Lightning-struck?

Last night's Caps game against the Lightning... wow.  What to say about it?

Well, I was right that the Caps were able to give themselves a little cushion in second place.

But man, was that ugly.  Let's start with the fact that there were two stretches of the game, of ten or more minutes each, where the Caps didn't even manage to attempt a shot.

And Green's first period?  Missed lift check led to a double-minor high sticking.  Missed poke check led to a tripping call.  Lone man back on a 2-on-1, and played the shot instead of the pass.  All of that led to three goals, and me turning the game off for a while.  When I turned it back on (after putting the kids to bed), I found out that he turned things around by taking another high sticking penalty and a misconduct less than a minute later.  Ouch.

Holtby got pulled after that third goal, although I don't think he really deserved it.  One of those goals was through a double screen (he didn't see the shot coming, and I have no idea how the puck made it through the mass of bodies.  Even after watching the replay).  The third was Green's neglecting to defend the pass, leading to an easy score.  The second was stoppable, but would have been a tough stop on a hard one-timer.

Once that penalty-box parade ended, the top line was finally able to play a bit, and scored off a face-off in the zone three minutes after that last Tampa score.

The second period mostly went Washington's way (though one could debate how much of that was due to the boarding major that sent Alzner to the dressing room for a short bit); they led in goals and shots.

They cut the lead to two towards the end of an early power play with some good puck movement.  It quickly became apparent that Tampa's entire PK strategy was predicated around stopping OV, so the Caps kept trying to feed Brouwer in the slot.  That didn't really work, but did eventually get a rebound to Backstrom while Bishop was down, and Nicky put it home.

The Caps kept trying to chip away, although Tampa got the next goal when Johnson intercepted a pass right around the blue line.  They brought it back on a 3-on-2.  I thought it'd been broken up when one of the passes got slowed a lot, but they were still able to put the shot on net and Johnson found himself undefended with the rebound.

Things weren't looking good, then, as play went back and forth with no sustained pressure for several minutes.  And then Alzner was drilled from behind, and went head-first into the boards, leading to a major for boarding (I was glad to see, on the replay, that Panik stopped to apologize to Karl for it; he could have been seriously injured).  That gave Washington the power play for the remainder of the period.

It did not take long to capitalize; they won the draw, worked it once around the zone, then MarJo caught OV making a back-door cut to the net for a goal in twelve seconds.  The second goal took a bit longer, and probably required OV's man to lose his stick, but Green passed over to OV for his regular one-timer to tie the game back up at four.  And make hats rain down on the ice.

Despite the power play lasting another minute and change in that period, and over a minute in the third, there were no more goals on it.

And the rest of the game, in fact, went without penalty (although there was a pretty egregious interference no-call at one point).

Offense in the third period, for the Caps, was basically a tale of two shifts (the first of which might have been two back-to-back).  Unfortunately, there was over ten minutes without even an attempt at a shot in between.  Fortunately, the second of those shifts (with about thirty seconds left) resulted in a goal.

That goal matched the one that the Lightning, with their steady pressure throughout the period, scored during that huge lull.

That goal was also OV's fourth of the game (and Nicky's fourth assist, to go with his one goal), so there were a few more hats thrown down.

That put the game into overtime again, which was basically firewagon hockey, as the puck went from end to end to end to end.  The five minutes got ten shots from the two teams, and there were some very good chances.  But no one was able to convert, and another one went into the shootout for the Caps.

I was initially very fearful of the shootout, with it being Gru's first (and especially remembering Holtby's first), but he looked very good.  He did get beaten twice, but had a really nice poke check on St Louis, and generally seemed calm and in control.

And at the other end, Fehr, Grabo, and Brouwer all converted, which was enough to give the Caps the two points for which they were looking.

Again, it was a brutally ugly game (33.3% FF%, 5-on-5 close) at evens, but the goaltending and special teams were good enough to even it out.  And it was probably Greenie's worst day at the office, ever.  The penalty kill was so-so; the two goals allowed in five chances wasn't too good, but they did keep it down to only six shots (which still isn't great, but is an improvement in how they've been doing).

All in all, the only things to be pleased about were the play of OV and Backstrom (five goals and four assists between them) and the power play (especially OV getting those two PPGs, despite the entire defense being keyed to stop him, personally).  This was not a formula for winning a game, but we'll be glad they pulled it out anyway.

Next up is Florida; definitely a prime chance to keep ahead of Carolina and New York.  I'd like to make a joke here about Florida and loser points (based on their record last season), but the Caps are far worse, this season.  Despite that, Go Caps!

On the Brouwer-Play...

The Caps game against the Bolts, tonight, was quite a tilt. I missed the first minute-and-a-half due to DVR issues (started by the game being on the "wrong" channel), but at least set it up so that won't happen again. And I'm glad I tried to turn it on right away, because some times I would just wait for the kids to go to bed. If I'd done that, I would have missed almost the entire game.

The other thing I missed, other than that minute and a half, was the roster shuffling. Kundratek was still up (with both Erskine and Schultz being healthy scratches tonight), and Eakin was called up as well (with Perreault being a healthy scratch; odd, since he had a very good game against the Penguins). I got distracted when I was writing the other night; what I was leading towards was observing that if Schultz is getting scratched in favor of someone making their NHL debut, he probably isn't long for the team (which makes me a little sad. He's certainly not a spectacular player, but he is a young and good one).

Anyway, when I turned it on, the Caps were already on the power play. That PP was not a good one, with the Caps unable to generate even a single shot (and very little zone time). But they kept working, and got another PP opportunity less than a minute later, as Ward was able to draw an interference on Martin St Louis. This one looked much better, although I'm not sure it got more than one shot generated, but that shot, from OV, and through Brouwer's legs, found the back of the net.

Just over a minute later, the Caps got another power play chance when the Lightning defender, Brewer, played the puck over the glass from the defensive end. The Caps put a lot of pressure on, and got the puck down low to Brouwer, who was undefended. He waited a second or two for Rolo to flinch, and put the puck between the wickets to widen the margin (I believe it was the second shot on goal for the PP).

That was it for the first period scoring; shots were even at 8, but scoring opportunities were 6-3 in the Caps favor, so it was a very good period overall. It did even out a bit after Brouwer's goal, but the Caps were still looking good. And it almost felt like they heard my complaining in my last post; they did a good job generating offensive pressure. Maybe not as much of it as I could hope, but it was very good.

The second period mostly belonged to Tampa, although the Caps (and Brouwer) got another goal five minutes in when Laich threw it to the net, Knuble cleared out the defender and goalie, and Brouwer calmly tapped the rebound into the wide-open net. Not often you see a net that wide open when you're six feet out, in the center of the ice. As I said, the period favored the Bolts most of the way, but their goal came on a steal right by the Caps net. Martin St Louis snuck up behind Knuble, took the puck from him, and threw it to the front of the net, where Pyatt moved it past Vokoun.

The shots in the second were 8-5 in favor of the Lightning, but the scoring opportunities were even at four.

I'm less upset about the shot imbalance, because the Caps were ahead by so much. You expect that. Part of the reason the shot imbalance has annoyed me so much the last several games is that the Caps were playing much of the game down.

In any event, the Caps were going into the third with a nice, two-goal cushion.

At this point, I think the Caps sat back a little too much. Like I said, you expect a team down by several goals to put a lot more shots on net, but I'm not sure the Caps got a single shot before they finally drew a power play at the ten-minute mark. And it was a nice power play; no goals, but good movement with lots of chances (including two posts and four or five shots).

But things went downhill pretty quickly after that. Brouwer got a pair of penalties (one of which was a boarding call that I think was only made because he was hitting Martin St Louis, over whom he has a huge size advantage. Predictably, MSL went flying, and that drew a penalty.

They killed off that penalty quite nicely, but Hamr threw the puck over the glass eleven seconds later.

And then, great irritation set in for me, as my DVR stopped recording during the commercial break after the puck left the rink. So I missed Stamkos' goal thirty-six seconds later. I also missed Brouwer finishing off his (first career) hat trick with an empty netter with exactly a minute remaining. And then I also missed Lecavalier's goal with eleven seconds left. Can you believe that? Four minutes (on the nose), and three goals. Ugh.

So it was quite an exciting finish to the game, but, thankfully, the Caps held on for the regulation win.

Pittsburgh mauled the Panthers tonight, as well, so the Caps picked up a game on the Panthers, and are now only a game behind the Cats. If the Caps can keep playing like they did in the first period tonight (I know, big if), then they'll be back in the Cat's-Bird seat in no time.

One other point: I know that Backstrom was put on IR to make room for Kundratek (who, by the way, played well again tonight, paired with his countryman Hamrlik), but I don't know how they made room for Eakin. I'm guessing it was putting Green on IR, but I haven't heard anything about that.

Also, note that tonight was Vokoun's 7th or 8th consecutive game in goal. I hope he's going to get a breather soon. He might only be with us for this season, but we still want him to be fresh for the playoffs. Plus, you have to figure that Neuvy's getting a bit rusty (not to mention irritated. I certainly would be).