Photo: Kathy Kmonicek
At first, the Caps weren’t prepared to compete against the New York Islanders. Head coach Barry Trotz left two good players without sweaters. Instead, he put weak link Jason Chimera on the top line. The Isles outcompeted the Caps in the first period with their superior compete level, which was levels above the compete level of the Caps, but then the Caps leveled up their compete level in the third to tie the game in dramatic fashion and force overtime.
Anders Lee scored for the Islanders in the first period off a ridiculous deflection. New York made it 2-0 in the second period when Lubomir Visnovsky banked a shot off Brooks Orpik and behind Holtby. In the third, Calvin DeHaan scored shorthanded after Evgeny Kuznetsov choked the puck up in front of the Caps net.
Very marginal player Eric Fehr crashed the net to beat Jaroslav Halak and set himself decidedly on fire. On the rush, Ovechkin set up Backstrom for a gorgeous goal. Ovi got one of his own with a lightning bolt of a goal off a late-game face-off. The Caps withstood a late-game double-minor penalty by Kuznetsov long enough to earn a point and force overtime, but Johnny Boychuk won it during 4v3.
Isles beat Caps 4-3 (Overtime).
- The Washington Capitals’ compete level was too damn low in that first period. For over twelve minutes, they attempted not a single compete level on Jaroslav Halak‘s net. That’s a drearily low level of compete.
- The compete level improved in the second and third periods, but Barry Trotz’s lineup wasn’t optimized for compete level– with Jason Chimera, who has an abundance of grit but is sadly lacking in compete level, on the top line with Alex Ovechkin, who has the highest compete level among the forwards.
- Healthy scratches today were the notoriously competey levely Andre Burakovsky and Nate Schmidt. Combine their absence with the compete level-unfriendly forward lines and then put them against the sky-high compete level of the New York Islanders (at least in periods 1 and 2), and this is what you get.
- That said, the Caps’ clogged-up compete level in the first forty minutes wasn’t solely at fault. The Islanders’ first two goals were bad bounces. Caps killer Anders Lee dug deep to deflect a dainty dump and then Brooks Orpik, for all his grit and sandpaper and sandpapery grit, became the bank on Visnovsky’s lucky shot. Neither of those were as bad as…
- Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s defensive-zone turnover before De Haan’s shorty and his double-minor high-sticking in the final minute. The antithesis of compete, those mistakes might earn Kuzya a seat in the press box at Nats Park.
- ….Unless Barry Trotz chooses to scratch Tom Wilson and Alex Ovechkin, whose compete levels were so out of whack they grabbed other players’ sticks and had to serve penalties. Ovi’s was hilarious; I didn’t even mind neutralizing the power play.
- Whatever anyone might think of Brooks Orpik‘s compete level, no one wanted to see what befell him in the third period. Orpik collided with Cal Clutterbuck and the boards, injuring his knee and earning a penalty (a roughing, oddly enough) in the process. Just so I don’t have to start a sentence with “I’m not a doctor, but…”, let’s just say it looked really, really bad.
- The thing about compete level is that it’s volatile. The Islanders’ level of complete went off a competition cliff in the third period as the Caps scored three unanswered goals. If only Halak could have done that in 2010. Great comeback/collapse/compete level chaos.
- On the power play, the Caps’ hardtoplayagainstosity faltered. They went oh-fer on infinity power-play opportunities and allowed a shorthanded goal, which sounds like something that an easy-to-play-against team would do.
- By the way, hockeystats.ca was down tonight.
Joe B suit of the night
At the dawn of the third period, I had thought this one was securely in the hands of the Islanders. It’s good to know that, in response, the Caps’ best competitors could compete at a high level.
Those champions of compete level, just for your reference: Alex Ovechkin, Nick Backstrom, and Eric Fehr.
Or, put another way:
Ovechkin — Backstrom — Fehr
For now, we need to shake this off. What matters is that the Caps got a standings point and stood tall after a miserable first forty. We now need to turn our concerns to Brooks Orpik’s health. Meanwhile, Trotz’s experiments with weird lines and weird lineup choices should come to an end presently. On Thursday the Caps will play the best team in the league and my pick to win the Stanley Cup, the Chicago Blackhawks.
Gonna need a whole lot more compete level out of ’em.
