Finally, after such a painfully long wait, the Caps are really back to play meaningful hockey. And it sucks. The Caps earned and then thoroughly squandered a lead in Game One against the New York Islanders.
After a goal-less first period, TJ Oshie got a pair of power-play goals in the second — first on a rebound, the second from a net crash. Jordan Eberle got a rush goal against some lazy D and a bad read from Holtby as we entered the third period, where Anders Lee got more of the same to tie the game.
That tie became an Isles lead in the worst way: a shorthanded goal by Josh Bailey. Anthony Beauvillier scored New York’s fourth unanswered goal to put the Isles up two, which is how it ended.
Caps lose. Islanders lead the series 1-0.
- In the first period, Isles forward Anders Lee put a late, blindside hit on Nicklas Backstrom. Backstrom played a bit after that, but he did not return for the second period. Backstrom had already been banged up during the round-robin, and there’s good reason to worry if he’ll be available for Game Two.
- Lee paid for that hit, and he may have to pay again if DOPS pays attention.
- Lee’s bad hit was one in a long list of penalties in this game. The Isles had six in the first period alone, and the topic of our next bullet scored two PPGs in the second period.
- It’s your player of the game, TJ Oshie. He scores on second chances, he crashes the net, he saves goals at his end of the ice. Oshie’s never the guy you worry about elevating his game for the playoffs.
- Meanwhile, Michal Kempny had some iffy marking and backchecking in two back-to-back shifts that erased the Caps’ lead. Those goals are also on Holtby, plus some blame goes to Carlson for failing to interrupt Eberle’s shot, but Kempny to me is the escape goat here.
- John Carlson returned from injury to play in this game. In hindsight maybe not a great idea.
Game 1! #JoeBSuitOfTheNight #CapsIsles pic.twitter.com/vKvI2EKkb6
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) August 12, 2020
Given lots of chances at the power play, the Caps did just fine. But they couldn’t control play during five-on-five, and they looked overpowered when playing without the puck. That’s not an aberration from how their regular season went, and as much as we hoped the pandemic pause would reset things, that’s probably not the case.
Now they might have to deal with Game Two while lacking three centers (Backstrom to injury, Eller to quarantine, Kuznetsov to he-will-play-but-he’s-been-really-bad-for-awhile-now). It’s still early in this series, but it’s never too early to dig deep. We need a lot more from this team.
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