Long post alert, folks. 😛
Finished watching the Caps blow a lead a night after killing the buzz of a four-minute power play by taking three consecutive penalties and subsequently giving up a ton of special teams goals against a team that was 1-7 in their last eight.
It’s painful being a Washington Capitals fan, especially in recent years. Everybody knew the Caps would be bad last year, and they didn’t disappoint. This year, everyone still thought they’d be bad, and once again, it’s looking like they won’t disappoint. The problem is that unlike last year, when they’d get blown out regularly during much of the year, they showed quite a bit of promise the first half of the year.
See, being a fan, a lot of times, is all about expectations. If you’re reasonable and honest about where your team is, then you can handle most anything without going crazy. It’s those in-between times, where your team does something drastically different from what you expect, that drive you crazy.
So, an hour plus ago, I got finished watching a rather frustrating game — one that the Caps led against a really good Sharks team, 2-0, and then ended up losing in a shootout, 3-2. The way this thing was going, I’m sad to say I just knew they’d lose if the game got to a shootout. Of course, that’s not hard to predict, considering the Caps are something like 1-8 in shootouts this year. *sigh*
Anyhow, seems to me that this team has six major problems:
- They can’t consistently clear the defensive zone. No matter what the situation, it seems that the Caps have at least about five or six times during a given game where the other team spends a prolonged period of time in the offensive zone, peppering the Caps’ goalie with shots, the usual result of which is a couple of cheap goals here and there, and the Caps defense seems absolutely unable to keep this from occuring. I’ve watched or listened to just about every game this year, and every time it seems that guys either are out of position at critical times or act like they don’t know how to bank pucks off of the boards with the requisite amount of strength to get it past the opponents’ pointmen, or they try a clear up the middle at the worst possible time, or something. Maybe this is because…
- … the Caps have a lot of players on the roster that flat-out don’t belong in the NHL. I don’t mean this in a completely bad way — due to injuries (I sense a segue coming…) and, in some fans’ opinions, a poor choice of front office strategy (or at least poor execution of said strategy), this team has had to rely on a lot of guys that don’t have a ton of experience. Can anyone realistically claim that the Caps have a true NHL-grade #1 defenseman? (Or even someone who knows how to put pucks at the net from the point on the power play?) How about a halfway decent playmaking center, the type that people with Ovechkin’s and Semin’s talent could turn into a 90- to 100-point assist machine? (Do you really think that all of the wingers that played with Gretzky over the years were Hall of Fame quality? He made Marty McSorely look like Boom Boom Geoffreon there for a couple of years. Not saying that Ovechkin and Co. are that good, but you get my point — look what he’s done for Chris Clark.) How about a shut-down defensive forward? Coming up empty? Thought so.
- They’re really banged up right now. Hate to play the injury card; it reeks of loser talk. But the Caps have no chance with Kolzig out, and they’ve had their best defenseman (Pothier — be very afraid that he’s the Caps’ best) and one of their playmakers (Zednik — ditto the “afraid” comment) missing for good periods of time, and the other assorted injuries certainly haven’t been good for business.
- They manage to come up small against the division. Florida has the Caps’ number, and the Panthers suck. (Let’s be honest — who do they actually have in goal now that they stupidly traded Luongo away? They have any consistent scoring other than Jokinnen?) How is it that the Caps can play so well against San Jose (tonight), Anaheim and Buffalo (back in December) and then not bring it against Florida and a Tampa team that’s not as good as they expected to be? Back when this Southeast Division was formed, I think I drank the Kool-Aid along with a bunch of other Caps fans and thought they’d rule this thing for ages to come, not having to deal with Brodeur or the Penguins or the Flyers, who up until this year ruled the Caps; boy, how’s that one going?
- They can’t win shootouts. This one’s vexing. They’ve lost eight points on this one. I mean, the Law of Averages says that you’d at least get three or four. Considering how much firepower this team can field from time to time, 1-8 is downright appalling. And on a related note…
- … they have trouble closing out opponents these days. Maybe that’s the injuries and the fact that guys have to play more and get tired, or guys who Hanlon wouldn’t normally trust end up playing in critical situations out of necessity, but this is one of those things that has worsened over the year. Earlier this year, they’d get down early on occasion, but they were never really out of the game, and they frequently made heroic comebacks and won their fair share of those comebacks. Now they can’t even hold leads. What’s up with that?
Hopefully the Caps can turn this around and at least finish the year respectably. They’ve managed to play with our expectations this year, veering sharply upward for long enough to get us accustomed to higher expecatations, and then came crashing back down to what was predicted in the preseason. Well, at least the Caps on my fantasy team are doing alright. 😛