Hockey updates

I wasn't able to watch anywhere near all of either of the games last night, but did see chunks of both.

I must say, the Rangers did look like the better team, last night, but weren't able to get it past Fleury (though, admittedly, part of that was penalty differential).  Who'd've thought that was going to be the case?

I watched most of the Ducks/Kings game, and that was a very good game.  Both teams were definitely going all-out, in a way that the Caps never do (at least not visibly).  I think part of that is coaching, though; Oates' system is just too passive.  Both Western teams were very aggressively attacking the puck, wherever it was on the ice.

I think the only way to make a "collapse to the goal, play defense all game" work is to be very, very good on the breakout (and have an amazingly good/lucky goalie).  Which is to say that I'm not at all sure it's feasible in hockey the way it is in soccer.  There are just too many scoring opportunities in a hockey game.  The defenders, no matter how good they are, just can't help out blocking shots as much as they can in soccer (just as a function of ball size, I think).

Anyway, getting back to the Ducks and Kings; I still stand by what I said about being comfortable that the Kings would be moving on.  The Kings deserved the win they got (and they played Sarge, and he didn't look terribly out of place), though it should be pointed out that Quick also needed to be very good from time to time.  The one goal he allowed was on a 4-on-3, where Doughty was one of the players in the box, and it still took a deflection off a defenseman to get past Quick.

At one point, Doughty took a slash to the back of the knee (from Beauchemin), and limped off.  I was wondering if that was going to leave them at a point they hadn't reached all season, with three defencemen out, but Doughty came back a minute or two later.

Getting back to the Rangers loss, they were shut out in back-to-back games for the first time since Varly did it to them, and now need to win badly.  I hope they can do it (though I'm getting more skeptical).

Humbug!

I watched a chunk of the Penguins/Blue Jackets game earlier tonight.  I missed both of Malkin's early goals, but saw Columbus getting comfortably outplayed.

And then I saw the Pens score their third.  I was thinking of turning it off then, but didn't, right away.  But my son was refusing to eat his dinner, so I turned it off not too much after that.  So I missed Malkin completing the hat trick, as well as Columbus coming back enough to make a game of it in the third.  Wish I'd seen the latter part, even if they fell short.

Ah well, Penguins move on.  Not exactly a surprise, but certainly disappointing.

The next round for them will definitely be interesting.  Knowing that Pittsburgh won, I'd almost like to see the Flyers advance, just to see chaos ensue.  But I'd mostly be cheering for the meteor in that series, other than the schadenfreude of watching the two teams abuse each other.

It would certainly make for a pair of series, in the East, of teams that seriously dislike each other.

Scoring first not recommended

Watched the tail end of the Penguins/Blue Jackets game tonight.  When I turned it on, the Jackets were still down 3-2 after allowing three goals in twelve minutes in the first period.  But they had been battling back, since.

Well, it took them several minutes to mount a chance at all (including killing a penalty), but they had several chances in the last few minutes.

But they weren't able to break through until the final minute of regulation, when Fleury went to play the puck behind his net, fumbled it away, and watched it passed in front and shot in before he could get back into position.  It was a terrible capstone to a pretty good game for him.

And that sent it into overtime.  For the first half a minute or so, the Jackets went right at the Penguins, and had several chances.  Then the Penguins came back, and had a few chances of their own.

But one of those chances was stopped by a Blue Jacket stopping a shot.  It was pushed to neutral, the blocker (Umberger, I think) threw the puck back across to Foligno, who broke into the zone and shot it low, right at Fleury.  And he was rewarded when Flower went Power-less to tie the series.

That leaves the series tied (with the team scoring first giving up their lead in every game, and losing in three of the four).  If that late-game failure gets into Fleury's head at all, I have to wonder if he's going to look like he did in the playoffs the last two seasons.  That would amuse me no end, but we'll have to wait and see.  I think I'd bet against it, but I'm hopeful.

Go Jackets!

Ending on a low note

I watched the second, and much of the third, periods of the Blue Jackets/Penguins game last night. Things were looking great for the Jackets until a couple seconds left in the second. Then the Penguins worked it around, a Jacketed defender went down too early for the block, it was pulled around him and shot into the net. Time of the goal: 19:59.3. Oof.

The Jackets didn't collapse in the third, though.  In fact, they scored one minute in.  Unfortunately, I had to go change a diaper right as they scored.  So I didn't see either of the two goals that the Penguins scored in the next six minutes.  That was irritating, and depressing.

And it got even worse shortly thereafter.  A Penguins shot from the point by Maata was deflected twice (once by Jokinen, once by a defender; it started out low and right, rising, and ended up high and left, descending.  Definitely no chance for Bob).

And that's where it ended up, unfortunately.  The Jackets got a little bit of pressure after that, but no really good chances.  So it was a very disappointing ending to a game that had been going very well for Columbus.

Stumbling towards obscurity

There were no moral victories in last night's Caps/Penguins game.  The Caps didn't deserve to win, and they didn't.

The game got going quickly, once going almost fourteen minutes without a faceoff.  During that time, there were very few chances for either team (not a big surprise, I guess, as chances tend to lead to stoppages, via goalies holding pucks, deflecting them out of play, or watching them go into the net).

And possession stayed close until nearly the end of that time.  But after that, for an entire period, the Penguins solidly dominated.  The Caps stayed close, with Halak only letting one in (and that, a wicked deflection that was impossible to stop save via sheer luck).  Brouwer also made a very nice play early in this stretch, at the last second breaking up what appeared to be a 2-on-1 by diving (from behind) to deflect the pass across.

The Caps started catching up, possessionally, in the second half of the second, and even more strongly in the third (in fact, they did catch up in the third, according to Fenwick), but they didn't have that many great chances (and were helped by power plays).

They were screwed on a power play, though, as Backstrom took a phantom penalty a minute into a power play to end that one.  So they finished with three minutes and change of power play time, getting eight shot attempts (six on net) during that time.  Not bad numbers, there.

On the penalty kill, they did not do well; Pittsburgh attempted seven shots (all on net) during three-ish minutes of power play time.  They were lucky not to give up any power play goals; that's a pace of over 120 shots per sixty minutes.

Individually, I don't think anyone had a really good game.  Orlov and Green need to get back together, because they each made some really terrible mistakes last night (Green did have a couple of nice plays to somewhat offset his gaffes).  For whatever reason, they don't seem to take as many chances when playing together.

Anyway, that makes 1-4 record since trade deadline.  That's not exactly getting it done.  They basically need to go 11-4-0 the rest of the way to have a chance of getting in.  This team has shown nothing to convince me they're capable of that (and that's ignoring the California road trip coming in about a week).  Put a fork in 'em.  Is there time to get into lottery position?

PDO parable

I mentioned watching last night's Caps game against Pittsburgh; as is usually the case, I wasn't able to watch it until the kids were in bed.

Things looked a tad better for the Caps, as Kuznetsov was ready to go, with Laich and Dima returning (from injury and suspension, respectively).

The center situation looked a tad better, with Beagle demoted from second to fourth line, and MarJo slotting in on the second.

And the play that resulted was a lot better.  In fact, possessionally, it was the Caps third- or fourth-best game of the season.

Unfortunately, things got off to a rough start as, on Crosby's first shift, Green tried to jump a pass going cross-ice from Crosby to Kunitz, and missed.  That send Kunitz in alone, and he fooled Halak with a short-side backhander.

Fehr scored a nice goal (off a good pass from Chimmer, from a very nice off-the-wall drop pass from Ward) only a couple minutes later.  It was very nicely played from skate (in front!) to stick by Fehr, who was charging down the right side.

But that was answered less than a minute later, with Crosby scoring on a one-timer (marking his 18th (!) career, multipoint game against the Caps.  I'm not sure, but I think a separate graphic during the telecast said it was only his 33rd regular season game versus Washington) from the circle on the power play.  Kunitz did a very nice job winning the draw back, a few seconds before.  But it was an amusing goal, as it was basically a mirror image of many of OV's power play goals.

Play was pretty even (slight edge to Washington, which surprised me when I saw it) the rest of the period.

Early in the second, helped by a power play, Washington opened up a big edge in possession, which eventually culminated in Laich tipping in a Backstrom pass (for some reason, nhl.com has this as Backstrom from Laich) for a goal.  It was a very similar play to Chimmer's power play goal from a month or two back, except that Laich went straight in front of the goal, rather than circling around the back.

Washington continued to play well, but Pittsburgh scored a few minutes later when Crosby's shot rebounded right to Kunitz, charging down the other side, and Chris put it past Halak.  Backstrom was in position on the back-check, but missed the puck when it came to him.  Very unfortunate.

Actually, extremely unfortunate, as that turned out to be the winning goal.  The Caps had quite a few more chances, but were unable to put any of them past Zatkoff to tie the game.

The one criticism I have is for Oates (who is now 0-6-0 against Pittsburgh; I don't think Bylsma fears Oates, exactly), who, when the Caps got a power play (too many men; precipitated by a very nice charge up-ice by Dima) with just over two minutes, kept Halak on the ice for about a minute.  No concept of going for it, apparently.

Overall, the Caps played very, very well, and deserved to win.  But they're past the point in the season where moral victories matter; they need to win damned-near all the remaining games if they want to get to the playoffs.

As to the parts of the team, the first and third lines looked very good (especially the third, which was mostly going against the Crosby line; though Pitt's first goal was scored against them).  The fourth line did too, actually; in fact, Beagle and Kuzya had the top two Corsi's on the team.  Kuz didn't try to do anything big and dramatic; I think he's still trying to get comfortable.  But he looked good out there, making the right play.  Let's hope it's a sign of things to come.

The power play looked very good, with fourteen attempted shots in five minutes and change (ten on net).  Disappointed that they couldn't put at least one more in the net, but they did what they could.

The PK, I think, did pretty well.  They held Pittsburgh to nine shots attempted in four and a quarter minutes.  That's not a terribly good number, but not bad when you're facing the top power play in the league.

Unfortunately, the loss puts the Caps in a very bad position (though identical to the one they were in, two years ago at the same point in the season).  As stated before, there are no more moral victories.  It was nice to outplay the Pens, but they need to win.  Now.

And we don't need to wait; next game is tonight in Pittsburgh.  Go Caps!

Third lead was not the charm

Well, as expected, Neuvy got the start in goal last night against the Penguins. One thing I forgot to mention about the Sharks game was that Fehr and Laich were flipped in the third period. That flip remained in effect last night.

So, with those caveats, it was the same lineup as the San Jose game.

And how did it go? Well, for sure it was a lot better than the last Penguins game (where the Caps were shut out in 5v5 Fenwick close); in fact, it started very well. For the first ten minutes or so, the Caps were doing a fantastic job of controlling the neutral zone, keeping Pittsburgh from setting up in the offensive zone.

After that, the Penguins started catching up, and things looked very bad when they got a power play just before the thirteen minute mark. But a bad breakout pass was corraled by Alzner, and pushed up to Laich around the offensive blue line. He was supported by Brouwer and fought off the defender to get a clean shot off from the low slot, which he put over Fleury's shoulder to open the scoring.

Pittsburgh kept catching up for the rest of the period, but didn't manage to tie the score.

The second period started pretty well for the Caps, although without a lot going on. Several minutes in, though, the Caps caught fire, and over the next six minutes or so, attempted thirteen shots to Pittsburgh's two. I was just saying to myself, "How can the Caps lose this game, playing like this," when Nicky made a mistake near the offensive blue line leading to a 4-on-2. Adding insult to injury, the scoring shot from that jailbreak went off Nicky's stick.

For several minutes after that, neither team could mount any sustained pressure, then Washington got a very good shift from the third line. That shift culminated in Orlov getting the puck at the left point, skating across a little, then passing to MarJo deep on the right side. He threw a one-touch pass to Chimmer in the crease for the tap-in goal.

And then, we saw Washington allow another goal only a minute-forty after scoring. It's really depressing how regularly that's happened, this season. It was some pretty terrible defense, with Erskine and Carrick both managing not to defend anyone (and Wilson made a rookie mistake, going down too early, to make it even worse).

The rest of the period was pretty much up-and-down the rink, with chances at both ends, but nobody managing to score.

The third opened with withering pressure from Pittsburgh, helped by an iffy power play that put Green in the box. No scoring resulted, but the Caps didn't manage any pressure until Erskine managed to draw matching minors with Malkin (who, it should be noted, had an incredible game), leading to 4-on-4 hockey. And the Caps took advantage of that, scoring a minute and a half later. OV got the tally, putting it past Fleury from the slot right after getting his stick slashed out of his hands (no call) for his thirty-fourth goal of the season.

But Pittsburgh kept up their pressure, and scored to tie it three minutes later. Pittsburgh was content to play defense for quite a while after that, but still scored on their next shot attempt, six and a half minutes later. From there, Washington mounted a furious charge to try to tie things up, but were unable (helped by OV breaking two sticks about thirty seconds apart in that final flurry).

To break it down, I think Neuvy had an ok night. I don't remember any incredible saves, but none of the goals left me wondering why he didn't stop them, either.

The power play was ok, generating four shot attempts in two minutes and twenty seconds. The PK was better, allowing nine attempts in four minutes and forty or so, but scoring Laich's goal.

At evens, the team did pretty well, staying just on the right side of 50% against a very good possession team. Oddly, the fourth line did very well, and the other three were pretty tightly clustered. One thing I can't figure out; the third pairing was used as the shutdown line, getting most of their starts in the DZone (5/6 non-neutral starts). The other two pairings only had four D-zone faceoffs between them.

A couple of notes of interest: especially in the first period, the Penguins were going power vs power, playing Crosby's line against OV's (and that seemed to work pretty well for them). Also, I thought the Pens rarely played Crosby and Malkin together (other than power plays, of course), but they did it quite a bit in the second half of the first period.

One other change from ten games ago: the breakouts looked quite good. They were crisp and fast. What made it even more interesting (and I don't know if this was a function of Dima's vision, or of good coaching beforehand), a couple of times the Pens shut down bothoutside lanes, and Dima shot his breakout pass straight up the middle (from behind the net).

Anyway, not a bad game overall; the Caps didn't look outclassed. Disappointing to see them lose the lead three times, of course, but I chalk that up to luck more than anything. It was a loss, and not gaining any ground in the standings is disappointing, but it wasn't a dispiriting loss.

Next up are the Blue Jackets, in Ohio, on Friday. Let's hope the play continues to be very solid, and the luck turns around a bit. Go Caps!

Penn-ciling in a loss

Well, wasn't that a kick in the face?

I was finally able to turn the Caps game on around nine last night (thankfully, I'd remembered to set the recorder), and ended up wishing I'd just gone to sleep earlier.

Given the chance to seize first (and for OV to jump up to equal/beat Crosby), what happened?

Well, they came out pretty flat, and never (outside of the odd shift here and there) looked like they were in the game. In fact, they were doubled up in shots in all three periods (ok, one short in the second), even though they were down by three or four in the third.

I thought they did ok when they managed to get the puck in the offensive zone (and that shot differential gives an idea of how often that happened), but they were badly outclassed in the other two zones. And Holtby did not have a good game; not a terrible one (Crosby's PPG, for instance, I was amazed he was even close to saving), but not a terribly good one either.

Wow; finally looked at the Fenwick close mark (only nine minutes of the game). A complete white-wash. Wow. Hard to believe that's even possible. At evens, it was only 29% for. Man, I knew it wasn't good, but that's far worse than I thought.

I had a little quibbling; I thought there were a couple of penalties that weren't called (the puck-over-glass on Fleury, interference by Malkin on Martin's goal). But I don't think they mattered.

I hope the team takes this as a gut check, and an indication of how far they need to go. Because it sure looks like they have a long way to go (as I've been saying for a while).

I don't know how many other teams have the talent to exploit the Caps like what happened here, but there's certainly a few.

The only positive I can take out of it is that they did manage to get four points out of the last three games, which is better than I'd've predicted (I think I would have been hoping for three, and expecting two). But that's cold comfort, this morning.

Anyway, I guess it's over. Next up is Montreal, on Friday. Let's hope that, at the least, Green is back (and hey, let's try Dima over Urbom, too; it wouldn't be a huge difference, but I'd at least look to see if it is a difference). And maybe pull Fehr out of whatever purgatory he's managed to fall into? Go Caps!

Clean sweep

Without the Caps around, I've not been watching a lot of hockey, but I've caught bits and pieces of games.

I just finished watching the last two periods of the Bruins/Penguins game.  It was hard to watch, in a way, as I didn't really want either team to win (in the last round, the only team in the East I could cheer a little bit for was the Sens, and that obviously didn't work out well).

But I dislike the Bruins a little bit less than the Penguins, so I generally wanted them to win.  I must admit, beyond that, I was mostly hoping for a long and bruising series, preferably with a lot of overtimes.  Instead, we got short and bruising, with one double-overtime.

I really was hoping the Pens would win tonight to extend the series, though.  So it was with mixed feelings that I watched the puck fly into Rask's glove as time expired tonight.

So congratulations to the Bruins on their sweep (I was impressed, they did make the Pens look downright bad for two games.  And in Pittsburgh, no less), and I hope they get steamrolled by whichever team wins out West (which certainly looks likely to be Chicago).

Hockey night (not) in Canada

I turned on the hockey game tonight, hoping to see if the Habs lost their minds again vs the Sens, but it wasn't on at all.  Just the Pens and Isles, which is probably the last series I actually want to watch.

But I was stuck with it, so I left it on for a while.  Long enough to see the Islanders outplaying the Pens pretty seriously, and to take a 1-0 lead in the first.  Between periods, I had to turn the game off (had to distract my son for a while), and didn't get back to it until I put the kids to bed.

So I turned it on with a couple minutes left, and was thrilled to see the Isles were still up by a goal (less so that the Pens had scored four in the intervening time, but you take what you can get).  Even better, just after I turned it on, the Isles stopped the Pens just past the blue line, quickly moved it up-ice, and Cizikas put a weak shot off of Fleury's hand (it was an atrocious attempt at a save, on a shot that wasn't even on-net) and into the net.  I'm thinking TVo will be starting for Pittsburgh next time.

The Islanders just played defense to their raucous crowd after that, and kept the Penguins from getting close to scoring.  Glorious.

After their initial shut-out, and doubly so when I heard Crosby was coming back for Game 2, I was quite willing to write off the series (actually, I was almost ready to write it off before it started).  But the Islanders have outplayed the Pens three games in a row now, so they might be able to pull off the huge upset.  I'm hoping.

Caps-tone of a New Year

Haven't really felt much to say about the last several Caps games; they've played well in all of them. Matty P and MarJo have, I think, cemented their roster spots for the rest of the year (possibly barring a big trade-deadline acquisition for second center). The Caps have also adjusted their style a bit, for the first time since Boudreau came aboard, which has yielded some nice results.

They aren't playing as flashy, but more effectively, I think.

We still need both Sashas to come back to form. Neither has looked bad, but neither is playing to anywhere near their abilities, either. Well, OV might be close, other than his horrible shooting percentage, I suppose.

Other than that... Carlson and Alzner are both playing better than could have been reasonably expected. Alzner kind of punctuated that for me in the Heinz Field game, by breaking up a 3-on-1 (yes, some luck involved, but he was in the right position to be able to get lucky). The two of them are getting the toughest assignments now, and mostly coming through in fine fashion.

Fehr had a heck of a Winter Classic game. The last couple of years he's been a phenomenal scorer (near the top of the league) in points per 60 minutes. Hopefully, this game will help get him back on that track. He's definitely had a lot of good chances the last few games.

I was surprised Beagle stayed up for the WC; I expected him to be sent back. But he's been doing a good job grinding away at defenses, and had one heck of a pretty goal against the Canadiens.

In goal, both goalies have been amazing. Varly has been slightly more amazing, but it's not a large difference. I really do go back and forth on who should be considered Number One. Varly's certainly more athletic, but Neuvy's positioning is so sound... There's certainly some parallels to the situation with Ace and Kolzilla when both were on the team. Not sure the resolution will be the same, but it's definitely something to keep in mind. And also keep in mind that Holtby is pretty much tearing up the AHL as well.

I'm definitely feeling very optimistic about the club. And the results are nothing to sneeze at; as of this morning, they were only two points back of the massive pig-pile that is the President's Trophy position. Having the lead would be better, but two points out is nothing to complain about.

In fact, the only phase of the game not running well at the moment is, of all things, the power play. And that shouldn't be too hard to fix; I only see two issues. One is feeding OV too much, the other is waiting too long to take shots. That is, they get good passes to set up one-timers, but then they hold the puck for a second or two before taking the shot. Usually this allows the defense to get into position for a block. Or maybe it's just bad luck; I'm really not sure.