Calgary’s quick start too much to overcome
It was another sellout crowd at Verizon Center. Aside from a few minor injuries, the Capitals’ roster looked about the same as it has all season. There was no reason to think Sunday afternoon’s game against the fading Calgary Flames would be any different than the previous 35 games at home, where Washington had lost in regulation just four times.
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But the team fans have watched all season in the District bore little resemblance to the one that took the ice for the first period against Calgary. The Caps didn’t match the effort of a Flames team waging a losing battle to stay in the Western Conference playoff race. Instead, Calgary scored four times on its first 11 shots and knocked starting goalie Jose Theodore out of the game. By then the damage was done in a 5-3 loss.
“We didn’t have that step,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau said. “I don’t know how to describe it other than you know your team. You know your kids. And we were on four cylinders instead of eight today.”
The Flames outshot Washington 13-4 in the first period. When the Caps did generate decent scoring chances, there was a Calgary player there to backcheck and take away easy opportunities. The Caps took 34 shots on goal but had 27 more attempts blocked and missed the net entirely 25 times.
The killer goal actually came after Theodore left. Flames forward Niklas Hagman floated a backhanded shot through traffic that eluded backup Semyon Varlamov with just 19 seconds left in the first period to make it 4-1 Calgary.
The Caps tried to mount a comeback. Alex Ovechkin scored goal No. 46 just after the first portion of a 5-on-3 power play had expired. Rene Bourque answered with 2:26 left in the third to make it 5-1. Washington forward David Steckel then scored his first goal since Jan. 19. Rookie call-up Mathieu Perreault swiped a rebound of an Ovechkin shot past Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff (31 saves). That tally came at 4:48 of the third period on the power play, but Kiprusoff held the Caps at bay the rest of the afternoon.
“We talked before the game about how we’ve had slow starts in the first period and we needed to start strong,” Caps defenseman Mike Green said. “And we didn’t. So that was the difference tonight. We shot ourselves in the foot.”
