from their heels, and started throwing their own punches (metaphorically), playing steadily for the rest of the period.
And in the third, they got things going quickly, with Semin putting one just over Markstrom's arm, hitting the inside edge of the post on the way into the net. That was less than two minutes in, and pretty much set the tone. Despite Florida being pretty desperate, the Caps continued to outplay them for the rest of the period, limiting Florida's chances while generating a number of their own.
And with a minute left, Chimmer put the last nail in the coffin, backhanding one into the empty net from the red line. Hands of stone? I've certainly said it before, but this line is making the most of his talents, and I'm loving to see it. I don't think he'll continue to lead the team in goals for long, but that's ok. If they continue to solidly shut down the other team's top line, I don't care if he doesn't score another goal this season. And if he does continue to score, well, that's just some very tasty gravy.
And to revisit some of my earlier comments, I was concerned that we might be paying too much for Ward, based on one really good playoffs, but I'm loving his game. He works hard, he's a beast on the boards, and he plays smart. I wouldn't call it pretty, but I'm already tempted to get a jersey (though I think I'll stick with my original plan to get an Alzner one, instead). Of course, the season is still young enough for "small sample size" to be a reasonable concern, but I'm not basing it on a few big events, just lots of little ones. So hopefully that isn't the case.
Other than that, Carlson and Alzner continue to be awesome. One thing that was a bit weird was that Alzner was the one getting shots off tonight, but that certainly isn't a major thing.
OV wasn't looking too good for most of the game. In fact, through the first two periods (I think that's when it changed), he seemed disinterested when not on the attack. As in, he would immediately start coasting as soon as the puck turned over, even if it was close to him. He looked much better in the third, so maybe he got a good talking to about his effort. And hopefully, it will carry over to future games.
MarJo looked pretty good, although he didn't get nearly as many chances as I expected. And I was disappointed when, in the middle of the first, he got a clean run down the outside of the offensive zone, but didn't go for the wraparound. I forget what he did do, but I remember that it didn't work.
Perreault looked pretty good, although he didn't get much ice time, either (the least on the team by quite a bit). I wish he'd get more chances; as I said, he looked good when he was out there.
Hamr didn't look all that great when he was out there. He had some nice blocks of shots, but he was kind of all over the zone when playing defense. He's the only Caps defender I saw playing above the circles in the D-zone. Hopefully, he only did it the one time I noticed, because if he's been doing that, then we know why he's been on the ice for so many goals against. He also took a pretty foolish penalty trying to stop a rush when there were already others back.
Finally, let's get to the man of the night, Mr Clean-sheet Vokoun. He looked great stopping shots; he scared me a couple of times with his stick-work (I thought he was going to lose the stick one time he stuck it out), but was fabulous when facing shots. He was even ready to stop a weird bounce off the end-boards that led to a sudden, close-in shot. So I'm glad to see him get the shutout; hopefully the first of many.
And let's also give a shout-out to Markstrom, who got his first NHL start tonight. He lost, but only allowed two goals on thirty-one shots (some of which were really tough). He should be proud of the performance, as should Panthers fans.
So now we wait for the first game of the season with the Flyers, on Thursday. They're only one point behind the Caps in the standings, and probably deserve their record more than the Caps do. So it should be a pretty tight game, likely going into overtime again. But not if the Caps play like they did tonight. Time will tell.
20111010
Greased Lightnin'
This was a really frustrating game to watch. The Caps were absolutely dominating this game, from start to finish. They were keeping the play in the offensive zone, the checking line was bottling up Stamkos and St Louis (and scoring), MarJo was flying, and yet the score kept being tied.
The first goal allowed was a total fluke, as the puck was thrown to the front of the net from the corner, it bounced off the back of Green's leg, and into the top of the net. Definitely getting things off on the wrong foot for Vokoun, making his team debut. The second was a bad play by Vokoun on a shot from about the same spot that went in off of him. Then the defense forgot to mark someone right between the circles. Then there was a pretty nice deflection where Vokoun was utterly screened. Finally, Tampa got another one with around seven minutes left from about the same spot in the corner (same end of the ice, too, for what that's worth).
Really, the Caps should have won this game by at least three; it was that lopsided. But the complete fluke, along with the bad (regulation) game by Vokoun, sent the game into overtime at five apiece.
To review the Caps, the Chimmer-Laich-Ward line was freakin' awesome again. They kept the Stamkos/St Louis line off the scoreboard and mostly in their own end, and even tossed in a pair of goals (both by Chimmer. What are the odds?). I'm definitely loving that line, and hope Boudreau doesn't start feeling the need to toy with it. They don't try to do anything fancy (one goal was off a deflection from Laich's power move to the net, the other off a strong forecheck led to a juicy turnover), but they're working hard and just dominating play.
MarJo had a great game, getting a very nice goal (on his second shift, I think) and an assist, as well as drawing two penalties. He keeps playing like that, and he ain't never getting sent down again. And, with him driving, the second line looked very good. And Brouwer got a goal deflecting a shot from Sarge, so that was good to see.
With MarJo back in, Perreault was dropped down to the fourth line, along with Hendricks and Halpern (hmm... Haliceault line?), and they mostly looked good as well. They assisted on Wideman's goal, and I believe they weren't on for any against, and that's what you're looking to get out of a fourth line. Matty P looked a bit out of his element (that is, he looked like he was having to think about where he was supposed to go more than usual), but actually did a good job. Was glad to see it, because I wasn't sure how good a fit that was for him.
Overall, the top line was actually the weakest one for the team. I hope that doesn't happen too often, because they shouldn't ever be the drag on the team. I wonder if they were just trying to hard to throw their bodies around, because they did have some very nice hits, but...
And I forgot to call out Backstrom for his excellent game the other night. He still looked pretty good tonight, but the line just wasn't getting it done. Some of that was bad luck; they did have some very nice chances that they couldn't quite convert. But they just weren't driving play like I'm used to them doing. Or maybe I'm just getting hung up on their lack of finishing tonight; I certainly hope so. But they definitely weren't at the top of their game.
Anyway, overtime was a bit of a mess, with MarJo doing a nice job drawing his second penalty (which, incidentally, should have been his third; a high stick he took was missed). The power play didn't look great, as it allowed a chance the other way, and a possible second one was called on account of a hooking penalty. The penalty kill was decent, although Vokoun was excellent on the ensuing penalty (and the penalty after, as they got called for too many men right as the first penalty was expiring).
So we ended up with a shootout. Hendricks started, and I figured his trick was about at the end of it's life, but it worked again as he left Roloson undressed. OV followed, doing the wide left move that is, I think, his strongest approach. But he couldn't quite keep the puck from rolling when he went backhand, and put it into the side of the net. Semin went last, after Vokoun stopped both intervening Tampa shots (a bit contemptuously on the second, I thought). And he just screamed straight down at the net, only veering a little bit after he got Roli to half-heartedly try a poke check (he was going fast enough that the poke never actually came, but Roli had changed his grip for the attempt, which left almost the entire side of the net empty).
So the Caps take the second game on the gimmick. I'm liking their four points, so far, but wishing they weren't giving the opposition points, especially with both game inside the division.
So, once again, we see a lot (actually, a LOT) of potential, but some really uneven play as well. I gotta think, with the way Boudreau usually treats his goalies, that we're now going to be seeing Neuvy against Pittsburgh on Thursday.
And I really hope the top line can put it together. While the rest of the team bailed them out tonight, the team just ain't going to go far without eighty or ninety goals out of that top line.
Oh, and special teams... I actually thought the power play looked better tonight, even though they didn't convert at all. They were doing a much better job moving around, and pulling the defense out of shape (except for that last power play, in overtime), and that's what's going to lead to goals.
The PK was excellent. They allowed a bit more zone time on the first penalty, than I would prefer, but were killing it in the second. And they did a good job hanging in against a tough power play in the overtime. So I'm pretty pleased with that.
So, two down, eighty to go. And Pittsburgh is on tap.
The first goal allowed was a total fluke, as the puck was thrown to the front of the net from the corner, it bounced off the back of Green's leg, and into the top of the net. Definitely getting things off on the wrong foot for Vokoun, making his team debut. The second was a bad play by Vokoun on a shot from about the same spot that went in off of him. Then the defense forgot to mark someone right between the circles. Then there was a pretty nice deflection where Vokoun was utterly screened. Finally, Tampa got another one with around seven minutes left from about the same spot in the corner (same end of the ice, too, for what that's worth).
Really, the Caps should have won this game by at least three; it was that lopsided. But the complete fluke, along with the bad (regulation) game by Vokoun, sent the game into overtime at five apiece.
To review the Caps, the Chimmer-Laich-Ward line was freakin' awesome again. They kept the Stamkos/St Louis line off the scoreboard and mostly in their own end, and even tossed in a pair of goals (both by Chimmer. What are the odds?). I'm definitely loving that line, and hope Boudreau doesn't start feeling the need to toy with it. They don't try to do anything fancy (one goal was off a deflection from Laich's power move to the net, the other off a strong forecheck led to a juicy turnover), but they're working hard and just dominating play.
MarJo had a great game, getting a very nice goal (on his second shift, I think) and an assist, as well as drawing two penalties. He keeps playing like that, and he ain't never getting sent down again. And, with him driving, the second line looked very good. And Brouwer got a goal deflecting a shot from Sarge, so that was good to see.
With MarJo back in, Perreault was dropped down to the fourth line, along with Hendricks and Halpern (hmm... Haliceault line?), and they mostly looked good as well. They assisted on Wideman's goal, and I believe they weren't on for any against, and that's what you're looking to get out of a fourth line. Matty P looked a bit out of his element (that is, he looked like he was having to think about where he was supposed to go more than usual), but actually did a good job. Was glad to see it, because I wasn't sure how good a fit that was for him.
Overall, the top line was actually the weakest one for the team. I hope that doesn't happen too often, because they shouldn't ever be the drag on the team. I wonder if they were just trying to hard to throw their bodies around, because they did have some very nice hits, but...
And I forgot to call out Backstrom for his excellent game the other night. He still looked pretty good tonight, but the line just wasn't getting it done. Some of that was bad luck; they did have some very nice chances that they couldn't quite convert. But they just weren't driving play like I'm used to them doing. Or maybe I'm just getting hung up on their lack of finishing tonight; I certainly hope so. But they definitely weren't at the top of their game.
Anyway, overtime was a bit of a mess, with MarJo doing a nice job drawing his second penalty (which, incidentally, should have been his third; a high stick he took was missed). The power play didn't look great, as it allowed a chance the other way, and a possible second one was called on account of a hooking penalty. The penalty kill was decent, although Vokoun was excellent on the ensuing penalty (and the penalty after, as they got called for too many men right as the first penalty was expiring).
So we ended up with a shootout. Hendricks started, and I figured his trick was about at the end of it's life, but it worked again as he left Roloson undressed. OV followed, doing the wide left move that is, I think, his strongest approach. But he couldn't quite keep the puck from rolling when he went backhand, and put it into the side of the net. Semin went last, after Vokoun stopped both intervening Tampa shots (a bit contemptuously on the second, I thought). And he just screamed straight down at the net, only veering a little bit after he got Roli to half-heartedly try a poke check (he was going fast enough that the poke never actually came, but Roli had changed his grip for the attempt, which left almost the entire side of the net empty).
So the Caps take the second game on the gimmick. I'm liking their four points, so far, but wishing they weren't giving the opposition points, especially with both game inside the division.
So, once again, we see a lot (actually, a LOT) of potential, but some really uneven play as well. I gotta think, with the way Boudreau usually treats his goalies, that we're now going to be seeing Neuvy against Pittsburgh on Thursday.
And I really hope the top line can put it together. While the rest of the team bailed them out tonight, the team just ain't going to go far without eighty or ninety goals out of that top line.
Oh, and special teams... I actually thought the power play looked better tonight, even though they didn't convert at all. They were doing a much better job moving around, and pulling the defense out of shape (except for that last power play, in overtime), and that's what's going to lead to goals.
The PK was excellent. They allowed a bit more zone time on the first penalty, than I would prefer, but were killing it in the second. And they did a good job hanging in against a tough power play in the overtime. So I'm pretty pleased with that.
So, two down, eighty to go. And Pittsburgh is on tap.
20110503
Over Before It Began
Or at least it seems that way. The Caps dropped another one tonight. The Caps have generally outplayed the Lightning pretty significantly in all three games. They blew it a couple of times in the second game with bad line changes (I think this is yet another example of Boudreau getting out-coached) that led to Lightning goals. And again, tonight, they outplayed the Lightning through two periods.
But they laid one of their worst goose-eggs of the season in the third period, allowing two more goals and a multitude of scoring chances while getting almost no chances of their own. If Neuvy hadn't played very well, they would have allowed two more goals, in fact. It was just butt-ugly.
Unfortunately, the memory of that has just about obliterated my memories of the excellent first two periods. OV was a beast through there, generating chances for himself and others. MarJo played very well also, and looked especially good on the PK. And again, Neuvy played very well.
But the end result is that their backs are hard up against the wall, and they need to win four in a row to advance (which would make them only the fourth team in NHL history to do so, I believe). I see no reason to believe they have it in them; Tampa just seems to want it much more. I do think the Caps will come out with a will, and win tomorrow night (a blowout wouldn't even surprise me) and maybe one more after that, but I think they're done. It's a very disappointing way to see them go; I really thought they'd handle the Bolts.
Boudreau made some good adjustments against the Lightning earlier in the season, but has not been able to handle Boucher's counter-adjustments. I don't know where we go from here.
In fact, despite his record in the regular season (really, it's a fabulous record; there's no question) I've got to wonder if Gabby has reached the limits of that of which he's capable. He made some good adjustments to his system this season, but I'm wondering if the results aren't as much due to better personnel as to those tactical changes.
McPhee... I've been pretty hard on him in the past (probably not in print) largely due to not drafting well until about five years ago. But he's learned, and drafted well recently (other than the Gustafsson debacle), and did a very good job with in-season trades this year. I'm not sure that we even want to bring back Arnott or Sturm, although I'm happy that Wideman will stick around for another year.
I do really like the look of the defense for next year. I hope we'll hold onto Hannan, although he'll have to take a pay cut to make that work. The rest of the corps is set, and solid. That's something on which to build.
Up front, there are a lot more question marks. I was skeptical of the idea of re-signing Knuble, but that ship has sailed. And, I suppose, at the salary agreed, it wasn't a bad deal.
I think we have to let one of Bradley or Hendricks go; Hendricsk being signed already kind of settles that issue, despite his post-season disappearing act. But the big question, as last year, is what to do down the middle. MarJo stays, obviously; the only question is whether he's 2C or 3C. Can he handle 2C? I'm not sure; give him another year, and I'm sure the answer's yes. But next year?
If the answer is yes, then it becomes pretty simple: slot him at 2C, and hand 3C to Matty P. Hopefully, with another offseason to bulk up (and maybe some improved effort, especially on back-checking) he can handle it. He's looked brilliant at times, but needs to look it far more often. And there is one more issue with this configuration; they're terrible on the dot, meaning that Nicky gets far more D-zone draws than we would like leading to far fewer scoring chances for him and OV.
But if the answer of MarJo at 2C is no, then you're pretty well stuck with a trade or free-agent signing. I hope Richards is out of the question, but I'm not sure who else you consider. I guess at that point you could think about bringing Arnott back for one more season, although I'm not sure that isn't a matter of "the Devil you know, rather than the one you don't".
There's also the question of Brooks Laich. You want to bring him back, but can that happen for a low enough salary to be feasible? I guess you could play at making him 3C, but I'm not sold on that idea.
I dunno... Time to stop this mental roster-bation, I think. Let's first see if we can win a game or two first. If not, then I can give this some more thought, and look up some of the available options.
But they laid one of their worst goose-eggs of the season in the third period, allowing two more goals and a multitude of scoring chances while getting almost no chances of their own. If Neuvy hadn't played very well, they would have allowed two more goals, in fact. It was just butt-ugly.
Unfortunately, the memory of that has just about obliterated my memories of the excellent first two periods. OV was a beast through there, generating chances for himself and others. MarJo played very well also, and looked especially good on the PK. And again, Neuvy played very well.
But the end result is that their backs are hard up against the wall, and they need to win four in a row to advance (which would make them only the fourth team in NHL history to do so, I believe). I see no reason to believe they have it in them; Tampa just seems to want it much more. I do think the Caps will come out with a will, and win tomorrow night (a blowout wouldn't even surprise me) and maybe one more after that, but I think they're done. It's a very disappointing way to see them go; I really thought they'd handle the Bolts.
Boudreau made some good adjustments against the Lightning earlier in the season, but has not been able to handle Boucher's counter-adjustments. I don't know where we go from here.
In fact, despite his record in the regular season (really, it's a fabulous record; there's no question) I've got to wonder if Gabby has reached the limits of that of which he's capable. He made some good adjustments to his system this season, but I'm wondering if the results aren't as much due to better personnel as to those tactical changes.
McPhee... I've been pretty hard on him in the past (probably not in print) largely due to not drafting well until about five years ago. But he's learned, and drafted well recently (other than the Gustafsson debacle), and did a very good job with in-season trades this year. I'm not sure that we even want to bring back Arnott or Sturm, although I'm happy that Wideman will stick around for another year.
I do really like the look of the defense for next year. I hope we'll hold onto Hannan, although he'll have to take a pay cut to make that work. The rest of the corps is set, and solid. That's something on which to build.
Up front, there are a lot more question marks. I was skeptical of the idea of re-signing Knuble, but that ship has sailed. And, I suppose, at the salary agreed, it wasn't a bad deal.
I think we have to let one of Bradley or Hendricks go; Hendricsk being signed already kind of settles that issue, despite his post-season disappearing act. But the big question, as last year, is what to do down the middle. MarJo stays, obviously; the only question is whether he's 2C or 3C. Can he handle 2C? I'm not sure; give him another year, and I'm sure the answer's yes. But next year?
If the answer is yes, then it becomes pretty simple: slot him at 2C, and hand 3C to Matty P. Hopefully, with another offseason to bulk up (and maybe some improved effort, especially on back-checking) he can handle it. He's looked brilliant at times, but needs to look it far more often. And there is one more issue with this configuration; they're terrible on the dot, meaning that Nicky gets far more D-zone draws than we would like leading to far fewer scoring chances for him and OV.
But if the answer of MarJo at 2C is no, then you're pretty well stuck with a trade or free-agent signing. I hope Richards is out of the question, but I'm not sure who else you consider. I guess at that point you could think about bringing Arnott back for one more season, although I'm not sure that isn't a matter of "the Devil you know, rather than the one you don't".
There's also the question of Brooks Laich. You want to bring him back, but can that happen for a low enough salary to be feasible? I guess you could play at making him 3C, but I'm not sold on that idea.
I dunno... Time to stop this mental roster-bation, I think. Let's first see if we can win a game or two first. If not, then I can give this some more thought, and look up some of the available options.
20110423
And Now It's Over
A nice day for hockey, for me. First, I got to watch a couple of chunks of the Pittsburgh/Tampa game; enough to see four goals scored by the Lightning. I didn't get to see Fleury chased, but that's a small price to pay.
And then I got to watch (most of) the Caps crushing of the Rangers. They came out with hunger, and heavily dominated the game. I think it probably wasn't the team's best game of the season, but it's in the conversation. I saw 50-ish minutes of the game, and they were just destroying the Rangers. They showed Lundqvist sitting on the bench with a minute or two left, hiding behind his glove, looking like he felt that he'd let the team down. He didn't. If he hadn't been on his game, this could have easily been five or six to nothing.
They were just keeping the puck in the offensive zone, and generating a lot of chances. I'm surprised, looking at the box score, that the Caps had so few shots, but they were largely very good shots. They also kept their cool when the Rangers tried getting chippy; this helped the Caps keep a positive power play differential and meant that the Rangers were the only ones picking up misconducts.
The only downer on the whole game is that Green went down with another puck to the head (attempting to block another shot). Man, I hope he's ok, but it looked bad and he didn't return. Ugh. I've heard vague rumors that Wideman might be able to return for the next round; it seems unlikely, but let's hope so. And maybe Poti can, as well. And Knuble should, I think.
To get to the good stuff, almost the entire team looked good. Neuvy had a great game, coming less than forty seconds from a shutout. That makes him 15-0 in playoff series as a professional (actually, that's including the OHL; I assume that's a pro league, but I don't know for sure). I thought there were stretches where OV didn't look too good, but he still managed a goal and an assist, so what the hell do I know? MarJo was buzzing again, and Backstrom looked pretty good, as well. And the defense as a whole looked quite good, quickly defusing most chances (and Neuvy was there for the few that they missed).
And the other good stuff was finding out that Buffalo beat Philly last night (despite their best efforts to let the Flyers win) and that Montreal and Boston are currently deadlocked going into the second overtime (don't really care who wins that one, but hoping for a brutally tough seven games).
So now we get to wait a bit to see who's next; I believe that this could take until the end of next week to find out, theoretically. Despite today's result, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Pittsburgh will advance, but the other two are coin flips. But if the Caps can keep playing like they did today, I don't care who we play.
And then I got to watch (most of) the Caps crushing of the Rangers. They came out with hunger, and heavily dominated the game. I think it probably wasn't the team's best game of the season, but it's in the conversation. I saw 50-ish minutes of the game, and they were just destroying the Rangers. They showed Lundqvist sitting on the bench with a minute or two left, hiding behind his glove, looking like he felt that he'd let the team down. He didn't. If he hadn't been on his game, this could have easily been five or six to nothing.
They were just keeping the puck in the offensive zone, and generating a lot of chances. I'm surprised, looking at the box score, that the Caps had so few shots, but they were largely very good shots. They also kept their cool when the Rangers tried getting chippy; this helped the Caps keep a positive power play differential and meant that the Rangers were the only ones picking up misconducts.
The only downer on the whole game is that Green went down with another puck to the head (attempting to block another shot). Man, I hope he's ok, but it looked bad and he didn't return. Ugh. I've heard vague rumors that Wideman might be able to return for the next round; it seems unlikely, but let's hope so. And maybe Poti can, as well. And Knuble should, I think.
To get to the good stuff, almost the entire team looked good. Neuvy had a great game, coming less than forty seconds from a shutout. That makes him 15-0 in playoff series as a professional (actually, that's including the OHL; I assume that's a pro league, but I don't know for sure). I thought there were stretches where OV didn't look too good, but he still managed a goal and an assist, so what the hell do I know? MarJo was buzzing again, and Backstrom looked pretty good, as well. And the defense as a whole looked quite good, quickly defusing most chances (and Neuvy was there for the few that they missed).
And the other good stuff was finding out that Buffalo beat Philly last night (despite their best efforts to let the Flyers win) and that Montreal and Boston are currently deadlocked going into the second overtime (don't really care who wins that one, but hoping for a brutally tough seven games).
So now we get to wait a bit to see who's next; I believe that this could take until the end of next week to find out, theoretically. Despite today's result, I feel pretty comfortable saying that Pittsburgh will advance, but the other two are coin flips. But if the Caps can keep playing like they did today, I don't care who we play.
20110421
4-3=3-1
Last night's Caps game was quite the roller coaster of highs and lows. The first period was pretty good, as the Caps largely outplayed the Rangers, but neither team was able to score. The second period was largely dominated by the Rangers, and was one of the worst periods of play all season for the Caps.
They only had 3-4 good shifts, and allowed three goals. One was a bit fluky, passed from behind the net, and deflecting in off the skate of a Capital (Hendricks, maybe?). The other two were cases where the defense neglected to actually cover anyone. Oh, and those two were a mere seven seconds apart. In fact, I walked into the kitchen when the first one was scored, and was still there when the second was. So it was ugly.
And to make matters worse, looking back, the Rangers were 29-0-0 in the regular season when leading after two periods. And I'll bet that most of those 29 were less than three goal leads.
Well, as usual, I stopped watching at that point to put my daughter to bed. Being a bit depressed about the situation, I did a couple of other chores before checking on the score of the game. Holy crap, it was still going on in overtime!
I zipped back to the TV, and put the OT on (was afraid the OT might run past my recording limit if I watched the third via the DVR beforehand). It turns out that Semin and MarJo (twice, actually) had scored in the third to tie up the game.
Well, the Caps heavily dominated play (including killing off a too many men penalty without allowing a shot), but were unable to score, so it was off to double overtime. It's depressing how many such games the Caps have played; at about thirty minutes of overtime, this was still only the fifth longest game in franchise history.
The Caps continued to dominate play in the second overtime, but were still unable to puncture the Lundqvist wall for quite a while. But eventually the forecheck forced a bad clearing attempt, and Chimera followed a shot towards the net that Lundqvist wasn't able to corral. The defender (Dubinski?) tried to clear it away from the goal, but just knocked it up into Chimera, whence it bounced down right in front of the net, behind Lundqvist. I've certainly made knocks about Chimmer's hands of stone, but he coolly deposited this one in the net for the win.
And my family was happy the goal was on such a busted play, because it felt so anticlimactic that I didn't shout loudly enough to wake everyone.
As far as individual players, Neuvy did very well. Despite the three goals (and I'll admit, even though he didn't really deserve it at the time, I thought it likely he wouldn't come out for the third), he pitched a shutdown for an entire game after allowing them. The MarJo-Fehr-Chimera line was actually the best one for the Caps, although I think I'd rather see Sturm-MarJo-Chimmer with Fehr on the top line. Semin was excellent in the overtime (and given that he scored, probably in the third, as well). Carlson and Alzner were the defensemen abused for the second and third goals, so they did not have a good game (they both got assists on the tying goal to somewhat make up for it, at least). And Arnott made up a bit for his dreadful last game on the dot, winning twelve of twenty.
So the Caps manage to walk away with an away game win; the series has unquestionably started, now. They've restored their two-game lead (which is, admittedly, a bit ominous given their history of blowing two-game leads), and are in position to be able to close out the series on Saturday at home. Here's hoping that they do so.
They only had 3-4 good shifts, and allowed three goals. One was a bit fluky, passed from behind the net, and deflecting in off the skate of a Capital (Hendricks, maybe?). The other two were cases where the defense neglected to actually cover anyone. Oh, and those two were a mere seven seconds apart. In fact, I walked into the kitchen when the first one was scored, and was still there when the second was. So it was ugly.
And to make matters worse, looking back, the Rangers were 29-0-0 in the regular season when leading after two periods. And I'll bet that most of those 29 were less than three goal leads.
Well, as usual, I stopped watching at that point to put my daughter to bed. Being a bit depressed about the situation, I did a couple of other chores before checking on the score of the game. Holy crap, it was still going on in overtime!
I zipped back to the TV, and put the OT on (was afraid the OT might run past my recording limit if I watched the third via the DVR beforehand). It turns out that Semin and MarJo (twice, actually) had scored in the third to tie up the game.
Well, the Caps heavily dominated play (including killing off a too many men penalty without allowing a shot), but were unable to score, so it was off to double overtime. It's depressing how many such games the Caps have played; at about thirty minutes of overtime, this was still only the fifth longest game in franchise history.
The Caps continued to dominate play in the second overtime, but were still unable to puncture the Lundqvist wall for quite a while. But eventually the forecheck forced a bad clearing attempt, and Chimera followed a shot towards the net that Lundqvist wasn't able to corral. The defender (Dubinski?) tried to clear it away from the goal, but just knocked it up into Chimera, whence it bounced down right in front of the net, behind Lundqvist. I've certainly made knocks about Chimmer's hands of stone, but he coolly deposited this one in the net for the win.
And my family was happy the goal was on such a busted play, because it felt so anticlimactic that I didn't shout loudly enough to wake everyone.
As far as individual players, Neuvy did very well. Despite the three goals (and I'll admit, even though he didn't really deserve it at the time, I thought it likely he wouldn't come out for the third), he pitched a shutdown for an entire game after allowing them. The MarJo-Fehr-Chimera line was actually the best one for the Caps, although I think I'd rather see Sturm-MarJo-Chimmer with Fehr on the top line. Semin was excellent in the overtime (and given that he scored, probably in the third, as well). Carlson and Alzner were the defensemen abused for the second and third goals, so they did not have a good game (they both got assists on the tying goal to somewhat make up for it, at least). And Arnott made up a bit for his dreadful last game on the dot, winning twelve of twenty.
So the Caps manage to walk away with an away game win; the series has unquestionably started, now. They've restored their two-game lead (which is, admittedly, a bit ominous given their history of blowing two-game leads), and are in position to be able to close out the series on Saturday at home. Here's hoping that they do so.
20110415
Continuing the Push
Well, a fantastic result tonight for the Caps. They were actually outplayed for the first, and much of the third, periods, but managed to keep the Rangers off the board. And in the second period, when they were really pushing, they managed two goals, one of which was on the power play.
It's funny how these things roll around. I really didn't want Chimera on the ice tonight, he just hasn't been able to finish some wide-open chances for quite a while. He even had one in game one, where he was part of a 4-on-2; when the pass went over to him, I screamed at the TV, "Not to Chimmer". But tonight he managed to finish a nice tic-tac-toe play from MarJo from Laich going from directly behind to the left side, bottom of the circle, to the front of the net. It was pretty. But I still would have been happier with Fehr playing both games.
The one thing the Caps did well tonight, even when they were being outplayed, was keeping the Rangers to the perimeter. They gave up a couple of really good chances, but not many. And especially not many when you consider how much more possession the Rangers had.
Oh, and a shout-out to Alzner for playing very well. He had a nice shutdown on a 2-on-1 (he would be my first choice for which defender to have back on a 2-on-1), and a beautiful stretch pass to spring OV for a breakaway in the third. OV didn't bury it, but it was still a beautiful job getting him the puck.
Other than that, Neuvy did a fine job again, getting his first playoff shutout. He didn't face a lot of shots, and, as I said, most were from the perimeter, but it was still a good job. And again, he never looked rattled, even when Avery was really trying to shake his cage. Oh, and he should really thank Erskine for one of those saves, when Neuvy was totally out of position (I forget the exact details, but I'm not blaming him for being out of position), Erskine stood tall in the net and batted it aside.
So, overall the game was pretty encouraging. They do need to do a better job of controlling possession, but they did show that they can do that.
But the Rangers are definitely not to be overlooked, even at this point. Not just because they're determined, but also because the Caps have blown two game series leads in '85, '87, '92, '95, '96, '03, '09, and '10. Yeah, that's a lot of playoff frustration. Oh, and the Caps have never swept a seven game series; it'd be nice to break that streak.
It's funny how these things roll around. I really didn't want Chimera on the ice tonight, he just hasn't been able to finish some wide-open chances for quite a while. He even had one in game one, where he was part of a 4-on-2; when the pass went over to him, I screamed at the TV, "Not to Chimmer". But tonight he managed to finish a nice tic-tac-toe play from MarJo from Laich going from directly behind to the left side, bottom of the circle, to the front of the net. It was pretty. But I still would have been happier with Fehr playing both games.
The one thing the Caps did well tonight, even when they were being outplayed, was keeping the Rangers to the perimeter. They gave up a couple of really good chances, but not many. And especially not many when you consider how much more possession the Rangers had.
Oh, and a shout-out to Alzner for playing very well. He had a nice shutdown on a 2-on-1 (he would be my first choice for which defender to have back on a 2-on-1), and a beautiful stretch pass to spring OV for a breakaway in the third. OV didn't bury it, but it was still a beautiful job getting him the puck.
Other than that, Neuvy did a fine job again, getting his first playoff shutout. He didn't face a lot of shots, and, as I said, most were from the perimeter, but it was still a good job. And again, he never looked rattled, even when Avery was really trying to shake his cage. Oh, and he should really thank Erskine for one of those saves, when Neuvy was totally out of position (I forget the exact details, but I'm not blaming him for being out of position), Erskine stood tall in the net and batted it aside.
So, overall the game was pretty encouraging. They do need to do a better job of controlling possession, but they did show that they can do that.
But the Rangers are definitely not to be overlooked, even at this point. Not just because they're determined, but also because the Caps have blown two game series leads in '85, '87, '92, '95, '96, '03, '09, and '10. Yeah, that's a lot of playoff frustration. Oh, and the Caps have never swept a seven game series; it'd be nice to break that streak.
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