Caps' Trip Continues in Nashville
Caps spend Saturday night in Music City, taking on Predators
The Capitals are spending their Saturday night in Music City, where they will take on the Nashville Predators in the second game of a three-game late October journey through a few of the NHL's Sun Belt cities. The trip began on a sour note on Thursday night in Dallas in a 2-0 loss to the Stars.
Stars netminder Jake Oettinger stopped all 27 shots the Caps sent his way on Thursday night in Dallas, sending Washington to its first shutout setback of the season. Caps captain Alex Ovechkin fired seven of his team's 27 shots on Oettinger, and he also rattled the iron behind Oettinger on the power play in the third period, one of two posts the Caps clanked in the final frame.
"There were a couple where it hit [Oettinger] or it hit a body and he didn't really seem to know where it went and it just bounced the wrong way or bounced behind the goal line, or whatever it was," recounts Caps winger T.J. Oshie. "He's obviously having a great start, and it's always tough to run into a hot goaltender or a good goaltender. When you do that, you've usually got to simplify a little bit more; get more pucks to the net, get more bodies in front of him, and make it hard on him."
Washington's power play had a fair amount of offensive zone time in Thursday's loss, but failed to find the back of the net for just the second time in the team's last six games.
"They're looking and they're trying to find the right shot or the right seam out there," says Caps coach Peter Laviolette of his team's power play. "And for what has been working and going in on most nights, tonight it didn't want to go."
"Our power play has to be a lot cleaner," says Oshie. "We need to get more grade A scoring chances and when we get those chances - especially at the end at 5-on-4 to cut the lead in half - it puts a lot of pressure on them going into the last minute and a half, two minutes.
"All in all, not a full 60 [minutes], but there were definitely moments tonight where we did a good job and we limited them in the second period pretty good, to not get too many scoring chances. We just need to put in a full 60. We've got two more games on the road here, which is always a good place to figure out your game."
A day after Washington's previous game - a 6-3 win over the Devils in New Jersey on Monday night - Laviolette noted the need for his team to be better defensively. The Caps entered the third with a 5-1 lead over the Devils that night, but two early New Jersey goals in the third made that contest unnecessarily closer than it needed to be, and Caps goalie Charlie Lindgren had to make an amazing stop on Yegor Sharangovich to keep the Devils from making it a 5-4 game.
The Caps were better defensively against Dallas, and they held the Stars without a shot on goal for a nine-minute stretch of the first period, a stretch that ended just before Jason Robertson's deflection of a point shot gave Oettinger and the Stars the only offense they would require.
"I thought it was better," says Laviolette of the Caps' team defense. "The shift that they scored [the first goal] on, we just got extended time out there, and they caught a high tip on a redirect and it ends up getting by. The second one was a shorthanded goal, so I thought defensively it was better, the chances against were lower. It still can be better."
After enjoying a pleasant day off in Nashville on Friday, the Caps will now try to make it better in Saturday's tilt against a Predators team that has been scuffling offensively, relative to the rest of the League. Nashville has averaged 2.75 goals per game through its first eight games, tied for 26th in the NHL. The Preds' power play ranks 28th in the circuit with a success rate of just 9.7% on the season.
Nashville started its season early, stymying the San Jose Sharks on consecutive nights in the NHL's Global Series in Prague to jump out to a 2-0-0 start. But upon returning to North America, the Preds struggled until they blasted the Blues by a 6-2 count on Thursday, while Washington was coming up empty in Dallas.
Between those two season-opening wins in Europe and Thursday's victory over St. Louis, Nashville dropped five straight games, going 0-4-1 and getting outscored by a combined total of 20-9 in the process.
For the Predators, Saturday's game is the rubber match of a three-game homestand. Nashville embarks upon a five-game road trip once the game against Washington is in the books.
