Friday Night, Saturday Morning – A night after their seven-game home winning streak was halted at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins in a 4-2 setback, the Caps are back at it, a time zone away. Washington’s first foray outside the Eastern time zone this season takes them to St. Louis, where they’ll face the Blues on Saturday night at Enterprise Center.
In Friday’s loss to the Pens, the Caps’ offensive game was prolific in terms of creating and generating chances – at least for the game’s first 40 minutes – but it was plagued by a lack of finish, and it was also thwarted on a number of occasions by rookie Finnish goaltender Joel Blomqvist. Washington’s defensive coverage – especially in the game’s early minutes – was lacking on Friday; all three Pittsburgh goals (the fourth was of the empty-net variety) were preventable from a structure standpoint.
“Yeah, significant mistakes,” says Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery. “But also, controlling play, which is something we’ve been getting away from the last handful of games. If you look at the [offensive] zone time last night, and [Pittsburgh had significantly more offensive zone time]. That’s something that was a key for us early in the year, and part of it is defensively cleaning some things up, but we’ve got to do a better job offensively of maintaining possessions.
“We created enough for sure. The amount of substance, the odd-man rushes, the breakaways, and the quality scoring chances were there. But part of the way to defend is keeping the puck so Pittsburgh gets less touches, they get less entries, they get less shots on goal, they get less shot attempts, all of the above. And I just didn’t think we did a good enough job of making sure that we had the puck more than they did and we control the puck more than they did.”
Drilling down a bit on Friday’s loss, the lion’s share of Washington’s scoring chances came in the first two periods, and the majority came in the middle frame. In a game they trailed 2-1 heading into the second, the Caps poured 18 shots – and they teed up 33 attempts – in the middle frame, and one of those shots was Andrew Mangiapane’s tying goal at 6:04.
The two teams were even at 2-2 heading to the third, but Washington’s attack went mostly dry in the final 20. The Caps had only six shots on net in the third, and they managed to tee up only 15 attempts; five were blocked (two by teammates) and four missed the mark. Washington’s first shot on goal came more than nine minutes into the period; Evgeni Malkin scored the game-winner at 10:28 of the third.
Four of Washington’s six third-period shots were clustered in a tight span of 11 seconds as a Caps’ power play was coming to an end in the sixteenth minute of the frame. Taylor Raddysh had the best of the team’s few third period opportunities; Blomqvist denied him twice in succession from the same spot.
And although Carbery pulled goaltender Charlie Lindgren for an extra attacker with 3:07 remaining – earlier than has been typical of the Carbery era – Washington managed to get just one shot on net during those final 187 seconds, a point drive from John Carlson.
Carbery sees some recent fall off in his team’s play and is looking for them to shore things up both offensively and defensively.
“We’ve just been giving up a lot of chances over the last – I think it dates back to Columbus [a week ago tonight in Washington],” observes Carbery. “And Columbus, you’ve got to chalk up a little bit to score effect; we were up early in that game [5-0 in the first] if you remember. And then in the second and third period, we were under attack. So we ended up giving up 25 some chances in that game. And then it just carried over, right?
“And part of it is natural. You have some success early in the year, and then – it's not complacency, that’s too aggressive of a word – but when players feel really good and confident and comfortable and you win, it's natural. But it's my job as the head coach to nip it. ‘Oh, this is going to be maybe a little bit easy.’ The second you lay off the gas, the second you get just a touch complacent and think it's going to be easy to score in this league, it's going to be easy to win in this league, it's going to be easy to defend in this league, now you're getting beat. It doesn't matter if it's Pittsburgh on a back-to-back or St. Louis in their building. It doesn't matter. If you lay off the gas and let up on the details of the game, and the way that you have to play inside of your structure, you're going to get what you saw last night. And it's been happening for a couple games.”
While the Caps will seek to shore up those defensive miscues while keeping their offensive game humming, the Blues are seeking to kickstart their own attack. After winning the first two games of their current five-game homestand, the Blues dropped a 4-2 decision of their own on Thursday, in a lackluster loss to the Utah Hockey Club. St. Louis was limited to just 15 shots on net in that defeat, and only seven of those shots were generated in the game’s final 40 minutes.
Back In The Saddle – After missing the last five games with an upper body injury, defenseman Jakob Chychrun is set to rejoin the Caps’ lineup tonight in St. Louis. Prior to tonight’s game, the Caps placed forward Sonny Milano on injured reserve with an upper body injury, and they also activated Chychrun and recalled Mike Sgarbossa from AHL Hershey.
In The Nets – Logan Thompson is in the nets for Washington tonight as the Caps’ goaltending rotation continues, with Charlie Lindgren starting the odd-numbered games and Thompson taking the evens. And thus far, that rotation has also applied to playing the second night of back-to-backs. Tonight marks Thompson’s second time playing the back half; he started and won on Oct. 23 over the Flyers after Lindgren beat the same squad a night earlier in Philadelphia.
Thompson is a perfect 6-0-0 on the season and he is the second goaltender in franchise history to win each of his first six decisions with Washington. Fellow right-handed catching netminder Tomas Vokoun was the first, winning six straight starts from Oct. 10-22, 2011. Thompson can set a new standard tonight in St. Louis.
Lifetime against the Blues, Thompson is 4-0-1 in five appearances – all starts – with a 2.75 GAA and an .896 save pct.
Jordan Binnington is the expected starter for St. Louis. With 149 career victories, Binnington is two victories shy of the all-time franchise mark held by Mike Liut, the Bowling Green product who finished his NHL career in Washington in 1991-92.
Lifetime against Washington, Binnington is 1-1-1 with a shutout, a 2.33 GAA and a .909 save pct. in three appearances, all starts.
All Lined Up – Here’s how we believe the Capitals and Blues might look when they take the ice on Saturday night in St. Louis:
WASHINGTON
Forwards
8-Ovechkin 17-Strome, 21-Protas
24-McMichael, 80-Dubois, 43-Wilson
13-Vrana, 29-Lapierre, 88-Mangiapane
22-Duhaime, 26-Dowd, 16-Raddysh
Defensemen
6-Chychrun, 74-Carlson
42-Fehervary, 3-Roy
38-Sandin, 57-van Riemsdyk
Goaltenders
48-Thompson
79-Lindgren
Extras
23-Sgarbossa
27-Alexeyev
52-McIlrath
Out/Injured
15-Milano (upper body)
19-Backstrom (hip)
77-Oshie (back)
ST. LOUIS
Forwards
89-Buchnevich, 10-Schenn, 25-Kyrou
9-Texier, 81-Holloway, 63-Neighbours
20-Saad, 70-Sundqvist, 42-Kapanen
13-Toropchenko, 12-Faksa, 26-Walker
Defensemen
22-Suter, 55-Parayko
77-P-O Joseph, 72-Faulk
48-Perunovich, 51-Kessel
Goaltenders
50-Binnington
30-Hofer
Extras
71-M. Joseph
76-Bolduc
Out/Injured
4-Leddy (lower body)
6-Broberg (lower body)
18-Thomas (lower body)
47-Krug (lower body)
