With new team, goalie should face fewer shots For four years, new Capitals goalie Tomas Vokoun toiled in obscurity for the perpetually rebuilding Florida Panthers.
With little offensive talent in front of him, Vokoun was asked time and again to bail out a blueline that just wasn’t very good. The numbers tell the story. The Panthers allowed 33.6 shots on goal a game in 2007-08 — Vokoun’s first season with the team. That ranked 29th out of 30 NHL teams. The next year they dropped to 30th (34.7). They remained last in 2009-10 (34.1). Even with a dramatic improvement last season (31.8), that pushed Florida up to only 22nd overall.
Vokoun, who entered the season with the second-highest save percentage of any goalie since the NHL lockout in 2004-05, was at times the only thing standing between Florida and complete chaos. So Vokoun never had to worry about mentally getting into a game with the Panthers, whom he will see Tuesday when his former team visits Verizon Center for a game against the Caps. Chances were the rubber would start flying early and often.
| Notes |
| » Capitals goalie Michal Neuvirth said a bruised right foot is keeping him out of the lineup. Neuvirth left practice Monday after just 15 minutes. |
| » Neuvirth took a shot off his right foot during pregame warmups Oct. 10 vs. Tampa Bay. He had practiced for more than an hour Saturday after Washington’s morning skate. |
| » Caps forward Jay Beagle, who suffered a head injury during Thursday’s fight vs. Pittsburgh’s Arron Asham, again didn’t participate in practice. There is no timetable on a return, according to coach Bruce Boudreau. |
“That’s not the case here. You can go one period with 15 shots, and the next one you might get two,” Vokoun said. “As much as it seems it’s easy when you’re not getting shots, it’s the toughest time for goalies because you start thinking. Your concentration level — if you want it or not — can start wandering.”
Washington was ninth in the NHL last year at 29.0 shots allowed per game. Vokoun believes he could run into trouble if he can’t figure out how to deal with long lapses between shots on goal.
“[The Caps] can go a period where we’re a puck possession team and we have the puck all the time and even if the other team wanted to shoot they can’t because they don’t have the puck,” Vokoun said. “And sometimes you kind of get a little bit on our heels for whatever reason, and then all of the sudden there’s shots from all over the place.”
Not that everything is running at an optimal level right now. In Vokoun’s three starts so far, Washington has allowed 28, 41 and 34 shots. He stopped just 23 (five goals) in an ugly effort Monday against Tampa Bay — his first start of the season. That dropped to two goals on Thursday vs. Pittsburgh and one Saturday against Ottawa. Vokoun helped steal the Penguins game, and his third-period save on a semi-break by Milan Michalek preserved a one-goal lead vs. the Senators.
“I just thought the first game wasn’t so good, the second game was really good and [Saturday] was really, really good,” Washington coach Bruce Boudreau said. “So you hope [Vokoun] keeps adding one of those reallys into every game.”
