Photo: Patrick Smith
Disaster game. The Capitals had just one win going into Saturday’s thing with Colorado, a shootout win over a reliable bottom-5 team. Despite that and the team’s myriad weaknesses, we had good feelings going into this one.
Nope.
John Carlson started the game off with an own-goal, tipping in a centering pass from Alex Tanguay past Michal Neuvirth. Matt Duchene made it 2-0 for the Avs a few minutes later, roofing the puck after a duel with Karl Alzner.
Human baby Nate McKinnon scored his first NHL goal while the Caps were being penalized for being too manly.
Tanguay got a shorty early in the third period as the game descended into burn-the-tape territory, but soon after that Eric Fehr finally beat Varlamov with a quick shot set up by Jason Chimera. The glimmer of hope lasted all of 20 seconds before Jamie McGinn made it 5-1 for Colorado. That’s how it ended.
Avs beat Caps 5-1.
Joe B suit of the night: fratty
This is the part of the recap where I sum up where the team is at right now, but I’m at a loss.
Adam Oates’ lines and deployment decisions continue to baffle me, and although he made some temporary changes late in this game I’m still mystified. The fourth line is an utter waste: Tom Wilson is not developing with 6 minutes of ice a night, and whatever decisions are driving the Martin Erat thing must use some kind of lovecraftian logic not comprehensible by mere mortals. The defense is young and getting younger without showing any demonstrable signs of improvement under Calle Johansson’s tutelage.
Alex Ovechkin still rules.
But the team is bleeding standings points while they… well, I’m not exactly sure what they’re doing. Are the working out the kinks? Is the problem in individual performance? Seems to me more like the players are mostly doing well individually, but an overwhelmed defense and some dubious roster choices are smothering the Caps offense in the womb.
Panic? No. Don’t panic– ever– but maybe for a night some despair would be fitting. Here, I’ll help:
Oilers on Monday. They suck, so maybe the Caps can win that one. Then again, that’s what I said about this game.
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