After losing to the Hurricanes on Tuesday night, this game was a big one for Washington with a win it would have gave the Caps a lead in the Wild Card ahead of Florida, but now the two are tied in the playoff race.
Every game at this point is a must win or at least a must get a point type game with the games remaining in the regular season.
I feel like I have been saying it all season “the Caps played another lackadaisical first period” whelp it happen again for almost two periods it felt like just no juice and no puck control in our offensive end of the ice. The Caps only had 6 shots in the first period straight pathetic if you ask me, and as I mentioned before how important this game was the boys just came out flat.
I feel like we have young guys in Hershey that we can call up that have NHL experience it is time to give those guys some burn and get guys like Mantha off this team for a bag of pucks at this point. Lavy for the love of god try something new.
The Caps scoring didn’t start till the second period when it came from a nifty little redirect from Strome by the shot of Oshie. The Caps went into the 3 down 4-1.
The Capitals brought it within two with a quick wrister from Backstrom which had them still trailing 4-2 now.
Kuzy made it interesting getting a goal to get the Caps within one with about 2ish minutes left. Then with the goalie pulled the Cats netted two empty netters to make it a 6-3 final in D.C.
The Capital’s powerplay was a joke the whole night early on they had two power play chances and didn’t even register a shot both times, which is honestly impressive. Not to make excuses but not having Carlson and Ovi definitely hurt but still even with them I don’t see a much different outcome.
At least guys like Oshie it felt like was still busting his ass and skating hard all night and being a little feisty out there but it didn’t seem to ignite anyone else on the roster unfortunately.
It took the Caps a total of 10 minutes to even record a shot on net in the 3rd and that was even with a powerplay in that time period.
Not great not great at all!
The Capitals head outside next with their Stadium Series game against Carolina Saturday. The Caps seem to always play great when they are outside so lets hope that trend continues because like I said every game matters more than ever here on out!
The Morning Skate 