The Washington Capitals returned from a three-day break just in time to drop a should-of-won game to the Seattle Kraken.
Tye Kartye (great name) scored first, and Darcy Kuemper never saw it coming. Alex Wennberg made it 2-0 after one period by turning Ethan Bear into croquet wickets.
Then Max Pacioretty scored his first goal in a year after a brain-genius pass from Strome and Ovechkin. But the Kraken restored their two-goal lead before the period was up, with Justin Schultz getting a lucky bounce off Strome’s stick.
In the third, Adam Larsson put a quick backhand behind Kuemper to make it 4-1, our final score.
Caps lose.
- This game was way too wide open. I can’t imagine Spencer Carbery is happy about how the Capitals defended in this one, but I’m also not happy with how Spencer Carbery has his players defend their blue line, so it’s not all on the skaters. It feels like to me, a guy who has never played the game but has read three very thin books about hockey plays and strategies, like the team sometimes doesn’t contest the zone entry as hard so they can better defend the slot. I think I get the idea (or do I?), but it’s not working.
- Goalie. Darcy Kuemper had another bad night. I think he’s had one good night since Christmas? Thinking about goalies is hard, and you shouldn’t do it. He had good excuses for three goals (screen, screen, unlucky bounce) but in aggregate we can’t pretend like it’s going well.
- On January 10, 2023, Max Pacioretty scored on Vitek Vanecek. Then a whole year happened. He had achilles problems, Twitter got bad, Barbenheimer was released, Fall Out Boy covered “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” everyone got laid off. Now Max is back, scoring goals, and wow, this one was pretty. Strome’s touch on this – I don’t know if that makes the goal easier to score, but it sure makes the goal prettier to my smooth brain.
Max Pacioretty nets his first of the season, playing in just his fourth game since returning from an Achilles injury ☝️ pic.twitter.com/Zr0sr8UkAv
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 12, 2024
- TJ Oshie played in his first game since December 16, and he was great. He hardly fell down at all. I think he’s the perfect linemate for Evgeny Kuznetsov for reasons both analytical and ontological. And maybe orthodontic. No, deontological. Orthodoxical. Occipital. Dewey Decimal. Deinonychus-al. Well, they play good together; that’s what I mean. And If there’s a path forward for 92, it’s a path that he’s skipping down while holding hands with 77.
- It’s rare I get to shout out Nick Jensen, so shout out to Nick Jensen for drawing the first penalty of the game by going hard to the net and getting tripped. He didn’t give Will Borgen enough time to look up Jensen’s career shooting percentage (2.9) on Hockey Reference and then make the risk analysis to let him shoot.
- Whatever happens in your own net, you’re not going to win a lot of hockey if you can’t score more than one goal. The Capitals barely beat the Hawks and Sharks in goals per hour; their offense is a much, much, much bigger problem than their goaltending.
Some earthy tones #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/lsfbOp7otV
— RMNB (@rmnb) January 12, 2024
Crummy game, and I’m starting to think it’s not all roster problems anymore. Yeesh.
The Caps have back-to-back matinee games against the Rangers this weekend. I hope these old guys are all awake and spry. These are some huge intradivision points coming up.
Headline photo: Kurly from Crashers
