Courtesy: Geoff Burke – USA TODAY Sports
WASHINGTON — Despite two goals from Alexander Ovechkin, the Washington Capitals fell to the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 at Verizon Center Friday night.
The Capitals have dropped their last two contests and tonight’s result was not due to getting outclassed by the Canadiens, rather they once again started off slow and it proved to be detrimental to their success in the hockey game.
“Whether it’s being more ready in warmup or more crisp in warmup, we’ve gotta find some way,” Capitals forward Troy Brouwer said in regards to the slow start. “A big problem of ours all season long is our starts; getting down by goals, sometimes multiple goals, and we have the ability to come back in this game, but you’re not going to be able to do it every night.”
“Whatever we’re doing right now isn’t working, ” Capitals forward Brooks Laich spoke to reporters on behalf of his second line. “Whether it’s spending some time with your linemates, D-partner, five-man group, something… we have to change something before the game so that we are prepared. It used to be the strength of our hockey club, especially in this building. We used to get a field goal almost every first period.”
It’s no secret that the second line has to perform better and head coach Adam Oates knows it. He switched Martin Erat and Laich before the game trying to get something out of his second unit, but they were once again unproductive and were held off the ice a little longer than usual at times. Going forward, deep hockey teams are the ones who go the farthest and also ones that play disciplined.
“Tonight, I’m a little bit more mad at some of the older guys to help the young kids out,” Oates said. ” We all watch our shifts; we all watch video and we have a simple formula. When we don’t do it, we give them chances… and then we ice the puck and they get a face-off goal. It’s the same results. Sometimes, it’s hard to answer the questions because I have to deal with them tomorrow. I don’t believe in sharing our stuff publicly so it’s difficult.”
The lack of discipline he alluded to came even from his captain as Ovechkin took an uncharacteristic roughing penalty at 8:27 0f the third period. While the officiating was someone questionable throughout the night, Washington beat themselves, especially in the defensive end. They allowed over 30 shots once again and even the return of Mike Green didn’t spur the defensive efforts.
Green didn’t look half bad, but it took him a period to regain his legs. At the point when he and his team regrouped and refueled and put together a solid final 40 minutes, it was too late.
“We kind of ran out of time,” Green said. “Their goaltender made some big saves; we definitely made a push at the end.”
Peter Budaj was stellar in net for the Canadiens tonight and even Ovechkin had to give out credit where credit was due.
“He’s a good goalie,” Ovechkin said. “He [can] make a big save. Of course, when the goalie makes those kind of saves, it gives you more confidence. You could see in the third period, we had lots of opportunities to score, but we didn’t.”
Washington must have short memories of this one as they are back on the ice Saturday night in Toronto to face the Maple Leafs. Face-off is scheduled for 7:00 PM EST.
Notes: Washington was outshot 31-27 by Montreal. The Capitals outhit the Canadiens 26-20. Washington had 13 giveaways and takeaways respectively, while Montreal had five giveaways and seven takeaways. Washington won the face-off battle 45-32, but blocked less shots as Montreal prevented 17 shots as opposed to 15 from reaching their respective netminder.
