We’re back in the box in full force with both Eric McErlain and JP to my left. Greg Wyshynski is here, too.
- I entered the Metro system at the L’Enfant Plaza station to a strange sight. Due to the Nationals game at 1:35 and the Caps game at 2, the yellow/green platform was packed with the one side all Caps red and the other in red with a curly W.
- A little under an hour before the game, F street was a little quieter than Friday. Either everyone was already inside, or the end of week happy hour festive drinking did not carry over to Sunday morning/early afternoon. Did they not think about rockin’ the red with bloody marys?
- How do you solve choosing between Caleb Green and Bob McDonald for the anthem? Have them both by virtue of the Military Quartet anchored on the left by Caleb and the right by Bob.
- A warm welcome to our Russian guests. Dmitry Chesnokov’s parents are visiting DC and taking in their first NHL game from my normal perch in 426. Both are Rocking the Red.
First Period
- 0:29 into the first and the Flyers have their first penalty. The power play looks ineffective so far and then a shorthanded chance for Philly.
- Hartnell was lining up Green for what looked like would be a monster check. Green smoothly sidestepped him and Hartnell caught all board.
- A Flyer pass from Coburn at the defensive faceoff dot right through the center to RJ Umberger leads to the Flyers 1st goal. Perhaps later Ovechkin can go Brian Campbell on him.
- Is this team still nervous? Or are they a bit overconfident from their Friday night comeback?
- There seems to be a distinct lack of hitting that was everywhere on Friday.
- A good number of the media in the row in front of me are keeping tabs on the Masters. I’ll have to look to see if they are from Carolina.
- Yet another defensive breakdown leads to an odd man rush and Carter puts it in the net for the Flyers 2nd goal.
Second Period
- Let’s hope Bruce has some adjustments for the team.
- Someone stole the crowd’s voice. The phone booth is the quietest it has been in weeks. 0-2 on the scoreboard will do that to you.
- This is still an overwhelming Capitals crowd, except for Section 421 to my right which has a block of about 40 clad in orange and black.
- The Capitals power play is looking better, but after period’s end they are 0 for 5 for the game.
- That was not a period to write much about. The hitting picked up a bit and the passing was a bit crisper, but not enough.
Third Period
- We start the third like we did on Friday. Down by 2.
- A beautiful steal by Steckel at the blue line giving him a wonderful short handed chance on Biron. A goal there would have been huge.
- The Caps are back at full strength. That looked better than the power play today. The crowd is starting to wake up.
- I just looked at the stats and after two Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Kozlov are all a minus 2.
- It’s looking like there will be a game 5 here at Verizon Center. It will be interesting to see if red dilutes to a more orange tint.
- We’ll see if we can make it to Gabby’s press conference. We couldn’t squeeze in on Friday.
- We have our first fight of the game. Remember section 421? Yep… it’s a series now. Check OffWing later as Eric sprinted to the edge of the press box with camera in hand. Are you surprised to learn those ejected were wearing a Hextal and Shultz jersey?
- Huet’s winning streak is halted and the series is tied at 1-1. Shots on goal for the game: WAS 24 / PHI 41
31 Comments
Tough loss. It looked to me like the Caps were unable to recapture the energy they had coming out of the blocks on Friday night. They spent very little energy laying the body on in Flyer territory and relied on the occasional turnover (miscued pass, stick check takeaway) to generate the only chances they got, and Biron was good enough to turn them away. They better tighten up their chinstraps, ’cause Tuesday night the Philly boys are gonna be stoked - the Caps need to match that energy in the first ten minutes, but stay within themselves, hope for a penalty out of over-enthusiasm from Philly, and stay out of the box themselves. Trite to say, but first goal is looking crucial!
Hey, look on the bright side; there’s going to be a Game 5!
Disappointed in the boos I heard during the game. WTF. DO we have some bandwagon fans?
A Green turnover turns into a goal? Been waiting for that all year. I thought he was tripped myself. Caps been doing that 1-on-2, 1-on-3 [crap] all year. They need to start backing up the D on the rush and right now the Flyers D is just not doing that.
We got a series here.
The crowd was not in it. They let the team down. Everyone in Washington who ever wanted to see a hockey game has done so. And now it’s time for baseball, kite flying, blossom watching…
Disappointing game.
I had a bad feeling when I saw it was going to be on NBC. They seem to have bad luck when they play on that station.
(Just ask Backstrom and the Penguins)
the crowd let the team down? really?
I think there are some things that we all need to think about. I think our boys are still suffering from playoff jitters. Passes were jumping off and over sticks, we just weren’t quite in-sync today.
I don’t think we’ve ever really played well in the afternoon games. And, we needed to lose a game somewhere along the way to regain the fire that has been flowing through this team for the last month.
We’ve already seen a team record for wins in a row, the streak had to end sometime…and now I can stop drinking coffee during the games and go back to the traditional beer
Your bad feeling was NBC. My bad feeling was matinee. Seems they both teamed up on the Caps today for a lackluster game.
Neither team played well. The Caps had a problem all game of timing. Especially on passes and rebounds. Always just a bit out of reach. Or of passes bouncing. How many passes skipped over a Caps stick only to end up on a Flyers’ blade.
Biron may have gotten the first star of the game, but he didn’t play well either. Far more Caps shots hit Biron than him having to save them.
As for the fans, very quiet for as many people as there were today. Not that they had much to cheer about, but there was plenty of not-much-to-cheer about on Friday and the crowd kept the place buzzing just fine.
Just a bad day all around I guess.
But if the Caps go 12 wins and one loss, I guess it’s time to go 12 wins again.
Sadly, a lot of our guys look well over-matched. Backstrom needs to forget about trying to be an ice dancer. He needs to lift weights all summer long. He is being knocked off the puck regularly.
Anyone else surprised that Flash was moved up to the second line in the third? Somehow I expected to see a net crasher like Laich rather than that line having someone who would get thrown off the puck or another stick handler. I know Sergei is strong defensively, but he is also 38 for crying out loud!
Doug,
while I agree that Backstrom needs to work to improve his strength, I wouldn’t be so hard on him - he’s only 19 and he’s playing against guys who’ve had 3, 5, 10, 15 more years to building up their body strength.
Re: the crowd, Sunday afternoon means a lot more families and a lot less beers. I definitely think that played a role.
And, to be honest, the Caps never looked “in” the game. Even on those early PPs, they were disjointed, sloppy, and just couldn’t build any momentum. On Friday night, even when they were down, you had the feeling something magical was going to happen. Today, just outright flat.
And there were some folks who had their worst game in quite a while. I’m lookin’ at you, Mike Green.
What I saw regarding Green was, he was trying to force the play, he didn’t really have a lot of options today. The Cryers were focusing on him, standing him up at his blue line with 3 players…on the correct angles so he didn’t have any passing lanes. They had the board clear covered and our forwards were not coming back to help him out or skating to open ice.
Just my two cents.
Ordered Chaos called me this evening. He had to use his wife’s cell phone as his was lost/stolen/ran away. His other connections to the outside world are also gone. His internet/cable/phone has gone away, too. He is now less technologically advanced than the Geico Caveman.
OC wanted me to post his thoughts from the game. In keeping with the celestial body awards given after each game, he came up with the opposite of the three stars of the game.
Here’s OC’s 3 black-holes of the game: (I may have the order wrong, but that may not matter)
3. Nicklas Backstrom
2. Mike Green
1. John Erskine
I would like to see the black-hole list amended. Please add Shultz to the list. I thought he played for **** today, but do think we will need his size next game in Philly aka-Hell.
Been there. Was seating in section 421 with Flyers fans. Had a little fight at the end of 3rd. They asked for it, though. Anyways, fans didn’t let the team down. They let US down.To be honest, I want my money back. Caps never showed up. Not that the Flyers won — Caps lost. Both goals were results of defensive mistakes and poor goaltending. Huet is not the same in the playoffs. I got quiet in the middle of the 2nd, because they didn’t want to win. I wasted my money on the tickets, why would I waste my voice? Flyers couldn’t do nothing on the attack, Caps had chances, but failed to capitalize on them. Biron was awesome, unfortunately. Over the game it looked like Flyers couldn’t score and Caps didn’t want to. BTW, when Sat. tix go on sale? Been trying over and over, ticketmaster says they aren’t in the system yet…
Ah… thanks for the reminder MulletMan, OC gave the dishonorable mention to that very same Shultz.
Tickets are on sale already…for season ticket holders…I think
Sorry, submitted before I finished.
Igor,
If you felt it was a waste of $$$ and you wanted a refund, why are you looking for tickets to the next game?
Because I’ve seen Caps throughout the season and I know they’re better then what they’ve been today! I’m thinking of buying a season tickets, but waiting for my bonus at the end of April… They’re expensive, you know. And in this ecenomy I’m not willing to commit to the powerpay, since I don’t know if I’ll have my job in a month…
Well, I’ve got 2 on StubHub, but I need at least 6. Buying on StubHub and ebay is good though. The more we buy — the less goes to the Flyer’s fans
One more thing: it’s OK to play hard and lose to a better team. What happened today was a disaster. They lost to a very mediocre team without playing at all. Looked like a game in Chicago, except Blackhawks are a lot better than Flyers
Mike Green’s struggles aren’t just limited to today - he was to blame for 2 of the Flyers 4 goals on Friday and took that bad penalty to end the second period in that game. In the playoffs he’s had one excellent period and five bad ones.
Igor, I have to say that I don’t blame Huet for either goal. He could have had the first one but it was a good (not great) shot off a breakaway. The second was an unmarked player on a rebound - that’s not the goalie’s fault. Plus Huet did stop 39 of 41 shots on the day. He wasn’t the Caps problem.
dmg, I’m not saying he was. They could have scored 5. They chose no to. Huet could stop them, but was out of luck. At least, unlike the rest of the team he tried. Looks like tix will go on sale at midnight.
Beer is good for me. I hope. Just bought season tix for next year.
Section 430, row J, seats 3 and 4. Neighbors — beware of loud ukrainian Caps fans!!!
Just to add my 2cents to what others had posted, the Caps did not show up at all today. I felt like the crowd did, but the crowd had very little to cheer for (BTW, the pom poms were chinsey & terrible, more towels please). The thing I noticed the most was the complete absence of any of the Caps checking anyone or even being remotely physical. Why didn’t Brash drop the gloves a few minutes into the 3rd to get the crowd/team fired up? I didn’t get any sense of urgency or desire to win this game today from the guys. Yes they had their chances, but Biron was on his game today. I’m not trying to be a Negative Nancy here, but today was a terrible game for the Caps & the fans. Let’s hope Boudreau can get the team back on track for game 3 in Philly. Let’s go Caps!
The crowd was fine. It wasn’t Friday, but we were doing our best to lift the guys up at every turn. More than anything, the team just seemed tired and no amount of loudness was going to wake them up.
I’m more worried about Backstrom’s disappearance than anything else…
Seems to me that Stevens has “out-systemed” Boudreau pretty bad so far. The Caps couldn’t execute controlled breakouts for most of the 2 games, couldn’t get a sustained forecheck going, had their first line shut down except for one (big) moment and in the second game the Flyers also took Green and his rushes out of the game.
That kind of dominance in the systems-department to me is the root of the problem, much more than lack of effort or goaltending. Gonna be interesting to see what adjustments Boudreau makes.
Your entry mentioned the fight in 421. There were various accounts of the flight in 421 on the message boards and HockeyBuzz. From these accounts,it appears that a Caps fan instigated the event. In comments to Tarik’s blog, someone complained about three Caps fans harassing their six year old son, who was wearing a Biron jersey, in the restroom. There appears to be a hopefully small number of Caps Fans that think fighting in the stands is good and opposing fans deserve more than good natured ribbing. We are Caps fans, not a street gang. As someone who have gone to away Caps games with the Fan Club and Road Crew, I have never been treated in this manner by fans at another venue, and that includes Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Philly. I am appalled that anyone thinks that it’s OK because a fan of the opposing team is involved. I just hope this stops now and there are no additional incidents on Saturday.
It’s never easy against Philly - not something to give up over by any means, but something to keep in mind. Let’s see where we are after the next couple of games.
I would rank Sunday among the low moments in Caps playoff history behind
1) Esa Tikkanen missing a wide open net in a pivotal game of the Stanley Cup Finals druing Detroit. go to youtube for it.
2) “The Easter Epic” After a six hour triple overtime game our goalie Pete Peeters is beaten from the blue line by the New York Islanders
3) scrawny midget Martin St. Louis erasing our two game lead in the best of seven series vs. Tampa Bay in 2003.
It’s time to follow the Red Sox (curse of the Bambino ended in 2004) and end our playoff curse!!!!!!!!!Bring the cup to D.C.!!!!
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