Courtesy: Geoff Burke – USA TODAY Sports
WASHINGTON — Through four games this season, the Washington Capitals have been outshot in three of their four contests and find themselves 1-2-0 in those respective games.
Washington has been a team in the past that has predicated themselves on peppering goaltenders and creating opportunities all over the ice. And it’s not that the Caps haven’t had their fair share of chances this season as they have and haven’t been badly outshot. This issue is more based on the defensive efforts by the team collectively.
Far too often this season, Capitals defensive pairings have been struggling with communication and they are asking guys like John Erskine to contribute in ways that they haven’t in the past. Erskine has been pegged as a second-line defenseman and he clearly is not on that caliber. John has always been looked as an enforcer for this Capitals team and is more comfortable as a third defenseman. He simply doesn’t have the speed and agility to keep up with some of the better offensive players for any NHL team. Erskine isn’t the only issue though.
The Capitals have had a problem backchecking with their forwards to help the defense as opponents have had success in transition and creating open-ice situations. Allowing guys to have their way in the slot and in front of goalie Braden Holtby won’t keep the Caps out of the loss column.
Tonight, they face a Colorado Avanlanche team that is quite aggressive and feeds off of the energy that their head coach Patrick Roy provides. P.A. Parenteau and Matt Duchene have stood out as forwards thus far and the Capitals will have to key on these two guys if they hope to prevent the undefeated Avanlanche from setting up their offense.
Clearly, the Capitals still don’t have the talent on the defensive side of the puck and their youthful prospects are still extremely raw. Connor Carrick has been optioned to Hershey and Steve Oleksy still gets some foolish penalties. However, when Alexander Urbom made his debut for the Capitals against the Hurricanes Thursday, he added a lot of quality minutes for Washington and head coach Adam Oates.
This game will come down to the Capitals winning the battle of possession in Colorado’s zone and being able to dig themselves out of their own. If I’m Adam Oates, I’m focusing on sending two forecheckers each time a puck goes into Colorado’s zone because if the Avalanche are allowed to dictate the pace of the hockey game, these young guns could run a quick blitz of points on the struggling Capitals.
