Recent hot streak belies stretch of sloppy play
They are winning games early this season and again have the NHL’s best record. But that does not mean the Capitals are completely satisfied, either.
A compressed schedule with a game almost every other night has limited practice time — not a unique problem during the long NHL season — and also left a looseness in Washington’s play that coach Bruce Boudreau would rather not see.
So with consecutive days off for the first time since the start of November, Boudreau gave his players a needed rest Monday and still had time for a structured practice Tuesday at Kettler Iceplex. Will that be enough to eliminate that sometimes sloppy play when the Caps host the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night at Verizon Center?
“When we come back into our [offensive] zone we’re swinging instead of stopping and going to spots,” Boudreau said. “In the neutral zone we’re being lazy and we’re not getting up with the play … and so it makes it easy for [the opposition].”
Boudreau also knows his team has won seven of its last eight games anyway with the one loss in overtime. That was Saturday night against the Sabres, who shook off an early 1-0 deficit to rally for the 3-2 victory on Tomas Vanek’s winner.
“They came out strong,” Washington defenseman Mike Green said. “That’s the thing, you can’t underestimate any opponent. Buffalo’s a good hockey club and they have a great goaltender.”
That would be star goalie Ryan Miller, who played well for the Sabres on Saturday with 23 saves. Then again, he wasn’t tested very often, especially during an ugly second period. The Caps, who finished with 25 shots total on Miller, need to be better in the rematch.
“Sometimes you have it like that. It can be hard to realize that [everybody] play terrible, except [rookie goalie Braden Holtby],” Caps forward Alex Ovechkin said. “He keep us in game. But we didn’t push back how we [are] used to. … But we still got a point and that’s nice because of how we played that game.”
Buffalo got off to a miserable start this season at 3-9-2 and with just eight points in 14 games. Even worse, the Sabres were 0-6-1 at home at HSBC Arena — at least until they beat Washington. But they have turned a corner lately. Since Nov. 6, Buffalo is 4-0-1 with nine points. All five of those games have gone to overtime.
