After 4 straight losses and 2 of them against that are inferior opponents the Caps now are on the outside looking in on the playoffs.
After a pathetic 4-1 loss to the Penguins Thursday night, the Capitals have now taken the backseat to the New York Islanders when it comes to the final wild card playoff position.
The Caps currently stand at 82 points and are one point behind the Islanders, but also have a game in hand on the boys from the Island.
As of 4/5/24 here is the overall look at the standings:
Now lets get to last nights eye-roll of a game.
It starts with household name Ryan Shea (kidding) making his 25th NHL start and obviously he has to score his 1st NHL goal on us early in the 1st.
Off a Pens faceoff win and shot from the point from Shea Lindgren was screened and didn’t see the puck at all. 1-0 Bad Guys!
Then around 9 minutes later Pierre-Oliver Joseph shot a puck from the blue line that was on course to miss the net right wide by a mile, but just our luck it somehow hits Nick Jensen’s skate and redirects right pass Lindgren. 2-0 Pens after 1 (fart sound)
We make our way to the 2nd and the Caps looked a little more energized than the 1st, but Bunting makes it 3-0 Pens off a slap shot from the top of the left circle to beat Lindgren. (End of the 2nd)
Finally, and thank god the Capitals finally get one of their own on the power-play after some nice puck movement Strome was able to find a wide open Ovechkin who smacked the biscuit into the back of the net. 3-1 in favor of the Pens. Also, Ovi had 15 shot attempts tonight that is ALOT so he was trying to put the team on his back and hope to squeak more than one by.
Ovi now has 19 goals since Jan 27th and tied for 4th most in the NHL. He also now has 27 goals on the season and closing in on his 18th 30 goal season.
Nedeljkovic is now the 172nd different goalie he has scored on.
This goal also marks goal 849 of his career and now puts him 46 goals away from passing Gretzky for the goal record. He would need to just have to average 23 goals over the next two seasons. Personally I think he scores 31 next year then its cake in the season following that. But I wouldn’t be shocked either if he went nuclear and does it next season. #TheGr8Chase
Former Capital and our Tiger Lars Eller scored the final goal and empty netter to make it 4-1 final and the win for the Pens.
Unfortunately, Charlie Lindgren returned to human form last night and made 20 saves on 23 shots. He has been stealing us games when our defenses has been lackluster, just wasn’t our night.
Tom Wilson returned last night from suspension and had 20 mins of ice time and looked like he didn’t miss a beat when they were on 5v5 situations.
The Caps next couple games are agaisnt the Hurricanes, Senators, Red Wings, and Sabres. I will be content with going 3-1 in this stretch anything less our playoff chances will continue to dwindle with 8 games left in the season the time is now to put this 4 game disaster behind them and start grinding.
So coming off a bad game into a game against a playoff team with no rest please pray the boys are ready or it could be another blowout.
The Morning Skate 