by Maitreya Sriram (@sickunbelievabl)
From the start of Monday night’s game against the Sharks, everything seemed a bit odd. Following a subpar outing against the Rangers, Michal Neuvirth was benched in favor of Hershey call up Braden Holtby (which shocked everyone including Holtby himself); there were scouts and GMs from at least 10 other teams patrolling the halls of the Verizon Center; and most ominously, the author of this post was let off on a speeding ticket on the way to Rockville metro station.
Braden Holtby was called up from Hershey to play tonight. Holtby allowed 5 goals on 35 shots.
Other signs of the apocalypse resulting from today’s game:
- The first goal of the game by Joe Pavelski was scored from 79 feet away on Holtby. Of course, seeing how often Caps’ goalies are being victimized by skipping pucks, this may actually be a sign that everything is just normal. (3rd goal against from more than 40 ft in the last 7 games).
- The Caps’ three goals were scored by Orlov, Hamrlik and Schultz. What’re the odds? Actually, the odds were 0.021% that all three would score in the same game based on their season stats before the night.
Jeff Schultz, along with fellow defensemen Hamrlik and Orlov, tallied for the Caps.
- Jeff Halpern, one of the NHL’s premier faceoff men went just 36% (5 for 14) at the faceoff dot while Marcus Johansson, one of Washington’s worst at the dot was 60% (9 for 15). Halpern, a stalwart defender, was also on for 4 of the 5 goals against. The team’s inability to win draws on the PK contributed in now small way to the Sharks’ PP success.
- Joel Rechlicz, who was called up from Hershey and started the game in the place of Keith Aucoin, had more PIMs in this game (10) than he did TOI for all his games as a Capital combined for the season (5:54).
- The top defensive tandem of Carlson and Alzner were both on the ice for 5 of 5 goals against the Capitals. That hasn’t happened … ever.
Dale Hunter chose to bench Neuvirth in favor of AHL callup Braden Holtby. Capitals' goalies have given up 8 goals in the last two games -- both goalies played on short notice.
From most of the stats above, this game could seem like the perfect storm. It would be encouraging to believe that this was a mere anomaly, but unfortunately for the Caps, the storyline is getting increasingly predictable – the team has repeatedly given up soft, early goals despite controlling play early. These early deficits lead to overreaching and choppy play through all three zones and result in even larger holes going into the third period. Just like in New York yesterday, the score doesn’t reflect the lackluster effort provided by the Capitals that elicited hearty boos and sarcastic applause from their fans.
While it’s easy to blame the special teams, there’s no one unit that failed tonight. Whether it was the unnecessary pass, the missed assignment or the shanked shot, there seemed to be just a little bit wrong through each facet of the game.
The Caps get three days of rest before starting a 4 game road trip with a big “4 point game” Friday in Florida against the division leading Panthers.
