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Defensive disaster: Flyers beat Caps 8-2

By Chris Cerullo

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October 14, 2017 9:49 pm

The Capitals went into Philadelphia on the back half of a back-to-back and faced a Flyers team just now hosting their home opener for the 2017-18 season. The extra jump the Flyers got from both of those things were too much for Philipp Grubauer and the Caps.

Sean Couturier put the Flyers on the board early, slamming home his own rebound after an odd man break. Jakub Vrana quickly knotted things back up at one, but that wouldn’t last long, as Grubauer took a risk and Scott Laughton made him pay for it. 2-1 Philadelphia after twenty minutes.

Wayne Simmonds struck on the power play and Claude Giroux deflected another past Grubauer as the lead bulged to three. Nicklas Backstrom scored immediately on a breakaway after the Giroux tally to trim the lead, but Valterri Filppula restored the three goal lead minutes later. 5-2 orange guys.

Laughton would strike again after more sloppy neutral zone play. Couturier would do the same. Giroux would add another.

Flyers beat Caps 8-2.

  • The Caps were heavily out shot, especially in the second period where it took them nearly half of the frame to tally a single shot. The entire defensive effort just looked disorganized and fatigued. Neutral zone and defensive zone both. Lets hope we can blame tired legs and inexperience for most of it.
  • Matt Niskanen, please get well soon. The Caps need him to miss the exact minimum of games or days on LTIR because they looked like an absolute mess without him. The changing defensive pairs are going to need some time to gel and grow, but woof.
  • Alan May and Ian had another one of their classic Twitter bouts. This time over the value of the metric system.

  • Philipp Grubauer was left out to dry like a gajillion times. His numbers are going to suffer hugely, but our opinions of his ability should not.
  • Claude Giroux apparently does not play center anymore. He can no longer brag about his face-off percentage to opposition centers. Steve Ott breathes a sigh of relief.
  • Tarik El-Bashir has been roving around various hockey landscapes looking for true, authentic Capitals fans. When does he get to hang with the RMNB crew during a game and take in the frantic recap and highlight post process?

Joe B suit of the night

See you right back here on Tuesday for Auston Matthews and the Leafs. Can anyone else not read “Auston Matthews” without hearing Steve Dangle sing-song it in your head?

Photo: Len Redkoles

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