The Washington Capitals fell to the fearsome, vaunted, Grand Canyon region-leading Arizona Coyotes in an early game on this beautiful Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, if you spent some portion of the day outside, prepping your vegetable garden or just going for a pleasant stroll, good on you. But please stay on topic: let’s talk about this very bad hockey game.
Goal number one belonged to 19-year-old Logan Cooley, who received a long-distance stretch pass from Dylan Guenther. Jason Zucker made it 2-0 with a power-play goal in the second period, but Sonny Milano responded with a power-play marker of his own, made possible by an expert pass from Ovechkin. The Coyotes didn’t even wait a minute to restore their two-goal lead; Michael Kesselring was given a lot of time and space to score his fifth of the season. John Carlson scored an own-goal (banked from Guenther) to make it 4-1 after two periods.
Early in the third, Anthony Mantha got a gorgeous one-timer to put life into the arena, but the gap was too wide to cross against such a daunting foe as the Arizona Coyotes. An empty-netter sealed the deal.
Caps lose.
You know.
- The Caps saw your comments about how they should sell at the trade deadline, and it hurt their feelings, and that’s why they played bad today. Hope you’re happy.
- Here is Arizona’s record since the all-star break: LLLLLLLLLLWW. The first W came against Ottawa, so that’s funny, but the second one came today against Washington, and that’s sad.
- Whoever called this a “guaranteed W” is a clown. Instead of covering hockey, they should be in Virginia Beach right now for the Circus Magic Arts & Ministry Convention. The “Interfaith Clown Worship Service with Commissioning” event was held at the Big Top room this morning, and they should of been there. 🤡
- There was a clear demarcation in Washington’s play. When the top six was on the ice, they were okay, not great. When the top six was on the bench, they got disassembled. The speedier Yotes flew past the Caps in neutral and were willing to make stretch passes that paid off.
- The Caps had five minor penalties through forty minutes, giving ex-coach Blaine Forsythe a lot of opportunities to demonstrate his power-play superiority. Arizona is actually ranked 15th there, so that’s pretty impressive given their roster.
- Four of those penalties happened in the second period, but during even strength in that same frame Arizona out-attempted Washington 18 to 5.
- The Coyotes hit the goal post four times. This game was that close to being a Detroit-tier blowout.
- Nicolas Aube-Kubel played two shifts in the second period. The Caps didn’t even sniff the offensive zone when he was on the ice. No idea what happened there.
- I’m not sure who was supposed to be on Kesselring here. I think it was Beck Malenstyn, but if you’re an X’s and O’s nerd, please correct me in the comments.
- Anthony Mantha has goals in two straight games. He has 15 points in his last 16 games, and eight of them are goals.
- A solid 14 minutes of penalty minutes for Tom Wilson: abusing the officials, misconduct, and a pretty soft slash in the third period. John Carlson also got a penalty for back-sassing, so the bad behavior is widespread and that backs up my “Mean RMNB commenters hurt the team’s feelings” theory.
- John Carlson also did an own-goal. I’m not going to crack any jokes or use any adjectives. It happened, and that’s all I’m gonna write.
- I was surprised to learn that Nick Schmaltz is having a bad year. Unrelated to that, schmaltz comes from the German and Yiddish for lard or fat. So it was the name given to candlemakers, who were also known as chandlers. So if your name is Chandler Schmaltz, that’s redundantly redundant. But please, can we try to stay on topic?
- Coyotes forward Barrett Hayton almost had a goal but it was washed out for incidental contact, which is like low-calorie goalie interference. I think we’re too strict against messing with goalies. You should be allowed to graze their skates, to call them names, to bump them with your little butt, to give them rope burns and pink bellies, to throw pencil erasers at them. We need to juice scoring somehow. But, sorry: I’m off topic.
- Evgeny Kuznetsov cleared waivers today. It’s likely he’ll never play for Washington again. He’s in the top three of the most entertaining players to cover at RMNB. It’s been a blast, and I’m sorry he’s been struggling in so many ways for so long.
Big smiles for a beautiful Sunday #joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/IPRy4WSxHw
— RMNB (@rmnb) March 3, 2024
It’s kind of telling, to me, that the Caps pulled the goalie early and played with an empty net on a late power play and beyond. There were unseen stakes at play.
According to HockeyViz, the Caps’ playoff hopes dropped from 20 percent to 14 percent. And if you ask MoneyPuck how likely the Caps are to make the playoffs, they’ll punch you in the face.
“I think we’re in the mix,” Brian MacLellan said yesterday. “I see the math that it’s unlikely, but you could get some help from other teams too.”
I also could have embedded that one Crowded House song, where if you inject a period in the middle it goes like this: “Don’t Dream. It’s Over.”
So that’s that. A terrible game in the rear view, and what should be the biggest week for the franchise in years directly ahead. I hope this team does something bold.
