Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

For the Capitals, another season ends in the second round of The playoffs. The Capitals lost game 7  by a final score of 2-0. After six consecutive strong periods of play, the Caps failed to finish strong in the final period of game 7. 

The first period was a fairly even period. The Capitals came out strong like you would expect from the home team. The Penguins weathered the storm and had a pretty good final 10 minutes in the first. Washington out attempted Pittsburgh 13-4 in the first thirteen minutes, Pittsburgh then out attempted Washington 10-6 in the final seven minutes.

The second period was mostly Washington. The Capitals out attempted Pittsburgh 27-14 in all situations and 25-13 in 5v5. The only problem with the second period was they gave up a goal.

Pittsburgh out attempted Washington 20-15 in the third period, 14-11 while at full and even strength.

Possession
Nate Schmidt was a +10 in shot attempts, he had 24 attempts for and 14 against. He was 63% on the night.

Kevin Shattenkirk also had a good night in shot attempts. He was +9 having 22 attempts for and 13 against, that’s 62%.

T.J. Oshie also put in the effort. He was a +8. He had 17 attempts for and 9 against, that means he was 65%.

Andre Burakovsky, who was 71% for this series was just 48% in game 7.

Karl Alzner, who played just 8:42 (Winnik played 8:41 which was the lowest on the night for WSH) had just 2 attempts for and 6 against. He was 25% for the night.

As for the Capitals star players, Backstrom finished the game at 56%, Ovechkin finished at 53% and Carlson also finished at 53%.

As with most games, most of the Penguins finished on the wrong side of 50%. Malkin finished as the best Penguin on the night at a mere +2.

Bonino was -11 and 33% and Dumoulin was -10 and also 33%.

Sidney Crosby finished even, 11 attempts for and 11 against.

Faceoffs
Washington controlled the faceoff circle for most of game 7. They finished each period 60% or better. 61% in the first period, 63% in the second period and 60% in the third.

Backstrom finished at 14-22. Kuznetsov was 6-13, Eller was 6-12 and Beagle was a perfect 8-8.

Justin Williams was 2-2 and Oshie and Johansson were a combined 0-2.

Bonino was the best Penguin at 50% going 9-18. Crosby was 6-19 and Malkin was 7-17.

Final Analysis
I’m choosing to blame this series on three things. Losing games one and two on home ice. Not winning Game 4 with Crosby out of the lineup. Then finally the obvious one is the lack of desperation in the third period in game 7.

Braden Holtby also got out battled. This game however is not on Holtby’s shoulders at all. Holtby made several huge saves, particularly when the game was 1-0 and the outcome still in question. Holtby did nothing but keep his team in the game, while his offense could not beat Marc-Andre Fleury.

By CJ Witt