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A whole bunch of things went wrong and the Capitals cant score anymore: Sharks beat Capitals 4-1

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Two teams in need of standings points did battle Wednesday night as the Washington Capitals hosted the San Jose Sharks. Who would win the battle of teams that Joel Ward once played for?

Noah Gregor potted a fantastic feed from Brent Burns to give the Sharks an early lead. Nicolas Meloche scored his first career goal in the NHL to double that lead. Daniel Sprong kicked the third off with a wicked wrister to snap the shutout streak. Jonathan Dahlen squeaked one through to double the lead again. Andrew Cogliano empty netter.

Sharks beat Capitals 4-1.

  • What an absolutely horrendous start to this game. The Capitals looked like an AHL team every time they tried to turn the puck up the ice and were caught asleep in the defensive zone numerous times. Hope passes aplenty and trying to individually deke through the entire opposition. Just ugly, ugly, ugly hockey. The Caps were out-scoring chanced 8 to 1 and out-high danger chanced 5 to 0 before the game was eight minutes old. The defensive zone stuff didn’t really go away but man, the back half of the first was unlucky to see two or three goals for the home team. More of that, less of the first bit, please.
  • I’ve done a couple of posts about guys the Caps should consider acquiring if they deem themselves “buyers” at the deadline. Three of those dudes were in this game for the Sharks. James Reimer, Timo Meier, and Tomas Hertl.
  • I’m going to use this bullet to talk about the Washington Wizards for a second because good lord that loss to the Clippers was the worst loss I have ever witnessed in basketball history and I watched the Michael Ruffin game live on TV. For context, they were up 35 points at one point and blew the game entirely to a team that scored 36 total points in the first half. They need to trade about 75-percent of that roster…including Brad Beal.

  • I guess the second period was better but it just featured more facepalms caused by the power play. Reimer made a handful of ten-bell stops and the Caps also just flubbed like five grade-A chances. Playing like full fourth-quarter Beal.
  • I will love Michal Kempny forever for what he contributed to the Stanley Cup in 2018. The most clutch trade addition that season and maybe in Caps history. He cannot be out there at the NHL level right now. It’s bad. Very bad.
  • The ice at Capital One Arena actively hurts the Capitals. They had a 4-on-2 rush entirely disrupted by it playing like one of those rubber mulch playgrounds. The Sharks immediately went the other way and scored the second goal of the game. Genuinely don’t think you’ll find a worse surface in the NHL.
  • I guess the penalty kill looked great again?

  • Ilya Samsonov made two absolutely ludicrous stops in the third period to keep the Caps in the game. Unreal. Then he let the game sealer squeak through to put the Sharks up two. Sammy summed up right there.
  • It’s always good to see Daniel Sprong respond to his healthy scratches with goals. I just wish he played like he did in this game every game and he’d probably never be scratched in the first place.
  • Six games in January already with two or fewer goals. That’s just not good enough, especially when you aren’t exactly getting the goaltending to make up for that. The coach is not helping by playing that fourth line extremely late in games when his team is down a goal. Laviolette is directly contributing to some recent losses with that nonsense IMO. I mean what in the world is Carl Hagelin doing right before Dahlen’s goal? Lord.
  • Fights after the game is over is how you score more goals by the way.

The Caps will head out to The Lone Star State next for their only visit to Dallas this season. Will they see their good pal Braden Holtby in net?

Screenshot via NBC Sports Washington

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