Photo credit: Patrick McDermott
I was pessimistic about the Caps entering the season. Early on, however, they proved me wrong. The team went until late October without a loss in regulation, picking of a bunch of standings points. They were strong on both sides of the puck and all the storylines were positive. It was like everyone was Ian: innocent, happy, naïvely carefree.
A trip out west changed that. The Caps lost two of the three played past your bedtime and we came down to earth. Looking to change things, Barry Trotz decided to go with another forceful lineup that he divined using either his brilliant hockey mind or a hat. Perhaps he knows half of you didn’t watch this game either.
The scoring got stared in the first when Braden Holtby took a twirl and a tumble in the crease. The referees, perhaps unaware the Caps play their home game on melted Slurpee, called the goal back, alleging goalie inference on Luke Glendening. Other than a few reorganized faced, the first was otherwise uneventful, though the Wings registered Pantherian three shots on goal.
In the second, things got more interesting. About nine minutes into the period, Marcus Johansson continued his goal scoring streak by putting the Wings up for real this time. Jojo turned the puck over inside the blueline before Gustav Nyquist stretched Holtby’s groin past its breaking point. Bray Bray, though, got even a little over five minutes later with a delicious bank pass to Joel Ward, who fed the puck to a streaking Evgeny Kuznetsov to tie it up on the power play. With 58 ticks remaining in the period, first-liner Andre Burakovsky used his fancy euroness to blow past the Detroit D before John Carlson used the First Amendment to set Troy Brouwer up for the one timer.
Alas, things got rather dumb in the third period. Brooks Orpik and Burakovsky combined for an awful turnover, allowing Justin Abdelkader to tie it. It was basically the FBI building of brutalism.
The party didn’t stop there. John Carlson joined in on the “hey free pucks!” train and Abdelkader twisted the knife. Another for good measure. Wings beat Caps 4-2.
- Alex Ovechkin has been struggling lately, registering two or fewer shots on goal in his last four games. That’s only the second time in Ovi’s career that’s happened. With that in mind, Trotz broke Ovi and Nicklas Backstrom up, though they’ve historically been much better together, and put the NHL’s elite sniper with rookie Andre Burakovsky. It seems to have worked. Ovi got seven shots on net with 13 total attempts.
- For Andre, however, things weren’t as good. He made Brouwer’s goal with his speed, but turned the puck over right in front of the Capitals net — with some assistance from Brooks Orpik — for the Wings tying goal in the third.
- Speaking of butterfinger turnovers, it was a bad night to be a skilled Swede who can’t really grow facial hair, with Marcus Johansson biting the Caps earlier. Both in the defensive zone, both unforced. And you thought Jason Chimera‘s new nose was ugly.
- Party like it’s 2013! Tom Wilson made his grand return to the fourth line, hitting a bunch of things and yelling at people. He also had four hits, which is cool I guess. Trotz said he originally saw him as a first line winger, so this probably won’t last. Free Eric Fehr please! (And maybe don’t make him a center if it’s not working out.)
- Jay Beagle skated on the third line again.
- The Caps turned the puck over a lot and it was dumb.
Joe Beninati: "I don't like nights off." pic.twitter.com/YoLusZCeGS
— RMNB (@rmnb) October 30, 2014
The Caps had this game won. They outplayed the Wings, but they made silly mistakes for really no reason. Washington had largely avoided that heretofore, so I’m not really worried, though they’ve lost three of the last four. Or if I am, I’m not bothering to write it in the recap because you’re all watching baseball instead.
