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Get Action: Caps Beat Wild 3-2

By Chris Gordon (@bychrisgordon) on February 26, 2016 | 0 Comment

Wednesday night, we saw our best impression of the 2009 Capitals since Monday: don’t try for 40 minutes, score goals, and see what happens. With Adam Oates in the house, the Caps decided to suck some more, getting outside 9-2 at the midway point of the first period. It got worse. Mikko Koivu scored a power play marker with just 42 seconds left in the feckless frame. In the end, the Wild outshot the Caps 12-3. Shot attempts were 23-8 in Minnesota’s favor.

In the second, BROOKS ORPIK SCORED BECAUSE HE IS INFALLIBLE EVERYDAY.

Later in the period, Nino Niederreiter took a machete to the Caps defense like it was a Top Gear special. Things looked bleak.

Sometime in the third, the Caps decided to try to win, which is something that can be pretty good at. Alex Ovechkin promptly tied the game with his fortieth goal of the season on the you know what from the you know where. He’s the Marco Rubio of goals.

Dmitry Orlov made some Euro softie moves and scored a goal that went in somehow, as if placed in the net by Oates’s divine hand. Caps beat Wild 3-2.

  • The Caps have allowed the first goal in seven straight games and in 14 of their last 17. They have no reason to try anymore so they probably aren’t trying. The first period was awe-inspiring.

  • Earlier this week, Capitals head coach admitted John Carlson came back too early for his lower-body injury. “You can tell it was affecting his play,” he said. “Even when he came back, he didn’t have the same pop.” Well, the pop must have disappeared again. Carlson was a late scratch for Friday’s game with a lower-body injury, though the Capitals would not say if it was related to the one that led to him missing 12 games.

https://twitter.com/chris_gordon/status/703367089038495744

  • Certainly enough odd-man rushes against to prove it.
  • Brooks Orpik has a career-high three goals this season. That’s one more than Brooks Laich. The bigger Brooks has six points in six games. Assisting on Orpik’s tally were Nicklas Backstrom (23 points in his last 24 games) and Ovechkin (points in five straight games and 23 points in his last 20 games).
  • Orpik’s defensive partner Dmitry Orlov, however, was had made a few oops tonight, but he also won the game. The pair was solid all night.
  • Going through the D, Matt Niskanen and Karl Alzner were even better with 60 percent of shot attempts going Washington’s way when they were on the ice on a night the Caps got outplayed.
  • Meanwhile, the Nate Schmidt–Taylor Chorney pairing was statistically the worst thing since Peter’s grilled vegetables for the first two periods. At one point just 10 percent of even strength shots went the Capitals’ way when him at the blueline. It was six percent for Chorney. The final numbers were still brutal.
  • Most those bullets were bad because most things about this game were bad. Alex Ovechkin is not bad. This is the sixth season Ovechkin had been the first player in the league to score 40 goals.

The Caps sucked. It was a boring game — until it wasn’t.

(I originally had an image of a black hole here. It’s now Joe B.)

JoeB222616

Full RMNB Coverage of Caps vs Wild

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