The Washington Capitals’ west-coast swing continued on Tuesday night with an underwhelming effort against the Minnesota Wild.
The Wild had three goals before the Caps had one: a lucky bounce to set up Brock Faber, an impressive midair snatch and tap-in from Marcus Foligno, and a nifty wrister from my nephew, Marcus Johansson. Saving some face, Anthony Mantha scored before the second period closed out.
In the third, Joel Eriksson Ek made it 4-1 on the rush. Marcus Johansson got his second of the game with a top-shelf wrister. The Caps got some heat late, with TJ Oshie tipping John Carlson’s shot on the power play, then Mantha finishing Malenstyn’s wraparound chance. But it wasn’t enough.
Caps lose.
Reverse Bailamos.
- I was truly summoning positive energy before this game. I came in excited for the Caps to have a bounce-back game against an underperforming Minnesota team – maybe the most underperforming, non-Senators team in the league this season. So if anything else in this recap reads grumpy, it’s against my wishes. I was let down.
- Darcy Kuemper had a very bad night. Those were mostly nice (both of Johansson’s) or unlucky (Faber’s) goals, but it doesn’t matter. In aggregate a goalie at this level simply has to save a bigger chunk of shots.
- The Pacioretty-Strome-Oshie line’s hot streak is fully over. They got burned for two goals before the game was five minutes old.
- Over in the Discord, I was venting my spleen over Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s performance just as he sent this great pass to Mantha. I can’t even complain about this team without them ruining it.
Nice little give-and-go effort between Kuzy and Mo pic.twitter.com/ZfYRDbVYUv
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) January 24, 2024
- Anthony Mantha is now second on the team in goals with 14. He trails only Strome (16). Alex Ovechkin is on the team as well, I’m told.
- And, driving me completely yampy, Kuznetsov’s line was maybe the strongest at driving play. Is there some chemistry with him and Mantha and Wilson, or is he just diabolically maneuvering us all into a psychological spiral for his own twisted pleasure? No debate: it’s the second one. He’s a sick man. He plays hockey now only to unspool my sanity like I’m the protagonist in a Lovecraft story.
- For no reason except to elicit happy thoughts, I just wanna share this, my favorite photo of Marcus Johansson. Johansson scored two pretty goals against the Caps tonight, but he still makes me smile. The #crashers already know, but this picture means glee to me.
- Spencer Carbery is still searching for The Right Forward Lines. He tried a couple iterations of an Ovechkin-McMichael line – one with Protas, one with Oshie. Ovechkin spent most of his shifts outside the offensive zone.
- (Man, there’s no such thing as the right forward lines. The roster for them doesn’t exist. Kuznetsov will play brilliantly for two shifts to earn 22 minutes in the next game and then he will play the most infuriating hockey you’ve ever seen. They should just play the best lines on paper and see how it shakes out instead of letting randomness fool them every other game.)
Alright let's have a good friggin hockey game #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/2mveFlGtpV
— RMNB (@rmnb) January 24, 2024
I’m slightly comforted by the partial late-game rally, but it’s clear: the Capitals just don’t have the stuff. Getting pushed around by the Minnesota Wild should not happen if this team were anywhere close to our foolish hopes for them.
Now they’ve got two very, very tough road games ahead of them with the Avs and Stars coming up later this week. It’s not too late for the Caps to be interesting.
