Panthers 3, Caps 0
Call it a lost homestand at this point. The Caps are 0-2-1 with one game left on Saturday night. The last two games were against Eastern Conference teams not expected to be a factor in the playoff race. The power play was 0-for-8 against Florida. They have been shut out three times in 11 games and scored one goal or less in five of them. This is a team unaccustomed to such offensive struggles and it’s beginning to take a mental toll. Check out our game story here.
Washington coach Bruce Boudreau didn’t mince words after the game. He walked into his dressing room – moments after the Caps gave up a second-period goal with just one second left on the clock – and saw heads bowed and shoulders slumped. He tried to snap them out of it. But a couple of third-period penalties sapped any momentum they were trying to build during a frustrating 3-0 loss to the Panthers.
“My thoughts were our top six forwards weren’t very good. But our bottom six forwards were working their hardest and getting opportunities,” Boudreau said. “So I wanted to put at least one of those guys on with the [top] guys and maybe it would rub off, the energy would rub off. But quite frankly, if your best players aren’t your best players – and we’ve been shut out three times in the last 11 games, which has never happened – you’re not going to have success.”
There was more where that came from. Boudreau called out virtually all of his top players by name: Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Alex Semin, Mike Green, Brooks Laich and Mike Knuble. It wasn’t exactly done in the John Tortorella way. Boudreau even admitted that after bashing his team following its blown 4-1 lead against Toronto on Monday he would back off this time. Confidence – and not so much effort – seems to be an issue now.
The Caps have lost four in a row entering Saturday’s home game against Colorado. At practice on Friday morning they will certainly work on the power play. Ovechkin appeared to press at times, especially on the man advantage. Same could be said of Semin. Backstrom had a power-play turnover that led to a 2-on-1 break for Florida. Only a pair of nice saves by goalie Semyon Varlamov kept the puck out of the net on that one. By the third period, Boudreau had moved Ovechkin to right wing. That move jumpstarted him two weeks ago over a short two-game stretch. It didn’t have much impact on Thursday.
Let’s look at the numbers. Ovechkin has two goals in his last 12 games – granted, one each on Saturday night against Atlanta and Monday against Toronto. Knuble has two goals in seven games since returning from a broken jaw. Laich has two points in his last six games. Backstrom has just two assists in his last four games. And Green has gone ice cold. You wonder if a lingering shoulder injury is hurting him here. He has just one assist in his last 10 games since Nov. 17 and sat out two more because of injury during that stretch.
“This is a team that is just not accustomed to this. Now they’ve got to get accustomed to it because we’re in a dog race in the division and in the conference,” Boudreau said. “It’s not going to be a cakewalk and every team that plays us is ready for us and every team knows that they’ve got to check this guy and they got to check that guy. We have to as individuals change a little bit of the way we play.”
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