Caps Slide Continues

The Washington Capitals set another mark yesterday; one they would prefer to not have set.  For the first time in his young coaching career in DC, HC Bruce Boudreau has a 4 game skid on his resume, as they Caps attempted comeback fell short, falling 4-3 in a shootout to Pittsburgh.

Washington fell behind 1-0 when Sidney Crosby scored his 25th goal of the year in the first period.  Six minutes later, Washington struck back on a rebound put in by Alexander Semin, scoring his 26th goal of the year and extending his consecutive games with a goal streak to 6 games.  Nicklas Backstrom’s blind pass to Semin was a thing of beauty, picking up his 53rd helper.  Washington out shot Pittsburgh 12-7 in the first period. 

Second period was all Pens, scoring twice and silencing the Sea of Red at the Verizon Center.  Sergei Gonchar scored his third goal of the year, on a Pens power play, to put the Pens up 2-1.  Three minutes later, new Pen Bill Guerin struck to put the Pens up 3-1.  Sad thing is, Pens only had 5 total shots on goal in the second period, but converted 2 to the net. 

But, the Caps fought back, dominating the third period and scoring twice to send the game to overtime.  The first goal came just 29 seconds into the period on a power play by Alexander Ovechkin, his 47th goal of the year.  Ovie has now scored in 21 of his last 23 games.  It took less than one minute later to send the Verizon Center crowd into euphoria, when David Steckel found Brooks Laich up the ice and caught him on a break away, and Laich buried it on the side of the net, past Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury to tie the game at 3-3. 

With no scoring in overtime, the game went to a shootout where Sidney Crosby connected for the game winner as Semin, Victor Kozlov, and Ovechkin failed to convert.   The Caps picked up 1 point, but have now dropped 4 in a row and have 1 point to show for a 4 game home stand. 

The Caps can indeed look at yesterday’s loss as a game to build on to get out of this rut they are in.  Bruce Boudreau believes the ingredients are there. 

Boudreau added: “I think this was an uplifting game for us — by far the best of the last four.”

Mike Green added in as well.

“Bruce talks about a graph, and the graph goes up and down throughout
the year and it seems we’ve been down and we’re coming out,” said
defenseman Mike Green, who had two assists. “I thought we played well
in the third. We kind of took the first and second period to get going.
But we’re coming out of it.”

There were some real positive signs out of this game.  The Caps were
energetic yesterday.  There was some intensity in hitting and the third
period comeback helped revive the spirits of a team marred in a slump. 
They still struggled on the power play, converting 1 of 4, but the
chances were there, they took the shots, but Fluery simply turned them
back. 

Multi-Point Scorers:

Mike Green, 2 assists

Brooks Laich, 1 goal, 1 assist

Next Up:

Tuesday, 8 PM, at Nashville

Blog World reaction …

Japers’s Rink also believes this game will likely allow the Caps the opportunity to break the slump. 

Kudos to the Pittsburgh Penguins for winning a big road game as they
battle for a playoff spot, but from the perspective of those cheering
on the red, white and blue, this game was about a Caps team that may
very well have turned the corner on their recent doldrums as they head
down the season’s home stretch.

JP also gives deserved recognition to Alexander Semin and Jeff Schultz on their game play.  

Check out thoughts from Puckhead as well.