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Participation vs involvement: Avalanche beat Caps 6-2

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The Caps went into Pepsi Center on Thursday night looking to put some recent bad play in the past against an opponent prone to allowing teams to take the play to them. The opposite happened, the Caps looked like participators not involvementors.

Lets sit down for puck drop and… the Caps are already down a goal. Gabriel Landeskog struck 17 seconds into the first to give the Avs an early lead. Nathan MacKinnon waited much longer for his tally scoring at the very end of the period, but both count the same. 2-0 Avs after 20 minutes.

Colin Wilson slotted home a rebound to extend the Mile High lead, but Brett Connolly scored to tighten the game once more and we were through 40 minutes at 3-1.

Landeskog got his second of the night on a rare regulation penalty shot. Rantanen got on the board on a power play. Kuznetsov also scored on a power play. Landeskog hat trick.

Avalanche beat Caps 6-2.

  • The Capitals were much maligned for their horrific start against the Nashville Predators. They did nothing to prevent another bad start in Colorado. Both goals against in the first period, one coming 17 seconds into the game, featured multiple Caps players looking like 10 year olds playing against adults.
  • The Ovechkin Beard Guy, Eric Brooks, was once again in attendance for a Capitals game at Pepsi Center. This time he debuted tandem beards at Pepsi Center with his friend Ryan Hardon. I wish I could grow any semblance of facial hair.
  • Brooks Orpik sent Vladislav Kamenev to Utah on this bone-crunching open ice hit in the second period. He was immediately challenged to a fight, because the NHL has yet to deal with players taking exception with completely clean hits. It’s been a problem for how long now? Unfortunately, Kamenev broke his arm on the play,
    hoping for a speedy recovery.
  • The Caps got some massive positive karma for being screwed so many times via “goaltender interference” in the past. I have literally zero idea how Nikita Zadorov‘s second period goal was overturned. This is one of the worst calls of this variety that I’ve seen in the replay era.

  • Brett Connolly scored what Alan May would call a “dirty goal”. It was his second of the season since the very first game of the year in Ottawa and his first since returning from injury. That’s a bright spot, I guess. He also did this though:

  • The first line was pretty much invisible again. And by “first”, I’m referring to the Alex Ovechkin, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Devante Smith-Pelly line. It’s easy to mix them up with all of the other lines because they’ve done nothing to stand out as being first of anything. Barry Trotz may have finally seen enough, reuniting Ovechkin with Nicklas Backstrom and TJ Oshie multiple times in the second and third periods.
  • I don’t think you can really fault Philipp Grubauer for much tonight. The poor guy hasn’t played with a lead yet this season. The Caps goalies this year have dealt with a ton of incompetent defense in front of them much too often.
  • The Caps power play went 1 for 5 against the 24th best penalty kill in the NHL. That’s going to be a lesser talked about, but still big reason for the loss. They had plenty of chances at key moments of the game and failed to convert. The only goal came when this game was already over.
  • Come Saturday we’re probably going to see some changes in the lines and defensive pairings that we’ve wanted to see for some time now. Why it takes a blowout loss to a bad team for that to happen is an issue in itself.

Joe B suit of the night

The Caps next fixture is a date with old friend Bruce Boudreau and the Minnesota Wild on Saturday.

Full Coverage of Caps at Avalanche

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