Capital Collapse

The Washington Capitals have not only lost two in a row, making playoff chances that much less likely, but they seem to be defeating themselves lately.   You ever get that feeling that playoffs just don’t seem to be in the cards this year?

Saturday night a stupid penalty from Donal Brashear started what would turn out to be 2 more stupid penalties by Tom Poti and John Erskine, that allowed the Boston Bruins to have significant two man advantage time with 6 minutes to go in the game and the Capitals leading 1-0.  The two man advantage penalty killers did an honorable job, but that much time was too much as the Bruins capitalized to score twice and walk away with a 2-1 win.  The Capitals pretty much dominated the game but managed to trip them selves up with lack of discipline and stupid penalties.  Caps did have a cause for poor officiating as well.

Capitals only goal came in the first period in Boston by Brooks Laich, assisted by Alex Ovechkin and Tom Poti.  It was Laich’s 16th netter of the year.   As a fan, the last 6 minutes was nothing short o miserable.  There is nothing like watching your favorite team implode right in front of you.
Today, the Caps fell again on another Capital miscue.   What a battle it was, as expected, a NBC televised showdown with the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Brooks Laich started the Capitals scoring, netting number 17 and his second in consecutive games.  Laich remains one of the hottest Capitals on offense right now and has put together a rather impressive season.  The lead would last less than a minute in half when Petr Sykora would knot the game up at 1-1.  Sidney Crosby would later score his 21st to give the Pens a 2-1 edge.  That lead would last less than one minute when Alexander Semin struck with his 21st goal to tie it at 2-2.  The game seem destined to be heading to over time.    With 26 second left in the game, Sidney Crosby sent a pass across the middle right in front of Caps goalie Cristobal Huet and right to Nicklas Backstrom.  Backstrom put his stick down to try and swipe the goal behind the net away from Heut, but in inadvertently put the puck past Huet and effectively end the game.  The Pens would score again on a empty net.
It is the Capitals second straight heartbreaking loss.  The losses are even more heart breaking because the Capitals were 7 points behidn Carolina for the Southeast division and 6 points behind the final 8th spot.  Essentially, from here on, every game is a must win for Washington to keep any hopes of a playoff berth alive.