It's All Good As Far As I can Tell In "CapsLand" Today....

Well fellow Caps fans in the week that has occurred since my last public musings/blog post as far as I can tell it's pretty much all good here in "Capsland." 

From a "big picture perspective" the Caps remain on track for a 100 point/40+ ROW season even though currently they are in the top wild card spot in the Eastern Conference as the third place NY Rangers have 3 games in hand on the Caps.  However the overall metropolitan Division race has tightened as only three points separate the Caps from the First Place Islanders.  Additionally the top of the Eastern Conference Standings have also tightened, even though 7 points separate the seventh place Caps from the first place Tampa Bay Lightning, only three points separate them from the Third Place Montreal Canadiens. Additionally there are now 8 points between the Caps and the currently "wrong side of the bubble" ninth 9th place Florida Panthers.  All things to ponder, muse/consider with just three weeks left before the 2014-2015 NHL Season trade deadline.

The Caps have played four games this past week racking up a 2-1-1 record, that 0.625 hockey, more importantly they had a GAA of slightly under 1.50 in those four games including a less than stellar defensive performance against the Saint Louis Blues where they allowed a high of 40 SOG by the Blues and lost 4-3.   Backup Goalie Justin Peters posted a SV% of 0.900 in the Saint Louis game but the Caps were basically just slightly outplayed by the Blues in every facet of the game and neither team played even close to their best hockey in front of wither Peters or Blues goaltender Brian Elliott who posted a 0.917 SV% against 36 Capitals SOG.  To me the second two periods of the game were the best goaltending we've seen from Peters since the start of the season and give me cause for hope.  I feel much of the fan calls for Peter's head are as much a result of just how well Braden Holtby is playing as they are caused by the fact that to date Peters has played just that much under where the Caps need him to play.  I've said it before, in the Caps are on their game and our net-minder posts a 0.915+ SV% two regulation goals should get the team at least one standings point and three goals all but guarantees a two point ROW night.  Hopefully in his next outing Peters gets more team defense in front of him and he notches his gam up from a 0.900 SV% to a 0.915+ SV%.  The other three games the Caps played this week were well played, if not excellent+ efforts all, even the 1-0 OT loss to Montreal at Belle Centre.  My view of the Montreal Game is the loss was due to two words - Carey Price, the Caps were very good up in Montreal but it was a night where Carey Price basically stole two points from Washington. 

The other two games were just awesome clinics in one way or  another.  Tuesday evening the reigning Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings came into town and faced Braden Holtby and the Capitals and all the Caps did is have Holtby pitch a perfect game 4-0 shutout while Troy Brouwer-Power scored two goals in 16:10 TOI while playing in his 500th NHL game.  As others noted afterward it was as complete and perfect execution of the Caps game plan as we've seen thus far this season. Against Ottawa last evening in Ottawa the Caps put on a clinic in three things a) how to properly respond to an opposing team opening the scoring in a game; and b) how to kill off penalties when the calls are going against you (Senators had 4 PP, Caps 0); and finally c) how to play with and protect a one goal lead in the final period of a game, other than the penalties, that is.  Finally a simple observation, perhaps only in Ottawa does a one tem get basically outplayed in pretty much every aspect of the game, lose 2-1 and still somehow end up having two of the three named stars of the game. 

In any case now looking ahead to this coming weeks games, the Caps have two home games this weekend - the Ducks tonight and the Flyers on Sunday afternoon.  Then they leave for a West Coast/California road trip facing the Sharks in San Jose on Wednesday evening; the Kings at LA's Staples Center on Saturday Evening and then the Ducks on the other side of LA LA Land in Anaheim at Honda Center on Sunday Evening before jetting home. So over the next nine (9) days the Caps have five games - 2 at home and 3 on the other end of a pretty darn long road trip.

Before we look forward and muse about tonight's Duck-Caps tilt at Verizon Center a couple of season to date notable statistics and associated musings:

1)  Along with his score of his thirty second goal of the season last evening, Alex Ovechkin returned to his position atop the NHL goal scoring leaders in the race for the Rocket Richard Trophy. As noted elsewhere, Ovechkin is just the fifth player in the "modern era" to put up thirty or more goals in his first ten NHL seasons and as long as the stars stay aligned for him, he could possibly "notch" his sixth 50 goal season this year.  He also has 18 assists and is + 13 for people that care about those things as well.  Oh and over the past couple of weeks he gave a car away to a charity, you might have heard about it cause it means that unlike last season when he was a selfish, self-absorbed, person and not very good/incomplete hockey player, this season he's both great at hockey and a really, really excellent human being.  Don't you just love it when a young man turns his life around?  ... Just kidding but lets be clear Ovi is now a great person having a great season, and apparently Sidney Crosby is as close to an enigmatic professional hockey player as someone not born in Russia can get. Maybe this off-season Sid can retain whoever counseled Ovi last summer.

2) Braden Holtby is now in the top five NHL Goalies stats for GAA and Save Percentage with season to date numbers of GAA 2.14; SV% of 0.925.  Holtby is also number two in shutouts with six (6) and and sixth in wins with 25.  Solid numbers given his league leading forty - five (45) games played and 2,634:04 time on ice this season to date.

3) Nicklas Backstrom has slowly climbed his own way up the league leaders overall scoring leaders to fourth with 54 points; Nicklas is also second on the "assists" leaders board with 38 apples.  Also not too shabby.

4) The Capitals now have six players on the roster with 11 or more goals; eleven (11) players with 15 or more points; and eighteen different players have scored at least one goal. 

5) Among NHL Defensemen, John Carlson is 10th in scoring and Mike Green is 14th with 35 and 30 points respectively.  Overall as a team to date the Caps are 9th in the Goals Against Department with just 130 goals against allowed and sixth in differential with a +23.  No doubt this is a much tougher team to play against then the Capitals teams of the past two seasons.

Now about tonight - I'm rooting for another two point night for the Capitals and the way I see it they'll get the ROW.  I figure the Ducks should be tired from scoring 5 goals on the Predators and Pekke Renne last evening in Smashville and flying to DC last night - that flying stuff really makes those guys wings/arms tired as I hear it.  Seriously, another great test for the Capitals, if they can keep playing like they have for the last four games, smart, disciplined, structured hockey the Caps could win tonight against a team coached by their old coach. 

I'm calling it 4-2 final for the Caps with the fourth goal into the empty net with under 1:30 to play.

LETS GO CAPS!!!

Bummer .... Kings 5, Caps 4

Too little too late? Not really, how about too little early? Headlines elsewhere will probably say things like Kings Edge Caps 5-4 but that seems a little misleading... Let's recap, it was a "no point night" - only the third home "no point game" of the season for the Caps. Another interesting point is that the LA Kings, San Jose Sharks and the Columbus Blue Jackets are the only teams to "blank" the Caps so far this season. Coach Boudreau summed it up in the post game interview, the first two periods were as bad as the Caps have played all year. Nobody looked sharp. As good as the third period was, there was no reason that the Caps should have ever been down 4-2, the Caps really didn't play well at all during the third period.

The Caps special teams were mediocre, Theodore's goaltending wasn't horrible, but it sure seemed like there were a couple times when his glove hand wasn't where it was supposed to be and he got scored on. Brooks Laich had a solid game, but overall it wasn't until the lines were jumbled by Coach Boudreau in between the second and thrid periods that the Capital's offense came alive. Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, Alexander Frolov and Jonathan Quick did indeed take advantage of the openings the Caps gave them tonight but, with the exception of Quick, they also pretty much had their way with the Capitals the last time the two teams met. If anybody could have screened Jose Theodore better than Jeff Schultz did in the first period when the Kings scored, it would take a lot of work and some luck. The two quick goals the Kings scored at the beginning of the second period were the "Cap Killers" though. The game was a very different game then it could and would have otherwise been. However, to say the Caps lost may not be giving Quick, who had 41 saves or the Kings Offense who scored , 1 power play, 1 short handed and 3 even strength goals against the Caps in front of another sellout crowd at Verizon Center.

All that said, I have to say this - didn't you just love Sergei Federov's save of an empty net insurance goal by the Kings. The guy is hands down the easiest guy actively playing the game today that you can say the following about - "future hall of famer." Alexander Ovechkin scored his 200th goal - as was repeatedly pointed out by "Joe B" on Comcast SportsNet, Ovie is just the fourth player ever to reach the 200 goal plateau in 4 seasons. So a three game winning streak ends and now the Caps need to move on. Next up the Florida Panthers on Saturday at Verizon. The Panthers are 6-2-2 in their last 10 and just finished beating the NY Islanders 3-2 in regulation tonight. The Cats are also now in second place in the Southeast Division and Eighth Place in the Eastern Conference with 56 points, 14 back of the Capitals. Saturday will be a tough game the way the Panthers are playing.

LETS GO CAPS!!!!

Injury Depleted Caps Outplayed By Kings, Lose 5 - 2

Last night's game against the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center was a ZERO, NADA, NO point night for the Washington Capitals. The Caps were beaten by solid play and hard work by the Los Angeles However, a large part of the story was who did NOT play on "Russian Heritage Night due to injuries for the Capitals: Brian Pothier; Sergei Federov; Alexander Semin; and Mike Green. So two of Washington's three Russian stars were on the sidelines tonight, as was their star Defenseman; and they were playing for the second night in a row - they were indeed vulnerable. How things would play out with the once again slightly shuffled defensive pairings was a question before the game started. The Caps lineup for the game looked like this:

Forwards

Ovechkin-Backstrom-Kozlov

Fleischmann-Laich-Fehr

Steckel-Gordon-Bradley

Brashear-Nylander-Clark

Defense

Poti - Sloan

Schultz - Morrisonn

Erskine - Jurcina

Goaltender

Johnson.

The Line-up for the Kings was:

Forwards

O' Sullivan - Kopitar - Brown

Frolov - Stoll - Moller

Calder - Handzus - Simmonds

Ivanans - Boyle - Zeiler

Defense

O'Donnell - Doughty

Greene- Quincey

Preissing - Gauthier

Goaltender

Ersberg.

Both teams seemed to start the game playing tentatively. In the first 8 minutes of the game the Kings out shot the Caps 5-3. At 13:58 into the period, Kings rookie defenseman, Drew Doughty put a slap shot on net that was deflected by Alex Ovechkin's stick, when he tried to block it, by Brent Johnson to put the Kings up 1 -0. At the 16:29 mark the Caps went on the power play when Brian Boyle hooked Dave Steckel. Up to that point the Kings had been outplaying and out shooting the Caps (12-2). The Kings penalty kill unit just did a great job collapsing in front of Ersberg and disrupting the Caps power play unit. The Caps had life at the end of the period but really never exerted much pressure on Kings goalie Erik Ersberg. At the end of one it was Kings 1 - Caps 0. The Kings had out shot the Caps 12 -3. Without Mike Green in the lineup, the Caps power play had a couple of opportunities in their two chances but never really got going in the first period. This was as much the Kings doing, with excellent penalty killing as anything else. All three of the Caps shots on Ersberg were by OV, on the power play. The Kings were just somehow able to just smother the Caps.

The second period started with both teams at even strength and the game went back and forth until 3:54 when the Caps got a 5 on 3 power play. The Caps power play got some real good play making and patience until at 4:48 Nicklas Backstrom banged home as forehand writer from a good feed by Viktor Kozlov and Alexander Ovechkin. Then the second power play unit came out and once again, as on Wednesday evening, Michael Nylander couldn't get anything going as the pivot on the 5 on 4. However, up to that point the Kings penalty kill unit did a great job and pretty much tied up any 5 on 4 power play unit the Caps put out there. The penalties ended with the score tied at 1-1. After the 5 on 3 was over, the Caps seemed to turn up the pressure for the next five minutes but the Kings were able to hold them off. Then at 10:17 Chris Clark was whistled off for Tripping Alexander Frolov. Then Dave Steckel high sticked Dustin Brown at 10:53 giving the Kings a 5 on 3 for 1:25. Somehow the Caps killed off the 5 on 3 without allowing a goal. Brooks Laich had three blocked shots over a span of 30 seconds when he played without a stick. At about the 15:30 mark, John Erskine got tangled up deep in the Kings zone and they got a breakout that exerted pressure on the Caps and Brent Johnson, while rushing back to help out Eric Fehr committed hooking penalty giving the Kings another power play. The Caps killed the penalty off and Dave Steckel found Eric Fehr out of the box but Fehr couldn't pull the trigger before he was tied up by the Kings smothering defense. Unfortunately, shortly after that Kings' defenseman Matt Greene found Patrick O'Sullivan with a nice outlet pass. O'Sullivan came down the right side and let loose a slick wrister from the center of the face off circle between Milan Jurcina's legs and past Brent Johnson to put the Kings back on top 2 - 1. At the end of the second period the shots on goal differential continued to heavily favor Los Angeles: Kings 23 SOG, Caps 9 SOG. The Caps looked a little sluggish at times and when they didn't LA either put on a "full court press" or collapsed around Erik Ersberg. At the end of two the Caps were fortunate to still be within "striking distance" of a win. Through two periods the Kings out hit the Caps 28 - 18; the Caps had 12 giveaways to the Kings 8; the Kings had 6 takeaways to the Caps 3, and finally the Kings had 12 blocked shots to the Caps 8. Through two periods the Kings had won 18 face offs and lost 16. At the end of two, it was unclear how the Caps were going to get things going their way and even try to take control of the game so they might capture even 1 point.

During the first six minutes of the third period, both teams once again tried to establish themselves as dominant. The game got a lot more physical, however neither team really took control of the game and the play continued to go back and forth. Then at about the 10:30 mark of the period the Caps kicked it up a notch with their forecheck and started creating some scoring chances. However at 12:54 Dustin Brown drew an interference penalty on Alex Ovechkin and then Brown scored a power play goal to put the Kings up 3-1 a minute later. OV was clearly upset with the call and when he left the penalty box he once again tried to plead his case to the referee; of course, it was at least 1:05 too late for that. After that the Caps responded at 15:25 when Brooks Laich got a goal on a rebound from a Michael Nylander shot. Unfortunately right after that at 15:51 Chris Clark put the puck over the glass and got a two minute delay of game penalty, though it was questionable as he had at least one foot on the blue line. The Caps killed off the penalty but ultimately gave up an empty netter to put the Kings up 4 -2 at 19:20 to Michal Handzus, and then another one at the buzzer Anze Kopitar . While the Caps were coming off a hard fought game with the Ducks on the prior night, you should take nothing away from the LA Kings, they played an excellent game and basically outplayed the Caps in virtually every statistical category. Also you have to love the quality of play and maturity that Kings rookie defenseman Drew Doughty played with all night.

All you can do after a game like that is move on and get ready for your next opponent. There were some bright spots, Brent Johnson handled 28 of 38 shots for a SV% of 0.903 in his first game back from being injured; Tyler Sloan blocked 6 shots; in the stats sheet Brooks Laich blocked 2 shots but I counted 3 and scored a solid goal to pull the Caps to within one; and Viktor Kozlov has clearly elevated his game and wants to stay on the first line even when Alexander Semin gets back in the lineup.. Next up the league leading San Jose Sharks on Saturday evening. The Sharks are 16-3-1 overall so far this season and are the only other team, besides the Capitals who are unbeaten in regulation at home this season with a record of 10-0-1. Hopefully at least one of the three - Semin, Federov, or Green - will be back in the lineup because the Caps are going to need as much firepower as they can get to beat the Sharks.