Predators 3, Capitals 1
That was a stone cold dagger. The Caps played a pretty gritty, business-like road game for most of the night against Nashville. They needed some luck. The Predators had plenty of quality scoring chances, after all. But the same thing could be said at the other end where Pekka Rinne was a wall in net for Nashville.
Ultimately, though, you have to finish. And when Washington took a 1-0 lead on Troy Brouwer’s goal with 4 minutes, 46 seconds left to play they had a let down on the very next shift. Some shoddy support from the forwards – the top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Brouwer was on the ice – allowed the Predators to quickly tie the game 28 seconds later. Defenseman Jeff Schultz was forced to choose between stepping up in the play or allowing Shea Weber to drive past him on the wing. Schultz stepped up, Weber skated past and he found Martin Erat at the far post for a tap-in goal.
Erat was the man who made the initial pass into the offensive zone. It was a nice play. And it didn’t hurt that in the same motion he knocked away Brouwer’s stick. Brouwer reached down to pick it up. I can only guess that Backstrom thought he had help behind him. Defenseman John Carlson tried to take away the passing lane and didn’t and Erat had already beaten the unaware Backstrom to the spot and slammed the puck past goalie Tomas Vokoun (28 saves).
You know the rest. A nice scoring chance at one end by the fourth line – which had a strong game, in my opinion – turned into the game-winner at the other end when John Erskine broke his stick and Erat’s scoring chance landed on Colin Wilson’s stick as he drove the net. Not exactly the way you want to open a three-game road trip.
“This is a tough one to take,” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters afterwards. “I thought for 56 minutes we played as good as we could play. Then we scored the goal. The last two periods we totally, I thought, dominated. We scored to take the lead and then we stopped playing. What are you going to say?”
Boudreau thought some of his players saw the initial pass from Erat as offsides. But you do have to play to the whistle.
Ovechkin finished with four shots on goal, but couldn’t find a way to beat Rinne, who was brilliant with 39 saves. Boudreau moved Ovechkin to right wing tonight, a move he sometimes uses to spark his star winger.
The Caps had 31 seconds of a 5-on-3 in the first period and another 24 seconds of 4-on-3. But Rinne was up to the challenge and those missed opportunities hurt later. Washington at one point was being outshot 10-2 before settling down and recording the last six shots of the first period. The rest of the night the Caps battled for every inch of ice as both teams
Washington took just two penalties, showing again why it is one of the league’s least punished teams. But one of them was from Alex Semin, who now has 12 minors on the year and 24 of the Caps’ 130 minor-penalty minutes (18.5%). That’s not good. Otherwise, Semin did have some jump tonight. He finished with four shots and tested Rinne several times. But everyone’s still waiting for him to break through. You have to think when he does he’ll rip off four or five in a short burst. Don’t you?
Caps have to put this behind them quick. Watching the post-game video on the team’s official web site they have a similar look of shock about them that we saw after that Dallas game. It’s a tough league. Got to get over it and find a way to grab a win in Winnipeg. Washington (10-5-1, 21 points) did a lot of things right on Tuesday night against the Predators. Do the Caps build on that or let it carry over?
“I thought we were doing it the right way. We were grinding and keeping the puck low. I don’t think we were taking very many chances there toward the end,” forward Mike Knuble told reporters in Nashville. “I know [on the game-winning goal] I was down on my back and then…they came right down and scored. It’s frustrating. Guys are as upset as I’ve seen. That was frustrating. We really battled to get that lead and then they tied it right away. The minimum we should do is take it to overtime. I don’t think we did it recklessly. I think it just kind of happened.”
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