Courtesy: USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — The Washington Capitals found themselves ahead of the Ottawa Senators 3-1 after one, but that lead was considered an afterthought after what happened in the remaining 40 minutes of regulation as the Senators left Verizon Center 6-4 victors.
“It’s tough… we need wins right now,” Capitals defenseman John Carlson said in regards to the way Washington gave away last night’s game. “That’s certainly [ a game] that we can look back on and really make sure it doesn’t happen again because it’s not a good loss.”
No loss is ever really a good loss, but Carlson had to be fuming after his late third-period goal brought the game back to a tie at 4-4. Washington was lucky to even be in that position as the Senators outskated them over the final two periods and woke up after a first period that featured goals, penalties and a questionable call on defenseman Tyson Strachan.
Strachan was given five minutes for fighting Ottawa forward Chris Neil after he delivered a cheap shot on Washington defenseman Nate Schmidt. While Neil was only given an additional two for interference, Strachan received a two-minute instigator penalty and a 10-minute misconduct. Oates commended Strachan after the game for sticking up for Schmidt, but some around the media questioned whether or not a misconduct was warranted. Considering the same could have been called on Colin Greening of the Senators for an early fight he started in the second period in the second and wasn’t, Oates, was in the right to plead his case to the officials.
That being said, the zebras weren’t entirely to blame and anytime a team has to look to the officials and question some calls, usually they don’t deserve the game in the first place. Mike Green had three lazy penalties throughout the night and unfortunately was unavailable to chat with the media following his poor effort. However, forward Marcus Johnasson summed up his team’s performance quite well.
“We have to be sharper… we have to be more disciplined I think,” Johansson told reporters. “I think that’s why we got those penalties. We’ve got to get better than that.”
Sometimes, it looks like the Capitals try to get too cute offensively and seem to put the basics and fundamentals in the background. Oates and the rest of his team should be disappointed in allowing the Senators to come back and overtake his team after they failed to put the foot on the gas after the first stanza. Forward Eric Fehr had a nice goal last night, but it wasn’t his personal accolades that he was talking about after the game.
“I think we just [have] to keep things simple,” Fehr said. “When we get a lead, we start thinking it’s going to be easy and we change our game again. We just have to realize it’s a 60-minute game and you can’t try to shift gears and play a different way. There’s a reason we [were] up 3-1 and we [have] to play that way.”
Brooks Laich said it best when talking about the Capitals finishing an entire 60-minute hockey game.
“I think we saw two very different teams from us, ” Laich said about the difference between the first period and the rest of regulation. “We saw a very good hockey team in the first period taking shots, three goals [and] did a lot of things right. The rest of the game we saw a very bad hockey team. Bad decisions by penalties, getting outworked and we looked very unstructured in the last 40 minutes. It’s unfortunate because I thought we played one of our best first periods of the season.”
Sometimes, games like this just leave players and coaches speechless. Sometimes, it leaves them frustrated and infuriated. Washington goalie Braden Holtby didn’t know what to take after last night’s disappointing loss. He knew he wasn’t very good as most of Ottawa’s goals were ones he would definitely like to have back. This is a tape he won’t learn a lot from as he simply wasn’t technically sound as much as normal.
“It’s a save I need to have,” Holtby said on the game-winning goal he allowed. “Gave [them] an opportunity to win the game and we probably shouldn’t have… that’s why I have to come up with the save.”
Adam Oates was a little more fired up than Holtby as he described the loss as “lousy”. The bench general wasn’t even pleased with the way his team performed in the first period. Despite scoring three goals, penalties told the story for the Capitals. While he understands that the tempo of the game was somewhat slowed down due to the amount of penalties called, he wanted his guys to maintain their identity and also keep the foot on the gas, which they failed to do. Oates said while it may have been an exciting game for fans to watch, it’s one he and the rest of the coaching staff want to put behind them.
“We played a solid game in Toronto; we played lousy tonight… lousy,” Oates said. “Not good decisions… we get a lead and we still don’t do the right things, even though on the third goal that we score, we get the goal from doing the right thing. Brooksy’s goal came from what we talked about all day long… the very next shift, we turn it over twice. That’s mental to me.”
Mental mistakes and not keeping sound fundamentals killed the Capitals in the loss. This is one where the stat sheet doesn’t necessarily tell the story. Washington got comfortable and let the Senators rally back when they had them in a vulnerable position after one period of play.
Notes: Washington is now riding a four-game losing streak and faces the Montreal Canadiens at Verizon Center Friday night for the second time in a week. Face-off is set for 7 pm. The regulation loss to Ottawa is the first regulation loss for the Capitals to the Senators since March 12, 2006. Ottawa had dropped five of their last seven games and had allowed at least four goals in those respective losses… this is the first game in eight games where they allowed four and won the hockey game.
