Caps Finish Trip in Columbus
Washington concludes two-game trip and January slate on Tuesday vs. Jackets
The Caps conclude what has been a rather unremarkable January on Tuesday night in Columbus against the Blue Jackets. Washington entered the month on the heels of its best month of the season - a dominant December in which they rolled up an 11-2-2 record - but it has followed up with a decidedly ordinary 5-7-1 mark in the month of January.
Earlier this month, the Caps were here in Columbus where they rolled to a 6-2 win over the Jackets on Jan. 5, setting a franchise record with their seventh consecutive road win. But Washington has fallen on hard times on the road since, with a 2-4-0 mark in six road contests since, and losses in each of its last three away from D.C.
On Sunday in Toronto, the Caps opened the current two-game trip with a 5-1 loss at the hands of the Maple Leafs. Washington got off to a decent start and carried a 1-0 lead into the game's first intermission on Nicklas Backstrom power-play goal. Backstrom's first goal of the season came exactly three weeks after his return to the lineup after missing the first half of the season following hip surgery last spring.
The Caps entered the second period with a 1-0 lead, but it lasted less than two minutes into the frame and things unraveled on Washington when the Leafs authored a four-goal outburst in the middle period, chasing starting goaltender Darcy Kuemper to the bench and taking full control of the contest.
"In the second period, when we made a mistake, we gave up a dangerous scoring chance," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette. "From an offensive standpoint, I don't think it was great tonight. Going back to the second period again, we probably didn't have but one or two chances offensively. Both of them needed to be better with regard to the second period, but it's not like we were pinned in our end and couldn't get out, it's just that when we made a mistake, it was a big one and it led to a real dangerous situation."
Washington finished Sunday's game with just 24 shots on net, one of its lower single-game totals from the last couple of months. And the quality of those shots and opportunities also wasn't up to previous par; the Caps had diminishing returns of three high danger scoring chances in the first period, two in the second, and just one in the third, according to naturalstattrick.com.
"We started defending too much," says Caps winger Anthony Mantha of the team's second period in Toronto. "I don't think we were forechecking hard or making the right plays at the right time, and we just let the game slip from our own hands."
Sunday's loss leaves Washington with a 4-7-0 mark since its win here in Ohio's capital city on Jan. 5. Only two of the Caps' four wins over that span were achieved in regulation, and both of those were Kuemper shutouts. He blanked the Blue Jackets 1-0 in Washington on Jan. 8 and prevailed 4-0 over the Coyotes in Arizona on Jan. 19.
The Caps haven't been able to string together consecutive victories in over a month now, since their five-game winning run was halted in a 4-3 overtime loss to Ottawa in Washington on Dec. 29.
Tuesday's game against the Blue Jackets not only concludes the Caps' January slate, it's their last game until they visit the Bruins in Boston on Feb. 11. Between now and then, the Caps will take some much needed down time during the NHL's upcoming All-Star weekend and Washington's bye week, which is on the other side of the All-Star festivities. Whatever Tuesday's result is, the Caps will be sitting with it for the better part of two weeks before they play again.
"Obviously, with this sport you get back at it in two nights," says Mantha. "We'll have Columbus next, and we need to step up before break, and then use that break and refresh, and come back hard."
Columbus has had a tough go of it this season, missing a number of key players for lengthy stretches of time throughout the season. But the Jackets are teeming with talented young forwards and they can be a handful for any team on any given night, as they've shown on multiple occasions; they've defeated the likes of the New York Rangers, Winnipeg, and Carolina this season.
Tuesday's game is also the finale for the Blue Jackets ahead of their bye week. Columbus is just back from a four-game road trip out west where it pulled a point in an overtime loss at Calgary in the trip opener and then eked out a 3-2 overtime win in Edmonton on Kent Johnson's game-winner in the extra session.The Jackets then dropped a set of back-to-back games in Vancouver and Seattle, respectively, before returning home on Sunday.
