Fans glower as Brouwer’s firepower devours Caps in dour hour

April 1, 2019 9:39 pm

The Washington Capitals farted up the joint against the Florida Panthers on Monday night for 50 minutes, but a desperate push in the last 10 made a doomed effort somewhat worth watching.

Somewhat.

Frank Vatrano was giftwrapped a gimme goal by a bunch of Caps who were careless with the puck in front of Copley’s net and then Jonathan Huberdeau was giftwrapped a gimme goal by a bunch of Caps careless with the puck in front of Copley’s net. Then the Caps got a power play but jk Vincent Trocheck got a shorthanded goal. Troy Brouwer scored next, and it was actually a really nice goal and a nifty passing sequence, so don’t be a smartass about it.

In defiance of good sense, the Caps opted to play a third period, which surprisingly worked out okay as Evgeny Kuznetsov got a goal with nine minutes left. Nicky Backstrom scored his 22nd goal of the season late with a rush goal set up by TJ Oshie’s great stick work. Jakub Vrana made it a one-goal game even later with a low-angle one-timer. There were fireworks for a moment, but Trocheck secured the W with an empty-netter.

Caps lose 5-3.

The Washington Capitals have been the best team in the NHL since the trade deadline. They won more games in March despite having the toughest schedule in the league. They’ve been good for a really long time, so maybe it’s a little okay that they were irradiated toilet trash for most of Monday.
But still, let’s talk about it. Here’s Natural Stat Trick’s heatmap. The G‘s are where the Panthers scored from.

That’s horrible, and the video is even worse. Sloppy turnovers in danger close just totally sunk the effort. The Caps — particularly the execrable Ovechkin-Backstrom-Wilson line — were hockey murder in their own zone, unable to organize a competent breakout against an only mildly aggressive Florida forecheck. Despite getting more shot attempts overall, the Ovi line got tripled up 3 to 1 in the paint. Hockey murder. Todd Reirden rightly split the trio up late in the game.
I’m not sure how to describe the lack of intensity of this game using words, but I have this photo of Robert Smith of the Cure, so it’s fine.

I also dramatically improved Micah from HockeyViz’s shot tide chart so that it also shows how the game – at least the first 84 percent of it – felt.

here's the @HockeyViz shot tide chart for the game so far except with pictures of nicolas cage's head from vampire's kiss instead of the caps doing anything interesting pic.twitter.com/ynQcUXYoEw

— RMNB (@russianmachine) April 2, 2019

But that final ten minutes were genuinely thrilling. The Caps put together coherent attacks, and the Panthers’ defense looked increasingly unable to fend it off.
Then again, some brutal fallout from Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s third period goal:

Bad news everyone: John Carlson no longer has 69 points 🙁 #ALLCAPS

— Dave (@baltimoredavey) April 2, 2019

Pheonix Copley got his first start in almost two weeks, which felt less to me like getting him some reps and more like giving Braden Holtby some rest before the big show starts. Copley got blown up, but I don’t blame him one bit.