Thrashers 3, Caps 1
Atlanta has officially made itself a nuisance. The team that dropped all six games to Washington last season revamped its roster and developed a winning attitude. The Thrashers have made that perfectly clear with a 3-1-1 record against the Caps through five games this season. Read all about the latest loss to the Thrashers in our game story here.
Ondrej Pavelec has stopped 89 of the last 91 shots Washington has fired at him in the last three meetings between the two teams. But Caps coach Bruce Boudreau wasn’t exactly thrilled with his team’s ability to generate traffic in front of the 23-year-old Czech Republic native.
“I didn’t know if we made him move side-to-side. But we didn’t get very many second shots,” Boudreau said. “You can have 100 perimeter shots and it looks good on the stat board – but if they’re not taking penalties crosschecking you in the back and tripping you in front of the net it means you’re not fighting to get through there.”
That about sums up this game. The Caps took 46 shots on goal and had another 20 blocked. Another 16 missed the net altogether. The power play – second-best in the league entering the night – was 0-for-5 and while it produced 15 shots the boys on the PP tended to treat the perimeter like the local Saturday night hangout spot. A lot of loitering going on in this one. That made life easier – though not completely easy – on Pavelec.
“[Pavelec] played well. I thought we had a bunch of traffic. We walked in front of him,” said Caps forward Jason Chimera. “We fired almost 50 shots on him and he stopped almost all of them. We didn’t play that bad. But we just didn’t get that extra little push. We were in their end and they played kind of patient and they scored on some of their opportunities. But for the most part we were down in their end.”
Just like that Washington has lost two in a row after a four-game win streak. No time to panic. But the Caps have managed just eight goals in regulation over their last four games. A few guys in that locker room are squeezing the sticks a little tight these days. They have a chance to rectify that against the Maple Leafs on Monday night. By the way, Sunday’s scheduled day off was canceled after this effort. Caps are on the ice at Kettler at 10:30 a.m.
“I think it’s the lack of commitment to paying the price to score. We’re all wanting to score, but we’re staying on the perimeter hoping to get the puck, rather than being the guy that’s going to get the puck,” Boudreau said. “And the guys that did have chances they’re not natural goal scorers. [Matt] Hendricks went to the net, there was a loose puck there and it bounced over his stick, Eric Fehr, whose holding his stick too tight, went to the net and it flipped up on him. And [Mike] Knuble had things in there. But the guys that are looking to score are not getting their nose dirty enough to score the goals.”
Caps Notes
» The 46 shots on goal was a season-high total for the Caps in a regulation game this season.
» Alex Ovechkin entered the night fighting a career-high nine-game drought without a goal. He put that streak to bed with just 49 seconds left in the second period to cap a dominant shift by the top line with 1:47 of offensive zone time against the Thrashers. Ovechkin now has 11 goals and 23 assists for a team-best 34. It was his 30th goal against Atlanta.
» The Thrashers snapped a nine-game losing streak at Verizon Center. The Caps are now 12-2-1 at home this season.
» Goalie Semyon Varlamov lost for the first time in five games since returning from a groin injury.
» Over their last five games, the Caps have killed 18-of-20 shorthanded situations.
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