Sabres 5, Caps 1
Hard to find anything good in the Caps’ performance at Buffalo on Saturday. Once again facing a short-handed team – just as they did last weekend against Toronto – the Caps gave up two early goals and never really challenged. Since that 9-2 start to the season, Washington is 3-7-1 and in eighth place in the Eastern Conference. At 12-9-1, they are still just three points behind first-place Florida (12-7-4, 28 points) in the Southeast Division with a game in hand and three home games set for next week (St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Ottawa). But there are obvious issues with this team right now and it’s hard to believe general manager George McPhee will stand for efforts like this much longer.
Doesn’t necessarily mean a coaching change, either. It is still Nov. 27, after all. Given his track record, I can’t see McPhee making a change less than two months into the season when he decided to keep this coaching staff in place after last year’s playoff flameout. Just because we all assumed this would be one of the best teams in Caps history given the July 1 additions doesn’t mean that narrative plays out. For a manager, every season is about adjusting when your summer plans go bust.
And let’s be honest – some of those additions aren’t exactly helping the cause right now. For every 60 minutes that defenseman Roman Hamrlik is on the ice at even strength his team allows 3.61 goals. The web site Behind the Net hasn’t been updated this week, but needless to say that’s among the highest totals for any NHL d-man with at least 10 games played. If you’re Duncan Keith (3.96) people will say you’re just having a rough start to the year. If you’re 37 they’ll wonder if you can still play.
To be fair, it’s still early. And Hamrlik was hurt Saturday against the Sabres by a bad bounce – partner Dennis Wideman’s pass deflecting off a Buffalo player directly to a waiting Luke Adam alone in front of the net – and two really soft goals allowed by Tomas Vokoun. By the way – Wideman’s even strength goals against/60 has risen to 3.48. He and Hamrlik struggled so much the last two games, Boudreau had to break them up.
So that brings us to the veteran Czech goalie, Vokoun, who is actually playing up to his $1.5 million contract. And that’s not a good thing. Vokoun in 17 games has a .905 save percentage and a 2.82 goals-against average. And he’s still been better than Michal Neuvirth (.868 save percentage, 3.82 GAA). Washington isn’t playing well in its own end. But it needs the last line of defense to steal some games here. Vokoun’s effort on Zack Kessian’s goal just 27 seconds after a Jason Chimera penalty shot made it 2-1 was a true killer.
“The bench was really buzzing, was pretty into it after [Jason Chimera’s penalty shot],” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters in Buffalo. “You could tell. Then when they scored that goal it was quite deflating.”
Vokoun also muffed a Tomas Vanek point shot that landed right at the feet of Jason Pominville, who scored with ease. Wasn’t in Buffalo tonight, but I think this quote from Brooks Laich last Sunday fits perfectly after what we saw the last two games.
“We know we haven’t played our best hockey. One thing we got to do is cut down on goals against,” Laich said. “We have to stop getting scored on. And you know what, it might sound weird, but you start scoring goals from defensive hockey. When you pay the price, when you do things right defensively for some reason – whether it’s hockey gods, whatever it is – you end up getting rewarded offensively. And that’s what our game has to be built up from. Start with hard work in the “d” zone, attention to detail and everything will build up from there.”
It starts from there. But much like last December’s losing streak, you just get the sense that this team is fragile. They recovered then. Can they do so again before it’s too late? That’s difficult to do when certain players don’t seem to have the necessary faith. That’s not me suggesting it. That’s coming on the record from players inside the room.
“There’s definitely a lack of confidence. You can see it in certain guys that are usually so confident with the puck,” defenseman Karl Alzner said. “And that’s hard to get back. It’s up to us as a team and coaches and everybody, we’ve got to give everyone as much confidence as possible, especially through a stretch like this. Because everyone comes to the rink and they’re down, we get a goal scored against us and we’re down. Things need to be positive, I think. As much as everybody gets frustrated we need to band together and turn all these negatives into a positive. At least help each other out.”
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