[AP Recap – Game Summary – Event Summary – WashingtonCaps.com Postgame]
Try as he might, Sean Avery simply wasn’t able to give last night’s game to the Washington Capitals.
A pair of selfish, stupid, and unnecessary penalties committed by Avery in the game’s last ten minutes (one of which found the Rangers forward lucky to only be in the box for two minutes rather than five) gave the Capitals chances to beat Henrik Lundqvist a second time and send the game in to overtime, but the Capitals couldn’t make Avery and the Rangers pay and will ultimately be sent back to Verizon Center down three games to one.
But even though Avery’s antics might be the sexier story, the more important one for the Capitals is the team’s inability (or unwillingness) to adapt their play to stay competitive on the Rangers. Aside from their Game Three victory the Capitals seem to be stuck in a Groundhog Day-eqsue cycle of mediocre hockey marked by an inability to get shot chances on net, and unwillingness to go to the net hard, an over-reliance on underperforming players, and a lack of tactical adjustment beyond line shuffling.
The most maddening facet of the Capitals’ performance, to us fans, is that these problems seem entirely correctable. The Rangers have not overwhelmed the Capitals with their skill, power, or speed. They’re winning games by simply making fewer mistakes and allowing a frustrated Capitals team to beat themselves. The obvious thing to do in the situation is point fingers at the coach – and certainly Bruce Boudreau deserves to have his performance questioned just as much as any of his players do – but this is a problem that goes beyond the man behind the bench and encapsulates the team’s veteran leadership (Sergei Fedorov, Tom Poti, Viktor Kolzov), as well as its lead-by-example skaters (Alexander Semin, Mike Green, Alexander Ovechkin). The good news in this team-wide problem is it means it’s not a matter of one person alone stepping up and changing the team’s fortune. But someone, or better yet some collection of players, is going to have to give this team a swift kick in the you-know-what if the Caps want any chance of rebounding and making it out of the first round.
Some additional thoughts on last night’s game:
This season, last season, and in last year’s playoffs the Capitals were at their best when they seemed to be facing impossible odds. Here’s hoping they’re able that trend alive on Friday, and here’s hoping for just a little more help from the hockey gods when it comes to the bounces and the posts.