At this point, the Washington Capitals season has to be viewed in terms of points. How many points needed to make the post season, how many available points left to be won, potentially.
A marathon overtime shootout loss to Boston March 14th was a killer. Make one shot, the Caps would have finished the week 3-1 with some momentum going into their midweek game with Ottawa. Instead, it was a 2-1-1 week leaving them six points behind the Bruins and Red Wings for the two Eastern Conference wild card spots.
“We have two power plays at the end of the game,” a dissapointed Tom Wilson said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to score a goal there; it’s not good enough. We have the game on our stick, and we’re supposed to be the guys that can make it happen, and we don’t.
“So, that’s frustrating. We needed that. We needed the two points, so it’s a tough one.”
There is still time for a playoff push, but several disturbing trends are developing that may be too big to overcome.
The Caps simply don’t have enough offense:
A 7-3 win against Calgary last Monday gave fans a flicker of hope. Maybe the offense was starting to click. That turned out to be fools gold. In against Philadelphia, Buffalo, and the Bruins, Washington managed just five goals in three games. Their shots on goal weren’t any better, just 25.25 on average. It’s unfortunate because goaltenders Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren have kept the Caps in almost every game this season, last week was no exception. Goalie wise, this duo might be good enough to make a deep playoff run but that won’t happen if they need to post a shut out every night.
Another week, no Ovi goals:
It wasn’t just last week either, in his last five games, the Capitals captain (and all time NHL goal scorer) has just one assist and no goals. He’s still second on the team with 22, but as we’ve mentioned before, Ovi hasn’t had a big scoring moment in months. What’s the cure? Does Washington look to bring a high powered scorer in the offseason to try to rejuvenate the Great 8, or is this generations greatest player going to leave the game not with a bang but with a whimper?
On the bright side:
There is some good news when looking at the Caps future. Rookie Ryan Leonard seems to have found some consistency, he had goals in three straight games (vs. Calgary, Philadelphia, and Buffalo) and is playing with a lot more confidence than earlier in the year.
Washington also signed defenseman Cole Hutson to an entry level contract last week. Hutson will suit up and practice with the Caps on Tuesday as Boston University was bounced in the quarterfinals of the Hockey East tournament, finishing the season at 17-12.
It’s expected the 19 year-old defenseman will spend the rest of the season in the DMV, then start next year in Hershey, although that could change, especially with the trade of John Carlson.
“And for us, we’ll just see how it looks. I don’t think we want to put too much into it,” GM Chris Patrick said. ” This isn’t an easy situation to come into, when you’re coming in late in the season, coming off your college season, having never been in an NHL training camp. So, we’ll see how he looks and I don’t think we’ll make too many decisions based off this little window of games here, one way or the other.”
Bob Matthews is a 33 year veteran broadcast journalist, spending the last 29 years of his career in Virginia. Bob has covered both news and sports stories and for the last three seasons, the Washington Commanders. He looks forward to continuing to provide coverage to Sportsjourney.com both on the website and through his podcast, The Bob Matthews Show.
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