There are games where your offensive superstars win you the game with dazzling puck-handling and twine-seeking missiles. There are other games that are won with grinders: hard-working, dedicated players doing a sometimes-overlooked job.
Put this one firmly in the latter category.
On a day when many Americans celebrate the discoverer of the Bahamas and our Canadian brethren celebrate Thanksgiving, many of the Caps took the day off as well, leaving it to a strong penalty kill, energetic play from the bottom two lines, and solid goal-tending from a hard-working veteran to secure the two points.
- The Caps looked mediocre at even strength, poor on the power play and great on the PK. It’s three games in, but I think we’d all prefer to see some improvement on the power play in the next few games.
- The Caps were badly out-shot, often due to passing up a simple play for the flashy one, especially on the man-up. It’s probably not a coincidence that when the Caps set up a simple play requiring some hard work, Michael Nylander to Brian Pothier for the point shot, and relying on Brooks Laich to be in position for the rebound, they scored. Think Hanlon noticed Laich’s play?
- Several Caps looked like they started their holiday celebration early, with Nylander in particular having some unusual give-aways leading to Islander scoring chances. Tom Poti deserves some kudos for working his tail off to get back and stop a Mike Sillinger break-away, caused by a Nylander turnover.
- What is it with people high-sticking Alex Ovechkin this season?
- The Islanders showed why they have had a good start: they kept the pressure up and forced Kolzig to make some difficult saves in traffic, especially late.
- Viktor Kozlov’s stick-handling prowess was on display on one play at the end of the third period, as he kept possession of the puck and set up Chris Clark for a shot in the slot — with Bill Guerin draped all over him.
- You can’t say enough about the Pettinger-Gordon-Clark and Brashear-Steckel-Laich lines. Their diligence and effort in all three zones provided the grease for the skids today, as they constantly took the body, made the safe, smart play, and drew penalties.
- Milan Jurcina caught my eye today, with smart puck-movement on the second-unit power play, and his continued physical brand of defense.
Over time, stealing points in contests that maybe you shouldn’t have won is what separates good teams from okay teams. It’s too early to tell how good the Caps are, but one thing is for sure: there are no bad road wins.
15 Comments
Not to be too critical, but this isn’t figure skating. They don’t give style points. There isn’t a team in the NHL who won’t put a few games in the win column that, on paper, they should have lost. They’re 3-0. Sit back and enjoy it because there will surely be games when they totally dominate and lose on a fluke goal.
As I told pucksandbooks on Saturday: Luck likes the winners!
Just curious Empty, because maybe I missed it. But who did you think “took the day off” today? I can’t put my finger on anyone.
My takes,
I dont recall any glaring turnovers, the Caps played a solid road game.
The stats are deceiving, the Caps were not dominated by any means.
Yea they didnt score on the PP, but they had some good chances, and Clarks goal was legit.
As always, thanks for the communications. Typically I consider the comments section for the Knee-jerks as a place for you guys to have your say after I’ve had mine, in the interests of balance. As hokey as it sounds, a big part of this is the reader’s thoughts and I prefer them to be out there like mine, usually without a rebuttal/defense. We’re all watching the same game, and that’s why they are called the “Knee-jerks”: I miss stuff and need to be corrected, questioned, etc. I’d also like to remind everyone that you can send me questions at my e-mail address (which I am keeping off the message due to spam reasons. Go to the Contact Us link on the main page if you want to ping me)
All that boring exposition aside, I realize two things about the Knee-jerks today:
1. I didn’t give the Islanders enough credit. That’s a good team, right there.
2. I didn’t do a good job emphasizing how good a road win this was for the Caps. Hard-fought, low-scoring, effort makes the difference. The Caps passed with solid grades in that sense.
Thanks again for all the feedback, and feedback is always solicited.
I read the Islanders game thread on the HFBoards, and they made a couple of interesting points. Now, obviously, they were looking to excuse a loss by their team in a game they should have won, so take it with a grain of salt, but I still thought they were interesting. First, they commented that the Caps did a good job clogging the neutral zone, so that the Islanders couldn’t enter the zone with any speed. Second, they said that the Caps did a good job of protecting the slot, so that while the Islanders had a lot of shots, they weren’t coming from dangerous areas. And,of course, they gave mad props to Kolzig. The point being, they didn’t think the Islanders were as dominant as we do. (None of that excuses the Caps’ 12 shots, though.)
Again, take that for what it’s worth. I’m just happy to see a good penalty kill after all this time.
To me, the shots were deceiving in this one. Yeah, the Caps had 12 shots on goal. The 11th was Pothier’s and the 12th was Laich’s put-back of Pothier’s rebound. But here’s where the Isles deserve some credit. The Caps took 44 shots to the Isles’ 52. New York just got more through. The Islanders blocked 20 and another dozen missed altogether. Ovie fired six, but got none on goal. To me, his shooting radar is just a shade off early on. Once he gets it calibrated, look out. Because the rest of his game is top-notch.
And I second the good penalty kill sentiment.
Nice one Vogs, Showing those numbers really reveals how the game played out.
Witt was a shot blocking machine.
I just rewatched the game, and it was good. The Caps had their share of play in the Isles zone, and had some good scoring chances. Clark missed the net on a nice play by Goro and Petty. And Flash almost had a goal on a sharp angle shot.
Lets not forget the slick move OV had to cut around the D, looked like a between the leg move.
Nothing to worry about from my perspective. The Caps are looking good, we just need a little patience with the PP.
Watching Ovechkin in the previous two games this season one has to admit that he is in great shape and goals will come sooner rather than later.
Some good stuff here, and I agree there’s no such thing as a bad win on the road.
Still, I don’t think you can make too big an argument that the game was more even the the final shot count indicates.
As Vogel said (Vogel don’t hate me for disagreeing, I read your comments/blog like I’m opening presnets on x-mas); total shots taken were much closer, but how many of those blocked Caps shots came on the 6 PP opps? - I’m guessing outside of those PP’s they only took about 20 shots max on goal all night, and got about 8-10 through for the game as a whole.
It’s a credit to the Isles PK, which showed an outstanding effort to get in front of shots on the PP - I don’t think it’s much of a credit towards the Caps or the argument that the game was much closer than the shot count though.
On the flip side, the Isles PP’s seemed to generate even less in teh way of shots, (perhaps the stats don’t back that up I don’t know) - but I can recall two PP’s with a total of 1 shot against by the Isles.
Good Pk’ing on both ends of the ice, so good that it was pretty much a wash, but outside of it the Caps were dominated for the most part IMO.
The Isles carried the play, and probably had puck possession firmly planted in their favour.
Pothier (I’m still a fan) had his struggles, Nylander really had some brain freezes out there turning the puck over in dangerous areas (opp blueline), Flash is struggling to find his groove/confidence, and a few Caps played average, but responsible hockey (Backstrom), or were good but not nearly as great as previous contests (Green).
The checking line for the Caps was outstanding, as was the play of the fourth line. Brashear played some good hockey today, seems to get better with age in some respects.
All in All, I think the game was pretty much as lopsided as the shot count indicated, but some timely terrific efforts by the lower units to go along with a solid game by Kolzig and some strong play helping him out with second chance opps helped make this one less of a steal, and closer to being a hard fought road win.
That said, I doubt Hanlon had a ton of praise for his teams efforts today.
Tough crowd in here…jeeze
Shot blocking fools!
i’m loving the third and fourth lines. brash in particular caught my eye. he was out there for a shift with nylander’s gang (i think) and worked the cycle as well as anyone. i wouldn’t mind seeing him take the odd shift on one of the top two lines, both as a “don’t forget i’m here” and a change of pace.
and they did block some serious shots. i just hated that they acted like it was technique that allowed witt to block shots. we all know it’s just that he’s too slow to get out of the way.
One small aspect that was enjoyable to see is how the caps played after they got the 2nd goal. They just shut down all the passing lanes and as I believe locker mentioned that everyone was buying/playing into the system at that point.
Good teams learn how to finish those type games with the lead. I’m really hoping this will be a continuing trend for this caps team.
To just piggy back on a few things from capitalgoodie there:
1. Several shifts to me looked too much like the Caps of the last few years chasing the puck in our end, which perhaps is further evidence of how dominating they were in the first two games. So puck possession went to the Isles for sure.
2. Flash continues to look to me like he doesn’t belong with the Laichs (ahem, likes) of any of our top 2 line forwards. And his scant minutes look like the result, rather than the cause. On the plus side, its of course a huge unanticipated (to me anyway) benefit so far this season that Laich can step in to play on that line for a few shifts and perform well, especially when we have injury problems (like we do in a sense already).
Wonder how many more times we’ll see the line of Nylander, Brashear, and Bradley? That was sure an interesting one, but did the job in the third.
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