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Fourth-line heat: Caps beat Kings 4-3

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The Washington Capitals hosted the road-experts Los Angeles Kings for a Sunday matinee. Against one of the best possession teams in the league, the Caps did better than you’d think. Well, actually – how exactly did you think they’d do?

Nic Dowd scored first, a backhander assisted by Aube-Kubel. Adrian Kempe got LA on the board by banking the puck off Fehervary and then the post. Kevin Fiala scored on a rebound that wasn’t Darcy Kuemper’s best, but Dylan Strome tied it again after a passing sequence with Pacioretty and Ovechkin.

Fiala scored again early in the third, on the power play. Aube-Kubel loosed a sneaky wristshot to tie it with 11 minutes left in regulation. Late in the game, John Carlson weaved through a bunch of skaters to give the Caps the win.

Caps win!

  • The Caps are the 29th best team going by how many of the five-on-five shot-attempts they control, and the Kings are the second best, so my expectations for this were low, but the Caps exceeded them. The Caps were almost even in the first, got outplayed in the second but got some quality despite it, and pushed in the third once down a goal.
  • Evgeny Kuznetsov started the game as Alex Ovechkin’s center (Spencer’s bad habit) , but he finished the second period stapled to the bench for the seven minutes following Kevin Fiala’s first goal, and barely touched the ice in the third. Another poor effort from 92, and it had already felt like he was on his last chance from Carbery to make good. I love this player, but I’ve long been out of hope that he’ll turn it around.
  • Meanwhile, Alex Ovechkin reunited with Dylan Strome and united-for-the-first-time with Max Pacioretty, and they pretty much immediately made a goal together. That point was the first of Pacioretty as a Capital. It was a great play.

Boarding – A boarding penalty shall be imposed on any player who checks or pushes a defenseless opponent in such a manner that causes the opponent to hit or impact the boards violently or dangerously. The severity of the penalty, based upon the impact with the boards, shall be at the discretion of the Referee. There is an enormous amount of judgment involved in the application of this rule by the Referees. The onus is on the player applying the check to ensure his opponent is not in a defenseless position and if so, he must avoid or minimize contact. However, in determining whether such contact could have been avoided, the circumstances of the check, including whether the opponent put himself in a vulnerable position immediately prior to or simultaneously with the check or whether the check was unavoidable can be considered. This balance must be considered by the Referees when applying this rule. Any unnecessary contact with a player playing the puck on an obvious “icing” or “off-side” play which results in that player hitting or impacting the boards is “boarding” and must be penalized as such. In other instances where there is no contact with the boards, it should be treated as “charging.”
  • In the third, Laferriere sent Trevor van Riemsdyk to the ice and Tom Wilson to the locker room – on a single hit. I checked and he’s 6′,1″; 205 pounds, so basically me if I were in shape. I could be a destroyer too. BRB gonna do some crunches.
  • I didn’t actually do any crunches. The cat is napping on me. That’s my excuse.
  • Spencer Carbery plays the fourth line way too much, but as long as they’re shooting like 14 percent he should let it rip.
  • Very busy night for Darcy Kuemper, whose only real goof was the rebound on the first Fiala goal. Solid outing.
  • The Caps’ penalty kill picked a bad time to struggle. They’ve allowed eight goals in the seven games since Christmas. They had allowed one goal total in the seven games before that.

The Caps now get a three-day break. It’s their first since the Christmas holiday and their last until the All-Star Break. That is a lot of time, and all of it will be needed for these players to recover and their tactics to get tuned. Then again, next game is against the Kraken. Might as well throw Ovi-Kuzy out there again and hope the fourth line will save the day.

Headline photo: kurly from Crashers

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