The Washington Capitals. Woof. Pals, they got beat. They got beat something fierce, unto the edge of buckwilderness, by the New York Islanders. It was awful.
John Carlson scored one minute and one second into the cursed game. Jordan Eberle tied the game on a big rush goal that embarrassed Brenden Dillon and then Mathew Barzal took the lead on an even bigger rush goal that embarrassed Brenden Dillon even more.
Listen. There were three more goals in the first period. I’m not writing War and Peace here; just look at the stat sheet. One was Sprong’s.
Casey Cizikas scored against some bad Caps defense, and TJ Oshie scored a power-play goal deflecting in Ovi’s shot, and then Jordan Eberle scored against some bad Caps defense, and then John Carlson scored late in the second period to earn you nuggets or something.
Josh Bailey scored early in the third period, which meant we had no hope of watching a comeback, so it was just tedium from there until Barzal locked up his hat trick.
Caps lose by quite a lot.
Worst game of the year? Here’s some weird Bailamos.
- TJ Oshie ran into Ilya Samsonov in the game’s first minute, seemingly knocking the goalie out and forcing Vitek Vanecek, who had not warmed up, to fill in until Samsonov was cleared to return. No idea what the miscommunication was between Oshie and Samsonov, but it’s not what you want to see for a goalie with a head/neck injury history.
- Perhaps he should not have returned. He allowed five on 24 shots. Vanecek allowed two on nine shots.
- Man, this game was trash. It was scary, and then it was kinda fun, and then it was just miserable. Bench vibes:
no excess of PMA on the Caps bench tonight pic.twitter.com/VZKSiQJCQV
— Good Tweet Pete (@peterhassett) April 2, 2021
- John Carlson got his first multi-goal game of the season, coming in the final minute of a period, which means something about McDonalds. I dunno.
- Watch how many Caps Mathew Barzal beat on this 190-foot goal. Barzal had a five-point night.
- Defender Brenden Dillon was on the ice for five of the Isles’ eight goals. He was principally at fault for at least two of them.
#JoeBSuitOfTheNight #CapsIsles Purple just ahead of easter @JoeBpXp pic.twitter.com/WHdF9SEtDP
— Ian Oland (@ianoland) April 1, 2021
This was my thought late in the first, once we knew Samsonov wasn’t seriously hurt:
It was a fun car wreck for maybe 10 minutes, but it quickly became punishment. The Caps got beat on a super-long rush attack, they got beat when they failed to clear their own zone, they got beat when they lost their assignments. They just got thoroughly beat.
I hoped maybe I could enjoy the beatdown in some perverse way, like when Jared Leto got beat up in Fight Club. But in reality I did not enjoy it all, like when Jared Leto is any other movie.
Anyway, have fun in the comments. I’m gonna go read my book about lesbian space necromancers and forget this game ever happened.
RMNB Coverage of Caps at Islanders
Screenshot courtesy of NBC Sports Washington
