1. Match Point
Carolina’s top line of Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Jackson Blake wasn’t on the ice for any of the goals in Game 1, but they put on about as dominating an offensive display as you’ll see without finding the back of the net, usually with Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns behind them and often against Washington’s second line of Pierre-Luc Dubois, Tom Wilson and Connor McMichael and the Caps’ top-four defensemen:
Here, via NST, is Svechnikov against those seven Caps at fives, the septet he faced most often (and don’t forget, Aho took Dubois’ lunch money in the dot in the defensive zone):
Ostensibly that was Spencer Carbery’s preferred matchup (Nic Dowd was only on the ice for 2:10 against Aho, Dylan Strome 2:01 and Lars Eller 1:48, while Dubois played 10:33 against the Finn at fives), which is concerning, but… not entirely unfamiliar. Here’s Nick Suzuki in Game 1 of the Montreal series against those same seven Caps:
The big difference (besides the degree to which the Caps were pounded) is that while that Canadiens line was the only remotely threatening one they had, the Hurricanes have three more lines behind this one that are capable of doing damage and two of them did exactly that. If this was your shutdown power-versus-power line and they couldn’t even meaningfully slow down the opponent’s top line, it doesn’t bode well further down the lineup.
So what’s a coach to do?
One option is to stick to the plan and hope for better results, both in this matchup and, perhaps more importantly, in the other matchups – Dylan Strome’s line has to beat the Jordan Staal and/or Logan Stankhoven line; Lars Eller’s line has to beat the fourth line; Nic Dowd’s line has to beat whatever’s left over (and help out with Aho). Plausible approach. Defensible. Worked against Montreal (for the most part). But changes may be afoot…
Another option (the other option?) would be to sic Dowd (perhaps with Taylor Raddysh – a solid defensive forward – back on his wing) on Aho and free up the Dubois line to hopefully find some success in more favorable (but not necessarily favorable!) matchups. The issue there? In that 2:10 of shared ice time between Dowd and Aho last night, the ‘Canes outshot (attempts) the Caps 6-0 and had the only scoring chance. Miniscule sample, but over the past two regular seasons, in 29:25 together, Aho has a 63.6 CF% and a 59.4 xGF%… and each team has two goals.
On one hand, after a game like that (and the “game within the game” going as it did), you’ve gotta do something. On the other hand, trust the process, etc. This is where your Jack Adams winner-in-waiting earns his paycheck.
2. Shoot!
It’s hard to generate offense when you don’t have the puck. That much is obvious. But just how little offense did the Caps create in Game 1? Obviously there have been games in which they were shutout (which they avoided on Tuesday night), but in terms of shot generation, Game 1 was the single worst playoff output of the 157-game Ovechkin Era.
For the morbidly curious, their 34 all-situation shot attempts edged out a Game 5 (Round 2) loss to the Rangers in 2012 (35 attempts), and their 14 shots on goal were two fewer than in Game 4 (Round 2) against the Panthers a few years back (data via NST). But their 13 high-danger chances were 43rd out of 157. That’s mildly encouraging, but certainly not the “quality vs. quantity” balance they’re looking for – the Caps need a bit more of each. Rest assured they know it:
Ryan Leonard said the Capitals went over film this morning to go over breakouts and generating more offense. Said they just never got to their game last night but expect better for Game 2.
— Sammi Silber 🏒 (@sammisilber) May 7, 2025
Nic Dowd on the #ALLCAPS attitude today. No heads down and no one sulking. Productive day at the rink.
— Sammi Silber 🏒 (@sammisilber) May 7, 2025
“Today we're focused on individuals and how they can get their game ready for tomorrow.”
So, as always… we’ll see. The Caps have played 88 games so far this season, have generated a ton of offense and scored a bunch of goals. Now is not the time to panic. But there’s a difference between panicking and playing with a sense of urgency, and the latter is most definitely warranted.
3. Bear Market?
When the Caps lost Martin Fehervary for the remainder of the campaign late in the regular season, it was obviously going to be a massive blow to the team’s D-corps, not only on the penalty kill, but also in terms of maximizing defensive pairings and balancing minutes on the blueline (Alex Alexeyev, Fehervary’s nominal replacement in the lineup, is averaging 10:45 per night in the playoffs; Fehervary played 19 minutes per game in the regular season, and the downstream impacts of that on the other five rearguards are obvious).
Alexeyev played well in relatively sheltered minutes in the first two games against Montreal (especially in light of the stick he took in the mouth and subsequent dental work), but his play has fallen off since. His minutes have dropped commensurately, and he hasn’t hit ten minutes since Game 3 in Montreal (a 10:27 effort after a pair of 14-minute outings to open the series).
By Game Score, Alexeyev has been below zero (essentially indicating that he has been a net negative to the team’s chances of winning) in each of the last four games, including being the only defenseman on the club in the red for Game 4 of the first round, and in the only negative pair in Game 5. Game-by-game, it’s looked like this for the defense:
There are, perhaps, a few surprises in there, but Alexeyev’s struggles are clear (as are the ups and downs of the Rasmus Sandin-Matt Roy pair; for all the grief the Jakob Chychrun-John Carlson duo gets, that Sandin-Roy pair has been the Caps’ worst in half of their games so far, in typically easier minutes).
So what to do. First and foremost, playing Dylan McIlrath is probably not a great idea. Or a good idea. If you’re going to bring someone in for Alexeyev, it should be Ethan Bear who, not so long ago, profiled as a pretty solid player:
(Dylan McIlrath does not profile as such.) After dealing with off-ice issues, Bear had a bounce-back 2024-25 in the AHL, leading the Hershey, uh, Bears in scoring with 10 goals and 26 assists in 62 games while posting a plus-33 rating and was named to the AHL’s second All-Star team (he also played 58 games for Carolina a few years back).
Bear is righthanded, which would throw off the left-right mix, but… yeah, play that guy.
The Caps need to get back to a balanced blueline when facing a Carolina team that comes in waves, and that’s impossible to achieve if one of your defensemen is unplayable. Right now, they should think about finding out whether or not Bear is, because it’s looking more and more like Alexeyev is.