VERY disappointing. Sure, it sucks we lost but what made it worse was that I felt that we were outplayed and outhustled. The Rangers came out early and dominated much of the first period. They looked like the ones that were desperate and needing a win. Consequently, they jumped out to an early lead. It wasn't until well into the second period that the Caps finally looked like they wanted to play. Still, even after they started getting more aggressive, we still didn't get around Lundqvist. The game reminded me a lot of the first two games where we took plenty of shots but they were all from far away with no one crowding around their goalie. It just looked a lot different to me than Game #3. I can accept a loss when I feel like we play our best but that didn't seem to be our best. I will still give credit to their goalie. The guy did have a couple of big saves and we did out shoot them 19-5 in the second period but still I didn't feel like we got too many quality shots on him and we just weren't as aggressive as we were in Game #3. Also, I was very disappointed in how the game started when it looked like they were dominating us.
I don't believe it is over. Sure, I don't like being down 3 games to 1 and it will be difficult and the odds are not in our favor but I do believe that when we play the way we are capable of playing we are the far superior team. We need a great effort on Friday at home and then send it back to NY on Sunday. Losing Friday would make this season a huge disappointment. Hopefully the Caps can get their act together.
2 comments:
The Rangers seemed to have a greater sense of urgency for the first 10 minutes, but after that I think the Caps clearly outplayed them. The problem last night was the brick wall in front of the goal. Lundqvist is ridiculous. Ovie has to stop shooting to his glove hand because the guy catches everything. Yes, Ovie's goal was to the glove side, but if you've been watching, you know what I mean.
The second goal we allowed was clearly Varlamov's fault, but the kid is good and I won't blame him for the loss. As you said, we have to crowd the net and make things more difficult for Lundqvist. We also need to take advantage of power play opportunities. I think we were 0-6 last night. The one power-play in the 3rd where we had it in the Rangers' zone the ENTIRE time was a killer. We must have had 10 shots during that power play, but we came away with nothing.
Hopefully home ice in game 5 can help us turn things around.
No question Lundqvist has been stellar but despite the fact that we are outshooting them by 50 shots in the series, we aren't getting the quality shots we need. Often times, he is getting open looks at our shots.
Can't put any blame on Varlamov for the loss last night. The first goal was a lucky bounce off of Erskine and the second Varlamov should have squeezed with his glove but he had a couple of very good saves and we have to be able to score more than one goal if we expect to win.
Agree that we have to do better on the power play. We had the second best PP in the league during the season but we have to keep in mind that the Rangers had the best PP killing team during the season.
Bottom line is that we have to crowd the net and not allow Lundqvist the open looks to shots. We did that more effectively in Game #3. We took the game to them in Game #3. We out hit them, we sacrificed bodies to block shots, we outhustled them. We were able to frustrate them in Game #3. Again, last night looked a lot like Games #1 and #2. We were taking long shots with no one blocking Lundqvist's view and not fighting for rebounds and getting frustrated as to why none of the longer shots weren't going in. Boudreau said that after Game #2 that we probably played well enough to win in the regular season but you have to ratchet it up in the playoffs. We did that in Game #3 but again, we looked the same last night as we did in Games #1 and #2.
As I mentioned, I don't think this is over. The key will be to get out to a fast start. Last night, they played with so much more intensity to start the game. We need to get the first goal. We are the better team but we are not playing well right now. If we get down, I imagine we will start pressing again and get frustrated and it could very well be the end of this series.
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