The Washington Capitals played the second half of their home-and-home with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Unlike the game in DC, this one sucked.
Tampa scored four goals in the first period. Mikhail Sergachev got a screen and deflection to make it 1-0. Nikita Kucherov’s one-timer made it 2-0. Nick Perbix got a lucky bounce of Carlson and Gustafsson to make it 3-0. Mikhail Sergachev’s again-screened point shot made it 4-0. At this point in the game, the Caps had zero shots on goal.
The lone goal of the second period came from Conor Sheary after a keen pass from Evgeny Kuznetsov. Cole Koepke made it 5-1 with his first NHL goal (one the refs missed). Lars Eller got one late, when we thought it was over, but then principled conservative Rand Paul got an empty netter, then Garnet Hathaway won a stick battle in the slot to make it 6-3.
Caps lose.
Reverse Bailamos. You know what that means. Bailamos in reverse.
- The shots. With two minutes and 50 seconds remaining in the first period, Alex Ovechkin made Andrei Vasilevskiy work for the first time in the game. Washington was a total mess for most of the first period, giving up chances and generating literally none of their own.
- In the end, Darcy Kuemper got lit up, allowing four goals on ten shots. That’s a very bad performance, though it’s hard to paint him as the reason for Washington’s failure so much as the victim of it. Charlie Lindgren took over after the fourth goal.
- Somehow the Caps played even worse in the second period, though they allowed four less goals and generated their first (and only) even-strength high-danger chance of the game.
- Alex Ovechkin high-sticked Steven Stamkos in that period, drawing blood and giving Tampa a four-minute power play. I feel like I need to call out that the PK was great there.
- Another positive: Conor Sheary continues to be a breakout player while the Caps are missing so many forwards. With six goals, he trails only Ovechkin.
- I’m not going a bullet about the boy’s ice time. I’m not trying to pad the bullets with the same old bit. You can look it up yourself.
- Defender Matt Irwin fought Pat Maroon in the first period and Pierre-Eduoard Bellemare in the second period. I think that’s all fallout from the Friday game, when Nicolas Aube-Kubel injured Cal Foote.
- Washington’s power play is back on a cold streak. They’ve not converted their last 16 opportunities, dating back to last Monday.
- Marcus Johansson was on the ice for one Caps shot attempt and 16 Lightning shot attempts before he set up Lars Eller for that late goal. A happy ending to a story about cholera.
- We had a spirited discussion in Discord about preparing mashed potatoes. Sour cream, cream cheese, temperature management, russets versus yukons, so on and so forth. This discussion was more engaging than the hockey game. I’d love to hear your 🥔 advice in the comments. I’ll tell you up front that I’m using a ricer. Non-negotiable.
jeff halpern suit of the night pic.twitter.com/8dVQpq5dFv
— Peter Hassett (@peterhassett) November 14, 2022
Shots represent about half of all the offense that teams attempt, so when we make a big deal about a team going 17 minutes without a shot on goal, we’ll being at least a little cheeky. In one sense the game wasn’t nearly that bad. In another sense, the realer sense, the game was far worse (that is, 4-0 on the scoreboard).
So anyway you look at it, this was a very poor effort from the team, kinda demolishing whatever positivity their win on Friday might have generated.
Panthers on Tuesday. They might have the strongest combined top six in the league. Let’s see some better hockey.
Headline photo: @real_jon_c
