The Washington Capitals were simply not even close to good enough on Wednesday night. Their lackluster effort against the Dallas Stars, a team that had lost six in a row coming into the game, led to a 4-1 defeat on home ice.
I don’t have much, if anything, positive to say about that game. At least Alex Ovechkin scored.
- The Capitals were “fine” in the first period, getting punished with some laziness on the power play for a shorthanded goal, but otherwise fine. The second period was another story. They might as well just let Sergei Ovechkin and the rest of the mites on ice play that period for them. At five-on-five in the second, the Stars were up 17-8 in shot attempts, 10-3 in scoring chances, and 5-0 in high-danger chances. That’s the type of effort they had down just one or two goals? Yeesh.
- Dylan McIlrath was given a sweater for this game to play a grand total of 6:07 of ice time. So, am I meant to believe that doing whatever that is was better for the team than simply playing Trevor van Riemsdyk or Declan Chisholm? This isn’t last year’s Capitals that are up 25 standings points on the next team in the East. They need to win games, not give pats on the back.
- Five players in this game, including McIlrath, played 8:09 of ice time or less: Brandon Duhaime (8:09), Sonny Milano (7:58), Hendrix Lapierre (6:52), McIlrath (6:07), and Brett Leason (5:34). I’m well aware of the current injury issues, but is this similar managing of minutes each game not the head coach sending a clear message to the front office that he doesn’t trust the depth on this roster whatsoever?
- Alex Ovechkin did score the 915th goal of his career and the 18th of his season. Ovi has three goals in his last two games and is now on pace for 34 markers at the season’s end.
- The Capitals had brutal five-on-five results with Martin Fehervary on the ice, seeing Dallas end the game up 30-10 in shot attempts, 17-6 in shots on goal, 1-0 in goals, 12-4 in scoring chances, and 3-0 in high-danger chances during his minutes. I don’t think the Jakob Chychrun-Matt Roy pairing is exactly cooking the same way anymore, so it may be time for a bigger restructure of the backend duos.
- Ryan Leonard played 22:07 of ice time in the loss, the highest single-game total of his short career. He was getting double — and maybe even triple — shifted in the third period as the only Capitals player looking to create some individual offense.
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