Capital mistakes

[like many times, I wrote this yesterday, but am not getting aroound to posting it until today.]

I watched last night's Caps-Sens game a little bit late; I watched a bit of the first only a little bit late, but wasn't able to watch the rest until after the kids were in bed.

Holtby was in net, getting his first start in quite a while. The skating lineup got a little bit of shuffle; OV was a game-time decision and didn't play (lower body injury). That led to Volpatti playing again, and Brouwer being on the top line (and Fehr taking OV's spot on the power play again). And Erskine was scratched, leading to Schmidt being called up and playing.

I was really happy about the second part of that, although I can't say as it went terribly well. Schmidt and Carrick did not exactly cover themselves in glory in the game, although I think I'd stick with it (but I'd feel even better with Schmidt and Oleksy).

Overall, this game was played pretty close to even, possessionally. I thought the Caps did better, most of the time, but there were some really bad odd-man breaks (including a nightmarish 5-on-2, thankfully snuffed by an offsides call that was borderline interference) that made Holtby work much harder than he should have.

One of those odd-man breaks was a breakaway where Bobby Ryan looked like he'd beat Holtby, but Holtby's leg pad slightly deflected the puck as it was pulled across the net, causing the puck to hit the heel of Ryan's stick, and him to miss the net entirely.

Another of those breaks was the result of a bad pinch by Alzner (and that's certainly not something we can say with any regularity), leaving Carrick to defend. In real time, I thought Carrick was doing a decent job (would have liked to see him focus a little more on the pass), but ended up screening Holtby for a shot that went, five-hole, into the cage. And Holtby looked very surprised by where it went.

The Caps penalty kill did a very good job defending three of the four power plays they faced (one shot on goal between the three), but only managed one clear on the third one. Lots of zone time resulted in a tired defense (over a minute, I think), and a goal from Spezza. It also didn't help that Dima was the man in the box, that time. The PK also managed three shot attempts of their own in that time. I was actually pretty happy with the overall performance, despite the goal.

The power play was merely so-so, with ten attempted shots in four attempts (five shots on net). OV being out, of course, was a major factor here, so perhaps I'm being a little harsh.

Regardless of whether that's so or not, what's not is that they were unable to put a single puck past Anderson, so those two goals mentioned were more than enough to decide the game.

On the plus side, possession was pretty even (dead even, per 5v5 FF%, in fact), so things aren't looking too bad, in one sense.

Unfortunately, it makes six losses in a row, which has moved the Caps out of playoff contention, and things are not looking good, going forward. That's because their remaining schedule has a lot of road games, and against a lot of good teams. And they'll need about 40 pts in the 32 remaining games. So they'll definitely need to earn a playoff spot, if they want it.

And it starts tomorrow night, against the Devils, in New Jersey. They'll need to do a lot better than they've been doing. Let's hope they manage it. Go Caps!

Failure to Ward off troubles

The Caps/Sens game the other night was another pretty good one for the Caps. But what really struck me about it was that I watched it just after watching the Premiership Liverpool/Chelsea game. In that one, Liverpool took the ball right down the field, and scored (helped by a weird bounce) at the end of the third minute. Chelsea took that as a wakeup, and dominated the rest of the way, scoring in the 17th and 34th minutes.

Well, the Caps started out with some heavy pressure, scoring in the third minute (lucky shot by Ward in the slot that bounced off Anderson's stick) and preventing any shot attempts for the first six minutes or so. Well, Ottawa didn't dominate the rest of the way, but they did have the edge and scored in the fourteenth and twenty-fourth minutes. The parallel breaks down a little bit, as Ottawa managed to add an empty-netter in the final minute, but it was striking, watching them back-to-back.

Overall, though, the Caps played pretty well; not quite as well as in Buffalo, perhaps, but well. They had thirty-five shots and 57% Fenwick 5-on-5 close. The main flaw was on allowing too many breakaways and two-on-ones. The first goal was the latter (and Green tried to play the shot, I thought), while the second was the former (Turris with a very nice finish while getting hooked from behind (by Green)).

Gru was in goal again (Neuvy has now gotten sufficiently frustrated that his agent has asked for a trade). While it worked out well in this game, I'm not a fan of "riding the hot hand", because it always ends with letting someone playing subpar hockey get too many starts. Not to take anything away from Gru's (excellent) performance, but he's still only faced 307 shots; that's not enough to draw any conclusions about his ability. If Neuvy can't be traded, send Gru back down, with the expectation that he'll get a lot of games next year.

Anyway, getting back to the Senators game, the power play looked pretty good with some very good chances, and forced some great saves by Anderson. The PK looked ok, but still allowed too many shots (six in four opportunities); they're not going to continue to save all those shots. One minor thing that's happened several times this season came up in this game also. The PK (Fehr, I believe) got a decent scoring chance, and got the puck back. I'd like to see them pass back into their own zone when that happens, instead of just trying to trap the puck against the boards. It just feels like it doesn't kill any more time, and tires people out more (plus gives more chances for a player to get caught too far up ice).

Be that as it may, I did think it was a good overall game by the Caps. They played hard, threatened a lot, and could have won if Anderson didn't make some great saves. Games like that, they'll win, more often than not.

One thing about both of the last two games; it didn't feel like their breakout was constantly (or even regularly) getting stymied. If they've figured that one thing out (and maybe they have; there seemed to be more of defenders carrying out of the zone), then their possession numbers will improve dramatically, and they'll win quite a bit more. We'll see.

Next up, Carolina comes to visit, tonight. So far this season, special teams have dominated the decisions.  Go Caps!

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.

Penultimate Road Stop

Well, I can't say as I had the greatest optimism about last night's game. The fact that things had kept going in the Caps favor with evidence of a lot of luck, and how many times they've recently gone up 4-0, and the fact that the last game had gone so well... Well, you knew the other shoe was going to drop at some point.

And boy, did it. They were completely dominated last night; most of the play was in their own end. Shots were 38-19 in favor of the Sens, with Washington having 60% more blocked shots as well. Just ugly, almost from start to finish.

Even the Caps one goal was a combination of lucky bounces and one hell of a play by Erat (hitting the puck in mid-air twice; once to "stop" it and once to pass to Ribeiro). Certainly couldn't fault Anderson for it.

It was an odd game for Holtby, though. He was mostly fantastic (could have easily allowed several goals with merely good play), but both non-empty net goals being on him (one a shot that should have been easy; the other a bit of a mis-play behind the net leading to a goal before he could get back in front).

In the attacking end, Anderson was ready for just about everything the Caps tried; it was definitely a good game for him as well. But the Caps didn't get to him much; basically just on the power play and at the ends of the periods. Far too much of the play before that was in the Caps end.

Ah well. It was a bad game, but we knew there'd be at least one or two more of those before the end of the season. The only really bad part of it is that the Jets won their game, so they're only two points behind the Caps now.

And next, the Caps face the Habs in their last non-home game of the season. Quite a roller-coaster the end of this season is turning out to be. Let's hope the Caps can win the next two; that would pretty much lock them into 3rd in the conference.