The Washington Capitals had a lackluster effort in Missouri on Saturday night. You couldn’t tell but I had to look up what state St Louis is in just now.
So, Colton Parayko started us off with a shorthanded goal. Tom Wilson’s archenemy Brayden Schenn scored on a delayed penalty, putting the Caps in a two-goal hole after two periods. Rob Thomas got a late power-play goal; the Caps got no goals at all.
Caps lose.
- This is the fifth time the Caps have been shut out this season. Only the San Jose Sharks have been blanked more (7).
- Spencer Carbery clearly likes how the Strome and McMichael lines are working lately, and wisely knowing Ovechkin-Kuznetsov wouldn’t even be good in the AHL, he knew he had try something different. But what he went with was this:
- Nic Dowd, who has spent nine years refining his grinding skills, played pivot to Alex Ovechkin. Evgeny Kuznetsov was all the way down on the fourth line, which is still one line higher than his play merits. I didn’t like it, but like I said the other day – it’d be really tough for the coach to break up a successful line, even if it’s the right move.
- Carbery soured on those lines after about 45 minutes, trying Connor McMichael with Ovechkin instead. With the Blues clogging up neutral so miserably, it didn’t make much difference.
- Sound off on this frankenjersey. Everyone in the Discord is trying to figure out who the 12’s are. It’s not Walker, it’s not Oates, it’s not Oshie. I think maybe this guy really likes the number 12?
can we get a hell yeah on this uniform pic.twitter.com/piEY1lbEo4
— RMNB (@rmnb) January 21, 2024
- I love John Carlson more than (I think) my comrades in the comments, but when he loses the zone during a power play I get bothered. When he’s indifferent to the backcheck that leads to Schenn’s shorty, I get downright cranky.
- I’m still trying to understand exactly what Martin Fehervary did wrong here. Salty language? Does McCauley speak Slovakian?
#ALLCAPS Wes McCauley needs to RETIRE pic.twitter.com/YVZxMQnpLC
— x – Capitals Replays 🍁 (@capsreplays) January 21, 2024
- Aside from Oshie’s explosion, the Capitals’s power play had not converted in the prior five games. They had a lot of good chances at the end of the second period though. When I look at the team’s ability to generate chances over time, they played the first 15-20 games of the season at an elite level but didn’t finish. Then they got mediocre and got a little bit of finishing for a little while but not anymore. So that’s not working.
- Nicklas Backstrom joined the team tonight and will reportedly be hanging out for the whole road trip. Does anyone else feel a little awkward about his status?
- Charlie Lindgren was good. He could have been great and it wouldn’t have made any difference without any goal support. No matter who’s in net, the problem is at the other end of the ice.
pink turns to blue is a good husker du song #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/NzoPlQvoln
— RMNB (@rmnb) January 21, 2024
Hey, that was one of the worst games I’ve seen the Caps play in a long time. They had every reason to dig deep in the third period, but that’s when they played their worst hockey of the night. I’m really unhappy about this effort.
The Capitals are ranked 29th in the league at shot-attempt rate. We saw that in evidence in this crummy shutout loss. Brian MacLellan says he’s still looking for a top-six center, given the right conditions. Whatever. He’s running out of time for it to matter.
