Strong start leads to ekeing out victory

Before the Sunday tilt with the Maple Leafs, I was certainly feeling like this was the Caps best chance to pick up some easy points, as the Leafs are a terrible team, possessionally.  But a team PDO of 102 will certainly mask a lot of deficiencies and lead to a lot of points in the standings.  So I was definitely feeling like the Leafs record is not terribly indicative of their overall talent.

And the first period certainly seemed to bear that out.  The Leafs only managed four unblocked shots, which did give them one goal.  But Washington had eighteen, which led to three goals of their own and a nice lead (especially as Toronto's goal was scored well after Washington's third).

Those Washington goals came from Brouwer and Ward on the power play (Ward's goal had the second power play unit on ice to start the power play, for unknown reasons, but which featured a really pretty setup from Penner, parking himself in front of the goalie).  Chimmer had the other one (the second, for those keeping score at home), and his skate tapped in a shot from Ward that beat Reimer between the pads.

The first fifteen minutes of the second period was about the mirror image of the first, as the Leafs had sixteen unblocked shots to the Caps two (three power plays helped in that cause).  Happily, Halak was up to that challenge, and stopped all but one.  That led to a lot of time for the Leafs to try to get a tying goal, but play was largely in the Caps favor.  In fact, the Leafs weren't able to pull Reimer until very close to the end (last 30 seconds or so), because the Caps kept the puck down at the other end.

It was good to see, especially as Brouwer finally managed to ice the game with an empty netter that slid in with a screen from Backstrom (who generously didn't touch the puck on the way) with four seconds left.

Overall, a good game, with Halak doing an excellent job holding off Toronto's big push in the second.  Ward and Brouwer also each hit twenty goals on the season.  And 5v5 close Fenwick was almost 57/43, which is great.

The power play looked decent, with two goals in four chances.  But that came on only seven shot attempts (five on net) in five and a half minutes, which isn't terribly good.

The PK got the job done again, holding Toronto off the board in their three chances.  But that was with fourteen attempts (eight on net) in six minutes.  That's not a sustainable way to kill penalties.  Very lucky there.

Other than that, the broadcast did have a couple of interesting notes.  May and Locker were sharing coloring duties, which was pretty good.  What I found interesting, though, were the three different age cracks May got in on Locker.  Anyway, it also had me wondering if they're looking at replacing Locker; I can't say as I would mind, if so.

The other interesting part was talking about how many of the players (all but three, although I forget the three) use skates with a quick-release mechanism on the blades, to make changing blades about a six second operation.  That can certainly be helpful, but I wonder if it helps explain the several instances I've seen, this season, of players losing a skate blade.  I particularly remember watching Oleksy struggle over to the bench when he lost his blade back at the end of October.

Anyway, it was a good game, especially to see the players working hard all night.  I still don't understand why Beagle and OV are frequently together on a line, as it seems frightfully ineffective.  I also don't understand why Holtby is in Oates' dog-house again (still?).  All signs point to him being an excellent (read: above league-average starter), and I hope his confidence has been unaffected by being sat so many times.  I'm not even convinced that Halak is better than Holtby, let alone enough better to justify this kind of workload distribution.

Anyway, now comes the real gauntlet for the season, with four games against California teams followed by a final game against the Bruins.  They need to win at least three of those games to have even a tiny shot at the playoffs, and that's a tall order, given what we know of the teams.  First up, the Ducks, tonight.  Go Caps!

Flying high

Well, I wasn't feeling terribly great going into tonight's Caps game.  OV is out with a shoulder injury (hopefully not for long), and Erskine is out for a fairly long time (went straight to LTIR).  To help cope, Orlov and Latta were both called up from Hershey.

But missing OV?  Ow.  He's fired over 20% of the teams total shots (ie: on-goal, misses, and blocked shots), so it's a tremendous loss.

To add to things, from a personal point of view, I realized about twenty minutes before the game started that it was on NHLN, so my DVR wasn't set.  We were having dinner at the time, and about to go pick up the new minivan we'll need in a month or so.  So I knew I wouldn't have a chance to go home and set it.

Well, I ignored it for a while, but I did check on the game while we were at the dealership to see that the Caps were up four.  It was definitely a muted joy, since it appeared that they were doing well, and I wasn't able to see it.

Well, by the time we finished, got home, and put the kids to bed, the game actually finished, so I didn't get a chance to watch any of it.  And boy was I wishing I had, as I was able to get the highlights shortly after.  7-0?  Ward with the hat trick?  Over half fenwick close?  Which planet is this report coming from?

Obviously, there was a fair bit of puck luck, on both ends.  Especially obviously, the shutout, but shooting 29% 5-on-5 close?  The power play got another pair (in seven attempts), and the PK stopped everything (obviously), but allowed seven shots in five power plays.

Yeah, that power play is really close to a serious crash and burn.  I wouldn't be surprised if they allow three-four power play goals one night very soon.  They're just allowing way too many shots.

Anyway, the other thing I missed was a full line brawl at 5:31 of the third period (eight seconds after the final goal).  I did see some of the "highlights" of that, including Holtby getting his ass handed to him.  Braden, you want to stop the pucks with your body, not his fists.  Most everyone got thrown out, so benches were a wee bit short for the remainder of the game.

Yet Wilson still got the most minutes he'd yet played, despite being one of the ones thrown out.  Go figure.  I guess the fourth was getting a bit more ice time, with that large lead.

And geeze, I just realized that the Caps scored one goal on FOUR shots in the first.  And their shooting percentage went UP over the remainder of the game.  I'm not sure what's more surprising: the pathetic shot total for the period, or that it wasn't their highest shooting percentage of the game.

Anyway, major kudos to Wardo for his excellent game.  Chimmer also did very well, with a breakaway goal of his own and assists on all three of Wardo's goals.  Grabo also had three assists, to round out the incredible night for that line.  Backstrom had a pair of impressive snipes also.

There ended up being a second line of MarJo, Laich, and Brouwer.  I was worried (having heard the line combinations earlier today) that that line would get killed.  MarJo was slightly negative, but Laich and Brouwer were massively negative (-31% and -23%, respectively), making me wonder if they weren't together all that much.  Nevertheless, that does not look like a promising line, and I hope it ends up as a one game experiment.

But overall, there was a lot to like about the game.  Now if only I could have watched it.  Preferably live.

But it's the first night of a back-to-back, so we won't have to wait long to see if momentum carries over.  Let's hope so; tomorrow's being a home game against Florida certainly improves the odds.  And let's hope OV's healthy (yes, I know, that's a long shot).

Cutting through opposition

(Taken at 0930 this morning, as we were on the way to church.  OV was less than a mile from the practice facility at Kettler.)

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.