GIF by welshhockeyfan

Ten minutes into tonight’s game, I lost all hope of the Capitals winning. It wasn’t the two goals the Caps gave up in the first 4:04 (unlucky goals on broken plays). No, what made me despair was this one terrible pass by Alex Ovechkin that revealed how crummy everyone else was playing. As Ovi curled around the Flyers net, he sent a lackadaisical, no-look backhand pass to …no one. The pass went 185 feet down the ice until Braden Holtby came out of his net to play it. Basically the opposite of how it’s supposed to go.

The Capitals played nearly flawless hockey in Tuesday’s 3-0 shutout of Carolina, but that doesn’t mean that they can come out against the Flyers a night later and play like decapitated poultry. They lacked effort and focus in Philadelphia. As Neil stated earlier, last night’s victory only improved the Caps chances of making the playoffs to 19%. They have a lot of work to do.

In the below video, in which a certain NBC professional blowhard lays into Ovechkin for the zillionth time, please ignore him and focus on the replays.

The Capitals are just too talented and too experienced as a team to have these kinds of games. Let’s hope on Saturday they bring their A game against the Jets, or else the playoff race will leave them in the dust.