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Opportunity squandered: Islanders beat Caps 4-1

By Peter Hassett

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April 26, 2022 9:36 pm

The Washington Capitals hosted the New York Islanders for their last home game of the season on Tuesday night. Without Alex Ovechkin in the lineup, the Caps seemed to be missing all their pizazz, which is a fun word to say and spell, unlike this hockey game, which sucked to watch and recap.

Conor Sheary kicked us off by deflecting Marcus Johansson’s shot for his 19th goal of the season. Ryan Pulock returned fire with a monster power-play goal. After a scoreless second period, Noah Dobson banked a go-ahead goal off Trevor van Riemsdyk’s leg. Then Dmitry Orlov and Ilya Samsonov miscommunicated behind the net and allowed a shorthanded goal from Casey Cizikas. Anders Lee had a lovely release to make it 4-1.

Caps lose.

  • Another night, another disallowed goal. This time it was Kyle Palmieri, whose gorgeous sequence was rendered undone due to Zach Parise’s goalie interference. That means, by the laws of spacetime, that Nick Jensen getting totally worked before the goal never technically happened.
  • TJ Oshie blocked a shot in the second period, an 81 miles-per-hour slapper off his toe. Oshie played through his shift, left the ice to thunderous applause, and then got checked out by the athletic trainer in the locker room. He returned to play that same period. We really don’t want to be seeing bumps and bruises like that so late in the season, especially to skill players prone to injury.
  • Alex Ovechkin missed the game due to the upper-body injury he suffered against the Leafs, but he was still in attendance for a pregame ceremony.
  • We got a namedrop.

  • With Ovechkin out, one player who stepped up was Conor Sheary. The little man played big minutes with the Kuznetsov line. Meanwhile, Ovechkin’s nominal replacement with Backstrom was Connor McMichael, and that combo did not exactly excel as McMichael played for the first time in more than two weeks.
  • I’ve been really interested in how the fourth line’s been doing. They were so good in their assignment against Toronto’s top line last game. Tonight they had Barzal duty, and they got roasted on a spit.
  • I looked it up. The first use of pizazz was supposedly in Harper’s Bazaar in the 1930s, describing what some scotch can do to a cocktail. RMNB can be educational.

  • Anyway, I was over Ilya Samsonov back in May of last year, so I don’t have anything to say about his puck-tracking, stick-holding, or decisions behind the goal line that you shouldn’t dismiss out of hand based on the source’s bias. But yikes, this guy is unplayable, and the club has wasted a lot of time convincing themselves otherwise.

Really underwhelming performance against a weak opponent, blowing a chance to pass the Penguins. The Oilers really worked them tonight on the out-of-town scoreboard brought to you by Weyland Yutani.

The Capitals will again play the Islanders on Thursday, but it’ll be on the road. Then it’s the season finale at MSG. Then the real game begins. Looks like the Hurricanes and Rangers will go one-two in the Metropolitan Division. The Caps and Penguins will duel out third place until this weekend.

Now let’s all see how Dallas-Vegas shakes out.

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