A nice crowd at Verizon Center tonight, but they saw the difference between an effort and talented hard work.
- Olie Kolzig was the reason the game wasn’t 8 to 2 or 9 to 2. He turned in some excellent saves while being hung out to dry. The big netminder was under siege early and often, and was forced to make several spectacular stops to keep his team in the game.
- While the Morrisonn and Jurcina pairing has been a positive for the team, they seemed to have a miscommunication or poor read of each other’s play for the Rozsival goal — both played the puck on the left side of the cage, a situation where one or the other would typically stay at home to prevent a cross-slot pass.
- Ovechkin again looked like he had some puck-control problems. This is certainly not a call for panic or a weather report that the sky is falling, but the roll of the puck as he went to the backhand (as called by Locker) seems like something that wouldn’t happen last season.
- The Caps are falling back into their old habit of taking dumb penalties. The Clark penalty was iffy, but Washington did a darn good job of committing the rest, and at poor points in the game. I’m not sure if it’s fatigue, but the Caps’ seem to be losing focus.
- More problems with the rink. I know exactly jack about how the arena ops do their thing, but it seems to me this has been a big problem only recently.
- As someone who has been critical of Richard Zednik in the past, I will say that I thought he was active and less than his usual “shoot first, there are no questions” self tonight.
- The Caps’ power play goals are deceiving, as both were scored off of strange caroms off the Verizon Center boards. For the most part, Washington had a hard time setting the power play up, and their point men eschewed the most simple (and often smartest) option of putting a shot on net — they tried slap-passes and the like, which were ineffective. The Caps need to simplify their power play, and ASAP: point shots with a screen in front. Get that working, then develop the rest of the strategy and options.
- Eric Fehr had a team-low six shifts, and I didn’t see anything that particularly clued me in as to why he wasn’t getting more ice time.
- Mike Green’s struggles continue, and I’ve officially chalked it up to the fact that while he seems to carry himself like a veteran, he’s still a 21 year-old defenseman, and these kind of inconsistencies will happen. Jeff Schultz’ play continues to be steady, if unspectacular.
- The positive from last night? Check out Brashear’s fight-ending punch on Orr.
A four-point game and a four-point loss. The Caps’ home stand was, by most measures, a success, but tonight’s result isn’t going to help in the hunt for a playoff spot.
4 Comments
I know I must sound naive and narrow-minded to some when I write this, but I saw this game as simply one of too much safe, defensive positioning, and no aggressive forecheck in the offensive zone (save for the first couple of shifts of the game). Whether you call it a trap or not, its been the system employed for the last several games now.
Of course the Rangers have some talented offensive threats that should be kept in check, but so do we. I was beside myself that we had, on a few occasions, one Caps forward behind Lundquist against two defenders, and the rest of the team assembled up by the blue line. And we were down by 2.
The positives were definitely Brash’s KO, and #23 on defense.
I have to say I was disappointed with Kolzig taking that roughing penalty. Avery’s (at least I thought I heard that was Avery)one of the league’s more potent agitators, and Olie played right into his hands by throwing that glove into his face. I understand his frustration, but that’s not a penalty you can afford to take in a tie game. It would be one thing is one of the younger rookie guys did something like that, but Kolzig’s been in this league for a long time, and I think he should have a bit more control then that. For one of this teams veteran leaders, that was not setting a very good example.
That said, I do think he played a spectacular game (this incident excepted). He came up with some big saves even though he was victimized throughout the entire game.
Uh, I thought Mike Green played fine… The big hit he took a penalty for in the 3d sure looked OK to me. Since when can’t you hit a guy who has the puck in his skates?!
Looks like The Donald’s KO punch was the only moral victory in this one.
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