Short answer: the second the game started.
…but I suppose we can talk about a few things in this one. The first period, which was where the wheels came off (and never really got put back on), saw the Caps fell behind 3-0 in the first 14ish minutes of the period and gave up two of the three on the power play.
So that was bad. Then it got worse. Logan Thompson – who struggled in the first period for sure, but was hardly the only reason for the deficit – left the game after the opening frame with an apparent upper-body injury.
But wait, there’s more! Less than 10 minutes into the second period, Logan Stankoven extended the Canes’ lead to four, and it appeared that the wheels weren’t just off, they had rolled away and were on their way back to DC.
Alex Ovechkin gave us a little glimmer of hope and happiness when he scored #39 on the season, #892 for his career, and most importantly for the game at hand, #1 for the Caps past Frederik Andersen.
Oh, and also nugs. We do love nugs.
That would be the high point of the game for Washington, though, as the third saw another goal for Carolina and then pure chaos, with multiple fights and fracases breaking out and causing the final 10 minutes or so to take an eternity to get through. Weirdly, after all of the nonsense, the only coach throwing a fit and screaming at refs was the idiot whose team was up by four (and doing dangerous stuff like this).
If you need another silver lining – and boy, howdy, we all really do – it was that Ryan Leonard’s performance was very good, as he already looked more comfortable, generated some good offensive chances (relative to his teammates) and continued to not shy away from anything physical. Would still like to see him find a little better chemistry and timing with his linemates going forward, as everything’s just a little off, but that will come.
As for the rest of this team, it’s easy to chalk this up to a schedule loss, and that likely played some role in it. But they are capable of playing better than last night and just didn’t. Hell, they are capable of playing better than they have in a couple of these games down the stretch.
They’re in the playoffs, they’re going to win the East, they’re going to win the Metro division, so maybe it’s all down to these guys finding it hard to get motivated while playing out the end of the schedule and they’ll be fine in the playoffs.
They’ll be fine in the playoffs.
Anyway next up are the mighty Blackhawks back at Capital One Arena, an opponent the Capitals surely won’t overlook….