Caps 4, Sabres 2
You know it’s going to be a good night for the Caps when Matt Bradley, David Steckel and Jason Chimera are filling up the ol’ stat sheet. The third line combined for two goals and five points in a 4-2 victory over Buffalo on Wednesday night at Verizon Center. Check out our game story here for all the details.
That trio had not started a game together all season and Steckel couldn’t recall playing a shift with the other two, either – though it’s possible they could have skated together briefly at some point. Even after this game, Bradley has spent just 8.31% of his even-strength shifts playing with Steckel and Chimera. Steckel was at 7.32% and Chimera at 5.67% with the other two.
Washington again struggled to maintain a sizeable lead – 3-0 midway through the second period. But it just wasn’t going to be that easy. Buffalo scored twice in 48 seconds and the Caps needed a strong performance from rookie goalie Michal Neuvirth to keep the Sabres at bay. It’s been a frustrating trend in recent days.
“Yeah, we’ve been really upset with ourselves the last couple of games – Tampa, same with Buffalo [on Saturday] and Atlanta [on Sunday],” said Caps defenseman Karl Alzner. “It hasn’t been fun playing games where you’re up and you let them come back. So we’ve been talking about it a ton.”
Neuvirth finished with 31 saves on 33 shots. He kept a handful of quality chances by the Sabres out of the net during a critical power play with less than nine minutes to go and continued a trend of playing better in the final period. Neuvirth stopped all 10 shots he faced in the third.
“Yeah, [Neuvirth] played well in the third,” said Buffalo forward Jason Pominville. “We can give him credit or we can say that we didn’t find ways to score. It’s a little bit of both. It’s frustrating, but we know we dug ourselves a big hole right off the bat.”
“That’s been the result so far – again and again with [Neuvirth],” Caps coach Bruce Boudreau added. “I think it’s the experience of having to go through two championships in the [AHL] playoffs. He knows when to buckle down and he’s protected the lead really good for us this year. He’s growing up. You can see it before your eyes.”
Another rookie garnered mixed results. Marcus Johansson was promoted to top-line center alongside Alex Ovechkin and Mike Knuble. That’s a scary proposition for a 20-year-old Swede who had never played in North America before this season. But Boudreau wanted to break up Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Semin. As good as that trio has been it’s harder for opposing coaches to give their shutdown line one assignment when those players are separated.
But the revamped No. 1 line didn’t register a point and Johansson looked tentative at times, deferring to Ovechkin when he should have shot and keeping the puck when a pass would have been the better play. Johansson played 15:04 on 17 shifts. He took two shots and had two more blocked. He also blocked two himself and won a team-best 10-of-15 faceoffs. But Johansson also sat out a shift very late in the first period – replaced by Backstrom – and didn’t set foot on the ice after the 10:07 mark of the third period with Washington still clinging to a 3-2 lead.
“[Johansson] worked hard and he skated. I thought he did an okay job. I got to imagine for a young guy that you have some angst when you’re playing with Alex [Ovechkin],” Boudreau said. “Just putting myself in that position: ‘Do I skate with it? Do I pass it? Do I look for him?’ And it takes a little bit of getting to know somebody and we really haven’t had a lot of time to practice.”
During one specific sequence, Johansson appeared to have enough speed to get around a Buffalo defenseman and make a charge at goalie Ryan Miller. But instead he saw Ovechkin looping around behind and tried to give him the puck. The scoring chance dissolved.
“I think [Johansson] dropped it there because there was a same play earlier where he kept it going in the neutral zone and he could have passed it,” Boudreau said. “So he was a little ‘Should I or shouldn’t I’ at times? But that comes with experience.”
Alzner had a nice response when asked about his secondary assist on Bradley’s goal. The defenseman got deep into the offensive zone, chipped a pass to Chimera also behind the Buffalo goal and then watched as Bradley took a perfect pass and chunked it past Miller. We’ve seen Bradley showcase some sweet moves on occasion. This one? Not quite a thing of beauty as Alzner noted with a healthy chunk of sarcasm.
“It doesn’t happen too often when I’m in below the goal line in the offensive zone. But that is a play that I’m familiar with,” Alzner said. “The puck’s along the boards, just chip it by. We got lucky that their d-man played me a little bit softer than he would have liked if he were to do it again. But Chimmer’s got that speed and great vision by him…And a hard finish by Brads. He really pounded it in there…No, seriously it was good. Nice to see. He got 10 last year so he can do it. He’ll get more.”
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