Photo: Patrick McDermott
Like I said in the pregame, it seems like everyone is a little low lately. We really coulda used a soaring, 60-minute game from the Washington Capitals to defeat the traveling Vancouver Canucks. Instead we got a sleepy start and a putrid penalty kill. A couple from John Carlson and a beauty from Brooks Laich just weren’t enough.
The Canucks fourth line won a faceoff in the Caps zone against the fourth line, allowing Bo Horvatt to set up Derek Dorsett for a goal. That’s all we had to speak of in a generally dreary first period.
John Carlson tied the game up in the second, scoring a snazzy wrister via Nick Backstrom with Tom Wilson running interference in front of goalie Ryan Miller. Daniel Sedin restored the Canucks’ lead on a power play, grabbing a pass by from Henrik, who I think is the cuter one. Radim Vrbata put the Caps in a two-goal hole while Jay Beagle was in the box, but John Carlson made it a one-goal game with a brilliant slapper betwixt Ryan Miller’s nethers.
Brooks Laich tied it up with a gorgeous goal during a third-period four-on-four session, but Daniel Sedin got his power-play goal on the rush to restore the Canucks lead with ten minutes left. The search for a tying goal was thrilling but futile.
Canucks beat Caps 4-3.
- The Capitals are seemingly making adjustments– both in lineups and assignments– but the offense still isn’t there. The Caps put very little on Ryan Miller’s cage in the first period, when I think we all could have used a pick-me-up.
- For most of the night, the pick-me-ups (picks-me-up?) came exclusively from John Carlson. Two goals from the kid. Stellar work.
- Andre Burakovsky began the game on the fourth line with Jason Chimera and Jay Beagle, but he didn’t stay long. Burakovsky got just 04:31 on nine shifts through the second period and two more in the third. He was getting trounced in puck possession if you’re a nerd who cares about that kind of stuff.
- I’m not complaining, but I didn’t see Derek Dorsett‘s embellishment in that third period penalty. I am complaining about that soft interference call on Ovi with seven minutes left in rego.
- MRW when Brooks Laich scored a slick goal, his first since March, to tie the game in the third.
- The penalty kill has been atrocious of late. I’m not sure if it’s a shot thing or a percentage thing, but here’s this: Brooks Orpik was on the ice for all three Canucks power-play goals.
- Out of town bullet: The No-Jagr sign does not mean it’s okay for a late and dirty hit on ol’ double J, who is a legend, just one that we hate. “Hate” does not mean “wish injury upon,” at least not in this context.
- The Eric Fehr line (sans Chimera) was superb, and Fehr was the guy-behind-the-guy on the Laich goal. I know I’m prejudiced, but I didn’t want a good Fehr game to go unnoticed.
- Great effort late in the game by Joel Ward to fight in the paint for a tying goal. That whistle came early, no? Maybe that kind of hunger would have helped in the 59 prior minutes.
Joe B suit of the night
Sigh. Am I all alone in thinking that Caps fans are kind of at a low right now? The team is still way better than the Oates!Caps, but this ain’t exactly working either. All the great stuff the Caps were doing in October is gone now, and all the inefficiencies in the lineup are costing goals on a nightly basis.
We’re one month out from the Winter Classic, but the community seems melancholic. I don’t blame ’em; at some point wins are needed to justify enthusiasm. The Capitals have let you down.
So what happens next? Something, please.
