For the first forty-one minutes of the Washington Capitals’ Saturday night tilt against the New Jersey Devils, it appeared as if the Caps were stuck in what’s become familiar territory in recent weeks. They began the evening with an early parade to the sin bin, putting a maligned penalty killing unit out on the ice three times in the game’s first ten minutes. They were lucky to get out of that stretch only being pierced once. They couldn’t make it through the rest of the period unscathed however, as a Luke Hughes bomb from long range helped spread a lingering sense of dread within a Capital One Arena crowd that’s become accustomed to it lately.
The Caps were listless offensively throughout the next twenty minutes. Sure, they had the Devils beat in most possession metrics as they have with most of their opponents this season. The difference here being that New Jersey had the Washington beat when it came to the quality of their scoring chances, holding Washington to the perimeter and keeping Jake Allen’s territory clean. If Washington was going to get anything out of this game, they needed a spark. Someone to break the seal and pump life back into the arena.
For that, they’d go to a familiar source.
It’d come just a minute into the third period. Alex Ovechkin would find himself with some room to work with as he retrieved the puck out of the corner, and the Devils would respond how you’d expect a team to upon seeing the NHL’s all-time leading goal scorer in open ice. That made it easy for Ovechkin to use his gravity to find Connor McMichael all alone in front of Allen to put home a goal he badly needed:
McMichael would return the favor several minutes later, as the two were buzzing throughout the final frame. He found Ovechkin hanging out not too far away from where McMichael opened the scoring for Washington, and the Great 8 would waste no time in evening things up for Washington, and bringing hope back to an arena that had all but lost it early into the game.
This would pave way for an overtime period that reflects a larger conversation with the team as it stands this far into the season. Ethen Frank, Ryan Leonard and Hendrix Lapierre would watch the post-regulation festivities from the bench, much as they did most of the third period. Washington, already down a center in Pierre-Luc Dubois and shifting away from the Connor McMichael experiment at that position, chose to make themselves even thinner in the latter stages by effectively removing those three from the game.
Washington would be unable to break through in overtime, and they’d watch as attempts from McMichael and Ovechkin, the two responsible for them getting to that point in the first place, went unsuccessfully. It was encouraging to see that top line roll the way they did throughout the third period, but for the Capitals to turn things around, they’re going to need to figure out how to fill the void in their mid-six center positions and the wingers in their orbit. Moving McMichael there didn’t work. It appears they’ve lost confidence in Lapierre being the answer either. It’s worth wondering if there even is an answer on the roster as long as Dubois is out.
Under better circumstances, being happy with getting a point out of this game and not putting too much stock into the crapshoot that shootouts are is a reasonable sentiment to have. Unfortunately, this was against the backdrop of what is now the Capitals’ 8th loss in their last 10 games, as they find themselves just two points ahead of the last-place Buffalo Sabres in the Eastern Conference. The messaging that this is a talented team that’s played better than their record wears thin as we approach Thanksgiving with them out of a playoff spot. It’s not quite time to pull the fire alarm, but things have headed towards that territory over the last couple of weeks.