Well I knew it was bad juju when it was Sonny Milano Chia Pet night and Sonny wasn’t even on the ice for it.
On Thursday night the Caps welcomed into town the Seattle Kraken after a 3 day resting period for the boys in red.
The Kraken got off to a hot start with a nice wrister from Tye Karte who whipped a scorching wrist shot to beat Kuemper who seemed to not even see the shot to make Seattle go up by 1.
Then came Alex Wennberg who came into the Cap’s zone on a 1v1 with Bear and on almost the same type of shot as the first goal beat Kuemper again to make it 2-0 Kraken in the first.
Finally the Caps answered early in the 2nd with a great backhand pass which I have no idea how it got to Pacioretty who from his knees smoked it pass former Sun Devil Joey Daccord to bring the game within 1.
This was Max’s first goal as a Capital and first since Jan 10th 2023.
Ovechkin recorded an assist on Patch’s goal to extend his point streak to 6 games.
The Kraken went back to a 2 goal lead in the remaining minutes of the 2nd Justin Schultz off a rebound in front battled with Strome for the puck but in the end got the puck past Kuemper 3-1 Seattle heading into the 3rd.
Then halfway through the 3rd Adam Larsson put the fork into the Capitals on some nice breakout transition passing by Seattle, Larsson took the bouncing puck and beat Kemps five hole which ended up being the last goal of the game and final 4-1 Seattle.
Defense was the biggest red flag last night and yes Kemps let in two soft goals which he was semi screened for to start the game but was left out to dry on most of the others. For some reason the Caps had a tough time stopping or slowing down Seattle’s transition offense which led to a lot of their success.
Some good news is that we saw TJ Oshie back in action and was able to stay on his feet for most of the game which is not the usual case for him.
Regardless of the score you are not going to win many hockey games in the NHL scoring 1 goal in a game. I feel like a broken record saying this but we need more guys to step up besides Strome to score goals. I don’t know if it means more selfish shot attempts or take a look at Seattle’s transition game and adopt some tendencies we are the point in the season that you have to try something new to get the offense going.
Also the lack of physicality was obvious especially with Wilson not in the lineup who is recovering from a broken nose. He’s the type of guy if he isn’t in the lineup we need someone to step up and take on that role kind of like how Garnet Hathaway played for us. Essentially we need a rat/dirt ball type player mentality.
The Capitals have back to back early games against the Rangers first in D.C. then at MSG. A weekend sweep would be beautiful!
The Morning Skate 