Trouble: numbers for the morning after

August 13, 2020 6:56 am

The Washington Capitals opened their first-round series with the New York Islanders and promptly dropped a complete stinker of a game. The Caps took a two-goal lead and then allowed the Isles to score four unanswered to take Game One by a score of 4-2.

The Islanders outshot the Caps 27 to 26 and out-attempted them at five-on-five 37 to 26.

The numbers for the morning after are back and although I’m sure that’s just the best news you’ve ever received, I’m about to ruin that with talk about the Capitals effort last night. It was horrendous to put it lightly. By the time the Isles had put their fourth goal away the scoring chances at five-on-five were a lopsided 21 to 7 in favor of New York. In the words of Ray LaMontagne, “Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble…Worry, worry, worry, worry”.
If this is at all way too familiar for you, let me bring you through quotes of mine from some of the last numbers for the morning after posts in the pre-pandemic Caps world:
March 5, 2020 vs PHI – “The Washington Capitals have many problems this season and one of them is the Philadelphia Flyers continuing to toss them around like toddlers.”

March 6, 2020 at NYR – “There is something seriously, structurally wrong with your Washington Capitals and seemingly every team in the league other than the Caps know it.”

March 10, 2020 at BUF – “The Caps decided to wait until the third period to actually start playing in this game and that’s really just unacceptable. The Sabres are terrible and dropping any points to them at this time of the season in the Metro Division is ridiculous. Things are still very bad, y’all.”
I was obviously less than enthused with how the Caps were playing heading into the spring months. I thought maybe the break would do them good, but I don’t think it has done much else other than highlight that there are indeed some huge structural holes within this team that no length of time can fix. I am entirely uninspired by the style of play and also not confident that this current coaching staff has what it takes to change that.
If you remember back to the Cup run, I was heavily critical of Barry Trotz and co. during the Columbus series, so things can change on a dime, but I personally don’t see the signs with this current team being able to match that turnaround. This isn’t a few bad luck bounces in overtime, it’s a horrible sixty-minute effort that has been going on since like December.

T.J. Oshie gives the Caps a 2-0 lead with his second power play goal of the game. He's now passed Dino Ciccarelli for the for the sixth most playoff goals in franchise history.

— CapitalsPR (@CapitalsPR) August 12, 2020

Moving on to some individual performances. Braden Holtby was carrying this team through the latter weeks of the pre-pandemic regular season. He was god awful in this game and if that continues, with no Ilya Samsonov to back him up, I don’t foresee the Caps being around too much longer. He is certainly not being helped by the team defense in front of him, but also was entirely soft on at least three of the four Islanders goals.
Michal Kempny. Lord have mercy. With Kempny on the ice at five-on-five, the Caps were out-attempted 23 to 6, out-scoring chanced 13 to 1, and out-high danger chanced 6 to 1. The Isles also scored three times with his pairing on the ice. To just hammer the whole point home in a succinct manner, Martin Fehervary needs to be in the lineup for Game Two and the pairings need to be reformatted.
I’ve been publicly expressing my discontent with Evgeny Kuznetsov since October. He is just an absolute mess defensively and his offensive output is no longer able to cover up for those deficiencies. I personally believe the Caps need to make a drastic decision with him this offseason…take that as you may. With Nicklas Backstrom‘s health now in limbo, Kuzy is likely going to be back with Alex Ovechkin if Backy cannot go. That pairing has been dreadful for two full seasons now. I am not hopeful.
If you had to guess which two Caps skaters played the least at five-on-five (other than the injured Backstrom), I don’t think your first guesses would be Jakub Vrana (7:01) and Tom Wilson (7:43). Willy needs to stay out of the box and your guess is as good as mine with Vrana. I’m not aware of any injury news so that seems like a coaching decision and an extremely poor one.
So, welcome back. That wasn’t a fun game and the Caps haven’t been a fun team this season. I would love a miraculous Uno reverse card on how they’ve been playing at even strength, but I’m not expecting one. Call it doom and gloom and an overreaction over one game if you wish, but this is a negative trend not a small blip.