Good morning, Washington Capitals fans! Hopefully you slept better than the Caps played last night. Thursday’s game against the Blues in DC was great for the Caps, but last night was an entirely different story. On one hand, the Blues took control of the game fairly early on and never looked back. On the other hand, the Caps did not do much to put up a fight. This road trip is pretty important for the Capitals, and last night is definitely not how they wanted to kick it off. Charlie Lindgren tried his best in net, but the Caps got approximately zero offense going to help him out.
Three Takeaways:
- The Caps only had 18 shots on goal last night, and only 13 of those were at even strength. If they want to win games, this surely isn’t the way to do it. During the third period, when they were down by two goals, the Caps went more than ten minutes without recording a shot on goal—they only had four shots throughout the entire frame. That is a super ineffective way to try and get a comeback going.
- Washington’s offense was just struggling in general last night. Passes were sloppy, puck movement was sluggish, and the team looked incredibly disorganized. Coach Carbery acknowledged as much in his media availability after the game: “Puck play was as bad it’s been all year, in terms of stringing passes together tape-to-tape. … Really struggled to just simply handle pucks tonight and be able to make anything happen offensively. Frankly, to be able to get to that part of our game, it wasn’t even close.”
- Last night was the fifth time the Capitals have been shut out this season. The only team that has been shut out more? The San Jose Sharks (7). Oh, and last night’s shut out happened at the hands of Jorden Binnington? That makes it even worse.
They Said It: