Caps Tangle with Sharks in San Jose
Caps start their yearly California tour against red-hot Sharks on Valentine's Day
The Capitals' six-game road trip continues in California on Thursday when Washington faces the Sharks in San Jose. Washington's season-long trip, which is also its longest continuous road trip in more than 15 years, got off to an inauspicious start in a 3-0 loss to the Blue Jackets in Columbus on Tuesday.
Going into Tuesday's game with the Jackets, only four points and two games in hand separated the second-place Caps from third-place Columbus in the Metropolitan Division standings. Both teams entered the game with 31 victories; the Caps' four-point upper hand in the standings came only by virtue of having played two more games than the Jackets.
Columbus was the rested team, and the Caps had played the night before in Washington, earning a 6-4 win over Los Angeles in the finale of a season-long six-game homestand. The Caps' collective performance was not commensurate with the magnitude of the game, and as defenseman Brooks Orpik put it economically afterwards, "We probably got what we deserved."
Through two periods on Tuesday, the Caps had all of seven shots on net and 16 shot attempts. But because Braden Holtby stopped 23 of 24 shots he faced over the same span, Washington was right there, just a goal away from being even and having a puncher's chance at collecting a point or two.
"There are plenty of excuses that we could probably use," says Caps right wing Tom Wilson, "but we weren't playing good enough for each other. When overall you don't have the legs, you need to work that little extra bit for your teammate because obviously [the Jackets] have a little bit more jump. It kind of snowballs if every guy is a step behind, you just can't get anything going. Starting in our own end every time and we just kind of missed that momentum, that flow to the game that you need in these types of situations."
With less than two months remaining in the regular season, with 11 of their next 15 games on the road, and with their fourth game in six nights looming across the continent against the Sharks in San Jose, the Caps can't afford to dwell on Tuesday's loss in Columbus. The standings are tightening, they need points, and they're facing a formidable Sharks team while dealing with a three-hour time change.
"I think we've just got to focus in on that game," says Wilson on Thursday's game against the Sharks, winners of six straight. "We're playing a top team in the league it seems like every year. They're fast, and it's a tough building to play in, so we've got to take care of the body here and try to find our legs here and be ready for a big one. We've got to get back on track."
Washington has recent experience against the Sharks, and it wasn't positive. On Jan. 22, the Caps hosted San Jose in their next-to-last game before the All-Star break/bye week. The Caps led that game 3-2 after the first, 5-4 after the second, and 6-4 early in the third after Alex Ovechkin completed his 23rd career hat trick. The Sharks rallied late, getting a Tomas Hertl power-play goal midway through the third and an Evander Kane goal in the last second of regulation to force overtime. They won it in the extra session when Hertl filled out his own hat trick to send the Capitals to the sixth of their seven straight losses (0-5-2) leading up to the break.
For the Sharks, that improbable 7-6 win came in the finale of a four-game road trip. It was their lone win on a journey in which they surrendered exactly six goals in all four games, and they've used it as a springboard to greater things. San Jose comes into Thursday's game with a six straight victories, the first of which came at Washington's expense.
"They're obviously a dangerous team and we saw their offensive firepower the last time that they were in D.C.," says Caps coach Todd Reirden. "[Wednesday] is a day off and a long travel day, and we've got try to get our clocks right [Wednesday] and then give ourselves an opportunity to create more offense by getting to the net front. I thought we were really doing a much better job the last few games of getting to the net front, simplifying our game, putting pucks into areas where there is a lot of scrambles around the net."
San Jose just ran the table on a four-game trip through Western Canada, and the Sharks are opening a three-game homestand on Thursday against the Capitals. The Sharks have tightened up defensively, too, permitting exactly two goals against in each of their last five victories after yielding six to Washington.
With its 7-2 win over the Canucks in Vancouver on Monday, the Sharks vaulted past Calgary and into the top spot in the NHL's Pacific Division standings.
"We need to take a good hard look at this [loss to Columbus] and see the things that don't work against teams like that," says Holtby. "Going into San Jose - a tough building to play in - if there is a blessing in disguise, if we can take this one and turn it into a positive and see which way we want to prepare ourselves for San Jose, that could benefit us."
