Caps win in ugly fashion

In response to an awful 0-2 Canadian road trip against Edmonton and Vancouver where the Caps defense, penalty killing and transition game looked inept, Coach Bruce Boudreau made several changes to the line up against the Anaheim Ducks.  He brought up Cody Eakin from the Hershey Bears to man the wing on the 2nd line with Marcus Johansson and Alexander Semin while demoting Mike Knuble from that line to the 4th line with Matt Hendricks and Matthieu Perreault.  Jeff Halpern sat in the press box while Perreault played center on the 4th line.

The defensive pairing changes were even more dramatic since Boudreau broke up John Carlson and Karl Alzner. Not that they played that well in Canada together.  He paired Alzner with Jeff Schultz and put John Erskine (nice to have you back John!) with Carlson.  Dennis Wideman and Roman Hamrlik played together again.

Not that all the lines stayed intact because...for the first 28:59 of the game the Ducks owned the Caps and put on a clinic on how to pass - shoot - score - forecheck - pressure - and keep the puck in their offensive zone.  On 11 shots during that time, the Ducks netted three goals, two from Teemu Selanne and one from Saku Koivou.  The first Selanne goal happened on an atrocious mistake by Wideman throwing the puck to Hamrlik right in front of Voukoun and Selanne took advantage.  That line pairing, with Hamrlik playing minus-3 hockey, stunk it up badly.

The Caps continued to look lost trying to get the puck out of the defensive zone and through the neutral zone, just like in their last two games.  It's so obvious when Mike Green is out of the Caps lineup because he's their most effective defenseman at moving the puck up the ice.  How many times in this game did you watch the Caps passing around behind the net and in front of Voukoun because they couldn't get past the Ducks.  Ugh.

In the last half of the second period, the Caps woke up and flurried around the Ducks netminder, Jonas Hiller, and netted two goals in a little over three minutes.  Brooks Laich threw a great pass to Joel Ward and he got it past Hiller.  Wideman helped to make up for his atrocious play in the first period by blasting the second goal past Hiller.

In the 3rd period, the Caps 24th placed penalty killing unit got to work about eight minutes into the period on Voukoun's tripping penalty (he looked shaky tonight, too).  Corey Perry got a goal after stabbing at the puck in Voukoun's net about three or four times.  Once again, the Caps got caught looking around at the puck instead of moving bodies out of the net.  Another problem area for them.

Troy Brouwer got the Caps within one at 11:42 in the 3rd.  Nicklas Backstrom tied the game with a wicked wrister with 42-seconds left.  Boudreau left the Alexes - Ovechkin and Semin - on the bench while Backstrom played the extra man with Chimera, Laich and Ward.  Smart move on Boudreau's part to bench the Russians as I trust the third line more to get the job done, when needed.  With the Russians, not so much, particularly, with how Ovie played tonight.  He needs to step it up, become a better two-way player and realize he's getting nowhere with that barreling toward the net, curl and drag move, as he doesn't have enough space anymore to make that play.  He hasn't in a long time.

Backstrom netted the game winner halfway through the overtime period by signaling to Ovie to stay behind him instead of barreling in again.  Backie had an outstanding game and was awarded the first star.

So, Boudreau, for the first time in his tenure, sent a message to his star, by limiting his ice time.  I never thought I'd see the day.  I hope it motivates Ovie.  Regardless, all of the Caps need to play better and as a team.

Bottom line from tonight's game:

• Caps got lucky, as they played an overall lousy game, and Hiller helped them out by letting in some softies.
• Caps don't play well against teams with good forechecking pressure like Vancouver and Anaheim.  That's not going to fly in April, May and June just like it didn't last April against Tampa Bay.

The Caps head out for a two game road trip this weekend against the Hurricanes and Islanders.  I hope they play better than they did these last three games.

Let's go Caps!

Caps hang on to beat Ducks 6-4

The Washington Capitals came out storming last night against the Anaheim Ducks and quickly went up 3-0 on two power play goals (Tomas Fleischmann on a redirect from Mike Green and Mike Green from Michael Nylander) and 1 even strength goal (Nicklas Backstrom from Viktor Kozlov) by 7:13 in the first period. The Caps power play has struggled terribly this season, but scoring on 3 of 8 last night raised their effectiveness to 19.5% and 12th in the league. The Caps ran out backup netminder Jonas Hiller after those 3 goals and faced Jean-Sebastian Giguere for the rest of the game.

Then, the Ducks scored the next two goals to make it 3-2 by the end of the first. Caps came back in the 2nd period early on another power play goal by Alex Ovechkin and added an even strength goal by Matt Bradley to end the 2nd.

Between the goals in the 2nd period, Donald Brashear and George Parros threw down the gloves and went at it. Parros, a 6'5 28-year old enforcer wrapped up Brash's left arm so he got in several good hits but Brashear came back and pounded Parros for a few.

David Steckel added to the Caps goal total about halfway through the 3rd to make it 6-2, but Anaheim didn't give up and scored 27 seconds after Steckel and added another one at the 12:00 mark. The Caps held on though and got the all important two points out of this brutal road trip where they play 4 games in 6 nights.

The highlights:

• Ovie had a 4 point night with 3 secondary assists on the first 3 goals and his power play goal in the 2nd.
• Backstrom's goal in the first came from a beautiful dodging around defenders pass by Viktor Kozlov. The top line of Ovie, Backie and Kozlov played well together last night. In fact, Ovie got the first star of the game and Kozlov the third.
• The Caps focused on getting the puck out of their zone and did it more effectively, particularly, in the first period, than I've seen in a while. In Coach Boudreau's pregame remarks to the press he emphasized that he wanted the Caps to keep the puck out of their zone during the first five minutes of the game. They did and went up 3-0. Gee, shocking...it really helps to win games when you spend less time in your defense zone!

The lowlights:

• Mike Green made the play that caused the Duck's first goal. Then, on a typical end-to-end rush by Green with his head down, he got slammed into the end boards by Chris Pronger and left the game with a shoulder injury. Don't know whether or not he'll play tonight, but the injury bug is getting serious for the Caps. It's made more difficult by not having any cap space to bring up guys from Herhsey to fill in. The Caps desperately need cap space which is probably why the Michael Nylander trade rumors are all over various hockey news sources.
• The defense and netminding, in general, is still a challenge for the Caps. Anytime a team lets in four goals it's not a good night in the defensive zone. I don't see why people continue to praise Jeff Schultz's development. He's young, and I get that he's still developing, but he drives me crazy right now. He was on the ice for 3 of the 4 Anaheim goals and, to be fair, so was Tom Poti. The shocking defensive stat of the night...Milan Jurcina wasn't on the ice for any of Anaheim's goal.
• Jose Theodore constantly makes me nervous in net. Granted, the defense struggles in front on him, but I'm just not impressed. A quarter of the way into the season and he has yet to establish himself as the #1 netminder for the Caps.

The Caps face the Los Angeles Kings tonight. The Kings are in 13th place in the West so this should be an easier game than last night's. But, it's the Caps and you can never take anything for granted with this team. Plus, I have no idea who is going to play on the blueline if Mike Green can't. Shaone Morrisonn may end up playing but that doesn't make me feel any better about the defense.

Let's go Caps!