Recap: Thrashers 4, Caps 2

The panic tonight is bad enough that I wonder if it’s time to resurrect the Washington version of a joke I read on another team’s board. (Even though the original joke was told about a different team).

The top line has skated together in exactly one of six preseason games. I’m not surprised the timing is off. I was surprised to see such a sluggish attitude though.

I’m not worried yet. It was the first game of the season, going against a revamped team, and there was quite a bit of sloppy play from the top 2 lines. I’m sure they’ll get it fixed, and we’ll see the Caps back to normal soon. The bigger worry to me is when the Caps will learn to change their system when they’re facing shot-blocking teams.

Frustrating shit sandwich of a game for sure, but not worried in the big scheme of things. We’ll get there, and who knows, if this team gets knocked on its ass a few times during the regular season in order to not think its invincible during the playoffs, I’m all for it.

For anyone else still up and in need of a little laugh after tonight’s loss and Pavelec’s scary collapse, The Onion is here to help: NHL Finishes Freezing Water For 2011 Season

Poor Becca, once again you have the Recap duties for the bad games.

huge respect for Atlanta to step it up and not let what happened to Pavelec cause a team-wide meltdown (not that I would have blamed them one bit).

Liked some things from Johansson. He had a nifty steal in the defensive end around 4:30 into the 2nd period. His skating is silky smooth.

My take on this game as a relative newb is that we will have to be patient with the progress of our young defenders. It’s not the end of the world that they weren’t able to turn it on at the end and they did end up paying the ultiimate price for early turnovers and extended ice time in their own zone early. The key is can they respond with anger and purpose in putting together a complete game at home.

What were people’s impressions of Alzner?

On the PK, while they were “technically” 3 for 3, Green’s “hand on puck” and the resulting penalty shot happened just after a penalty had been killed and the Caps were still in their own zone. (A topic I admit to harping on a lot. The PK isn’t over until time had expired AND the puck is OUT of the defensive zone.)

Caps looked out of sync all night. Just not quite on. I wouldn’t worry about it though, they’ll get it straightened out. It’s the first game of the season.

Neuvirth looked much better than his 4GA makes him appear. The D left him out to dry all night long. And some of those goals were pretty fluky (the last goal, no way he gets to a deflection that late…and penalty shots are always hard to stop).

The Caps are going to need to figure out how to score on the pp when teams are sitting low and just blocking loads of shots. Need to work on either getting some sort of cycle set up, or somehow getting past the shot blockers. After the Montreal series, everyone’s going to use this until the Caps figure out how to beat it.

Bleh.

What a crappy effort.

Now is the time to panic. That looked a lot like the last 3 games of the Montreal series.

Tweet from Chris Vivlamore the Thrashers beat writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (@ajcthrashers)

Ondrej Pavelec reports from hospital that he is feeling better.

Looking at the stats, I see a few encouraging things.

First, the PK. It went 3 for 3. That might be the new system, or it might be playing Atlanta – but it’s a good start. Poti is no longer the PKTOI leader among Caps dmen – Schultz is (3:02), with Green just behind (3:00), and Carlson 3rd (2:22). Poti was actually 4th tonight (2:14). However, he was called for a penalty, so that might be a factor. Steckel and Hendricks were tops overall, with 3:15 and 3:06. Bad part – why did Alzner only get 1:22 of PK time?

Second, the PP. Both PP units saw time tonight, with 8 players getting over 2 minutes. However, both Ovie and Green did have over 5 minutes – which means Green was seeing too much TOI again (5:04 PP, 3:00 PK, 19:34 ES). But rolling both PP units is good – there are plenty of skilled players, and fresh players on the PP might help. No scoring on the PP tonight, but that will come.

Third, Neuvy. Aside from the PS goal, he looked pretty good. One goal on a horrible turnover where the forward pretty much walked in, one goal on a point-blank deflection, one goal on a quick shot right off a faceoff. All 3 are more on the defense than Neuvy.

I’ll panic when we are in danger of falling out of the playoffs. Looked really rusty, and for the most part “off”. Glad that Neuvie kept it respectable….

Well, that was scary and depressing all at once…

1) Here’s hoping Pavelic is going to be ok. That was scary….

2) Mike Green did not cover up the puck in the crease. What he did do is pick up the puck and toss it up the ice, committing a closing the hand on the puck penalty. What Green did was covered in rule 67.4 of the NHL Rulebook:

67.4 Penalty Shot – If a player, except a goalkeeper, while play is in progress, falls on the puck, holds the puck, picks up the puck, or gathers the puck into his body or hands from the ice in the goal crease area, the play shall be stopped immediately and a penalty shot shall be awarded to the non-offending team. See also Rule 63 – Delaying the Game.

I added the emphasis in the paragraph above. Green didn’t have to cover the puck, he picked it up and tossed, and that is a penalty shot.

3) It is not time to panic…well unless you’re going to the game tomorrow and live along the Va. Orange line. Anyway, to get to the Arena from there isn’t too bad: Take the Orange line to Rosslyn, then switch to the Blue, go past the Cemetery to Pentagon, then switch to the Yellow line and take that straight to the VC.

4) Erskine had a nice hit, the two Caps goals were nice plays, but these were few an far between. Hopefully the Caps can get some more nice plays tomorrow.

5) Somehow Mason had Ovechkin beat in that game… I don’t think that AO will have that issue often this season.

Anyway, we know the Caps weren’t going to 82-0-0 this season..so here’s looking at 81-1-0…

But then, I’ll settle for 52-20-10 for 114 points…

But this doesn’t mean jack.

We’re making the playoffs. Let’s live and learn until then. Not a great game, but whateves.

Was a little concerned that the PP sucked again. 81 more practice games to figure it out.

Eh, it’s one game early in the season with less experience up the middle and a lot of new faces.

I’m more concerned with all this talk within the org about staying angry and focusing on playoff success. That’s a long time to be angry, or try.

There was some NBA guy on an almost-championship team who said the next year the biggest collective mistake was not taking the time to enjoy playing each game the next regular season and it wore them down from within.

OV looks flat out of shape. I guess he really didn’t think about hockey this summer as he has often said. I think with that attitude he doesn’t make the best captain for this team. Wish they had chose Brooks or maybe Knuble.

Agree they didn’t look "angry"’, just ill prepared.

I have to admit, I was expecting a little more panic, even from our generally measured commentariat.

I love the community here.

Best defenseman on the ice? John Erskine.

Wow. I think we must have been watching different games. The whole night, Erskine looked like the AHL defenseman he ought to be. He was slow, constantly reacting to the play rather than anticipating it, his flubbed the puck off his stick, he missed his outlet passes and generally looked on the cusp of taking a penalty the entire night.

I suppose that, given the performance of the other defensemen, he looked better, but he only reconfirmed that the Caps need to upgrade the bottom half of their defense and soon.