The Caps had an opportunity to erase the stinkbomb they lit over the weekend by coming out last night and playing hard. They ended up lighting another stinkbomb.
As expected, it was a raucous crowd and it would have been nice to take a lead and try and get the crowd out of the game. That didn't happen. The Flyers took a 1-0 lead but we came back quickly to tie it up. That was good. However, shortly after that, the Flyers scored on a one timer and then about a minute later, Jurcina was holding the puck behind our net waiting to start a run and then he ended up passing it right to a Flyer who had a clear and open look at the goal and ended up scoring to take a 2 goal advantage going into the first intermission. That was a killer.
We did cut into the lead by making it a 4-3 game with about 5 minutes left but then we gave up a penalty shot. They scored making it 5-3 and then added an empty netter for a final score of 6-3.
What's most disappointing is that we don't seem to be playing the same type of hockey that we did the last several weeks of the regular season. I don't know how much that is of us just not playing well or of the Flyers just shutting us down. It's probably a little of both. Still, the Flyers just look like the better team. They are aggressive and attacking. They have effectively shut down Ovechkin. Ovechkin looks extremely frustrated out there. They are crashing into Huet and when they are not crashing into him, they are setting up good screens making it very difficult for him to stop shots. We just look like we are being outhustled and outplayed. There are stretches where they seem to just be playing keep away from us. We aren't even able to get shots off. In game 2, there were 6-7 minute stretches where we didn't even get a shot off. Last night, again we were beaten in the shot department. The Caps look extremely frustrated out there and we are taking a ton of penalties. It's hard to come back when you are down and you have to constantly play a man down.
Unless we stop the stupid frustration penalties and start playing more smart and more aggressive, this is going to be a pretty short series.
Thursday's game is essentially a must win for the Caps. To go down 3-1 would be very difficult to recover from. However, if we can pull out that victory, the series would shift back to Verizon and we would be in pretty good shape.
Bottom line, we have to be more aggressive, we have to eliminate the silly penalties, and we have to attack their goalie. By that, I mean set up screens, hit him, and take shots.
We'll see what happens on Thursday.
LET'S GO CAPS!!!
2 comments:
Put in Ollie! Actually, I don't think that will matter if they don't pick up their overall play.
Agree. Huet hasn't been the problem.
If they lose on Thursday then you could go ahead and put in Olie. Figure the game would be back at home. I don't think they will be bringing him back. It will be difficult to come back from a 3-1 deficit so why not let him close out his illustrious career with the Caps at a home playoff game.
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