Caps Capitalize Kings

One team in tonight’s matchup won the Stanley Cup 18 months ago. One team won it 5 years ago and have won one playoff game since. Guess which team dominated the ice?

For 18 seconds I had hope. Tyler Toffoli had a sweet opening shot that made the Kings look dangerous. Several chippy shifts later Austin Wagner schooled every Capital on the ice with his 200 foot play, keeping the puck on his stick as he weaved his way to the net. Unfortunately, the only Capital he didn’t school was Samsonov, their goalie. (As was mentioned on twitter, players with names starting with W need to start finishing their plays.) So of course a few shifts later, Carlson actually did put one past Quick and the tone of the game was set.

The Kings didn’t get many chances so they really did need to be able to put away the ones they got. Meanwhile the Capitals were getting a lot of chances, and Quick was looking a little unsettled. Sure enough, a much to aggressive play from him resulted in another Carlson goal; Quick lunged so far out of his crease and fell over leaving the net completely unprotected, it was too easy. My problem with Quick this year has been his over-aggressiveness, which in younger years was fine, when he had better reflexes and could get back in time. But a few years and two groin strains later, he hasn’t adjusted his game to reflect that. The rest of the team wasn’t up to the task of containing the Capitals either, barely able to make plays and once again this season, skating in circles trying to play catch up. An opportunity for a power play couldn’t be effective with only 38.5 seconds remaining…

… And by the time it was over you couldn’t even tell they’d had one. You couldn’t tell they even had offense for most of the second period. When they did finally get some chances it was because of a delayed penalty. I should have known they couldn’t get chances 5-on-5. Nor did they get any on the power play, or really for any of the second period. Shots on goal may have said 10-4 but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like another 20 minutes chasing their tails. A little bit of deja vu when the Capitals took another late period penalty, this time with 1:18 remaining in the period, so some more tased momentum. The third did bring the Kings a goal finally, as Blake Lizotte rushed into the goal and deeked around Samsonov before being smashed into the boards by Wilson. But Wilson was too late, the puck was already in the net and it was a one goal game. But instead of getting momentum from that, and closing the gap, Anze Kopitar took a hooking penalty. There were only 10 minutes left in the game after that and with the way the Kings were playing they weren’t going to get anywhere. Lizotte was single handedly trying to win it, and perhaps he could have, but one man does not make a team. (And perhaps he was trying to make up for the second goal – “I’ll take ownership”, Lizotte said, “that second goal, and it ended up costing us the game — lost Carlson going to the backdoor. Simple mistakes like that — need to be better.”) Kopitar had a shot only the force kept out of the net, but again with only 5 shots on goal the entire period, they were going to need more. Kopitar has been held pointless for the last four games. Toffoli going off for an illegal stick to the head with 5 minutes to go definitely wasn’t the direction they wanted to go. An empty net goal certainly wasn’t, but honestly even a 3-1 score was generous for the way they played.