Caps Bad Luck Continues

Capitals 1, Maple Leafs 7
Scoresheet – Wash Post – Star

This game reminds me of a joke. Why doesn’t Baltimore have a professional hockey team? Then DC would want one. The Caps looked lost, bewildered and generally played like an AHL team. Too many bad passes. Too many bad clears. Just too many bad plays. The Caps defense just didn’t show up.

Not to mention, this was one of the worst officiating jobs I have seen in a while. I don’t like to pick on the refs much, but two phantom trip calls (one was an obvious dive, the other never happened) hurt the Caps at the worst possible times. They were just bad calls. If it weren’t for bad luck, the Caps would have no luck at all. It’s not like the officials have to help them lose, the Caps are doing a good job on their own.

Overall Grade: F-

I am not sure how the Caps fix this. They have dropped their 5th straight game. Unless there is a turn around soon, the Caps will be scraping the bottom of the barrel sitting in last place in the Southeast Division. That is a long way from Alex Ovechkin’s lofty goal of making the playoffs. Looks like the Caps need to have one of those player only meetings.

The Capitals have taken two steps back on their special teams. The Maple Leafs were 3 of 5 on the power play, while the Caps could only muster 1 of 6 on their chances. The Maple Leafs made the goals look easy. The Caps penalty kill needs to find its zen again.

Ovie was the only goal scorer for the Caps. Brent Johnson was only able to stop 21 shots and hardly challenged any Leaf shot (he barely left the crease after an errant bounce from the boards burned him much like it burned Olie Kolzig in the Atlanta game).

If I had to pick out a positive about this game, the Caps hitting picked up late in the game with some good solid legal hits. If they had played this physical from the onset, this game could have had a different outcome.

The Islanders host the Capitals Saturday night. That is not much time for the Caps to reflect on this one, and that may be a good thing. I, for one, would like to forget about this one too. The Caps can not afford to lose another game, so they need to show some off some of that high powered offense.