Photo: @Capitals
The Washington Capitals lost to the Ottawa Senators by a score of 5-2 at Canadian Tire Center on Thursday to fall to 2-3-0 this season. Goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 39 saves in the loss.
Capitals’ Lines at Ottawa
Alex Ovechkin — Lars Eller — Conor Sheary
Joe Snively — Dylan Strome — T.J. Oshie
Marcus Johansson — Connor McMichael — Anthony Mantha
Aliaksei Protas — Nic Dowd — Garnet Hathaway
Dmitry Orlov — John Carlson
Martin Fehervary— Nick Jensen
Erik Gustafsson — Trevor Van Riemsdyk
Kuemper
Charlie Lindgren
Scratched: D Matt Irwin, LW Beck Malenstyn
Injured: LW Carl Hagelin (hip, missed fifth straight game, out indefinitely); RW Tom Wilson (ACL, fifth, indefinite); C Nicklas Backstrom (hip, fifth, indefinite); RW Connor Brown (lower-body, first, indefinite)
Suspended: C Evgeny Kuznetsov (one of one)
With Kuznetsov unavailable, Eller bumped up to the top-line while McMichael drew in and Strome moved down. Snively also slid in and Sheary skated on the top-line with Brown out. Mantha bumped down in favor of Snively. Protas was also demoted. The Capitals also swapped their top two left-handed blueliners.
First Period
Scoring
10:01 (five-on-three PPG), 1-0 WSH: Oshie finished Johansson’s pass from behind the net after Johansson circled the offensive zone and Oshie went to the roof over the glove of goaltender Anton Forsberg. Oshie has five goals in his last three games in Ottawa. Johansson has one goal and four points through five games.
𝘴𝘢𝘶𝘤𝘺 𝘴𝘯𝘪𝘱𝘦 pic.twitter.com/GpWaMFqSDr
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 20, 2022
10:35 (PPG), 2-0 WSH: Mantha bombed one over the glove of Forsberg from the right dot after Orlov got Sheary’s pass from below the goal-line and fed him at the top. Sheary extended his point streak to three games (two goals, three points). Mantha and Sheary co-lead the team with three goals. The team has scored on five of their last seven opportunities on the man advantage.
Mo with an absolute heater pic.twitter.com/ruwMduskM4
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 20, 2022
Shots: 12-6 Washington
Other notable stats: The Capitals scored on both of their power plays and had no giveaways while Ottawa had 10 but the Ottawa led 13-3 in hits through 20 minutes. There were no takeaways.
Second Period
Scoring
5:52, 2-1 WSH (PPG): Right-wing Drake Batherson finished a tic-tac-toe passing play over the glove of Kuemper on one knee back door after right-wing Brady Tkachuk laid a pass from the right half-wall.
DeBrincat ➡️ Brady ➡️ Drake ➡️ GOAL 🤌#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/BonNIMuBHV
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) October 21, 2022
7:39, 2-2 (PPG): Batherson wristed his own rebound over the blocker of Kuemper in front after deflecting defenseman Thomas Chabot’s point shot.
Drake with the cheeky chip over the pad for his second of the game 🚨#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/DCGKzEBIv8
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) October 21, 2022
McMichael wrestled and took down right-wing Parker Kelly after Kelly hit Carlson in open ice with 1:45 left.
Shots: 21-17 Ottawa (including 15-5 in the second)
Other notable stats: Ottawa won 63% of the draws and led 22-15 in hits. Each team converted on half of their four power plays. Washington led 14-9 in blocked shots and was credited with three giveaways while Ottawa had 12.
Third Period
Scoring
5:53, 3-2 Ottawa: Center Shane Pinto was left open in the slot and ripped one past the blocker of Kuemper to complete a triangulation passing play that started behind the net.
Don’t blink when Shane Pinto’s in front of the net! 🚨#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/xtYYhrO7iG
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) October 21, 2022
19:24, 4-2 Ottawa: Right-wing Tyler Motte chipped one to himself to the left dot, skated to it, and wristed one into an empty net.
19:53, 5-2 Ottawa: Right-wing Alex DeBrincat wristed a shot into an empty net from the blue line.
Shots: 44-24 Ottawa (including 22-7 in the third)
what a save from kuemps pic.twitter.com/coFnGBlitk
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) October 21, 2022
Other notable stats: Ottawa won 64% of the draws and led 28-24 in hits. The Capitals led 21-12 in blocked shots and had six giveaways while Ottawa was on the board for 17. Each team scored twice on four power plays.
Next game: Saturday vs. Los Angeles Kings (7 PM ET, NBC Sports Washington in-market, ESPN+ out-of-market)
By Harrison Brown
Had to put this here as well…sorry…
Shots- Ottawa: 44; Washington: 24
Hits-Ottawa: 28; Washington: 24
Faceoffs-Ottawa: 34; Washington: 19
Outhit, outhustled, outplayed in every facet of the game. Injuries are an excuse….this team is struggling. Gut check time.
Also, when CMM has to stand up for 74, we have a heart problem.
Also, younger faster team blew by the old boys. Hmmmmmm
+1 ^
big time…when Connor Mac has to drop them, well…
It was ugly. I don’t recall last time all skaters were below 50% in xGF.
Wow….nothing much has changed. Still leaving the goalie out to dry, doesn’t matter who’s in the net.
Can’t stay out of the box and they gave the other team the momentum and life. Can’t hold a lead. They are missing Willy big time. They needed to respond to the physical play and they didn’t do it. They got shoved around the ice.
Kuemper was actually pretty good, stopped 10 of 11 high-danger chances. Too many high-danger chances is the issue,
McM 8:33 even strength, 8:33 total. Protas 9:06 even, 9:06 total.
Ovi got 2 shots on goal.
In defense of Lavi, C-Mac was horrible tonight.
When you’re only on the ice for 8 minutes, you’re not the main problem. Didn’t help, yes. But not biggest problem tonight.
24 has now reached the point where he is scared on the ice. his “coach” has given him little playing time, and if he makes ANY mistake he is benched. meanwhile, veterans make constant mistakes and have no consequence. it’s this kind of “coaching” that leads to teams sucking.
side note…next time we play ottawa, i don’t know who we need to “bring up” , but someone needs to make kastelic pay for his running wild…several of his checks were borderline dirty. and no one on this current roster can do anything. i’d say mantha but he appears to be made of tissue paper. without wilson, our lineup has zero “snarl”. teams are not scared to take liberties against us now…
Garnet has provided toughness in the past, easing the pressure on Willy. What happened to him tonight?
Who’s gonna back him up? Sheary.
i wonder if actually rolling 4 lines more would help keep players fresher, ergo more energy every shift? also allows the other guys to get into the flow of the game…hard to get into the flow of the game when you only play 8-9 minutes and get irregular shifts…but what do i know?
I hear coaches brag after games when they have been able to roll four lines and analysts lament when teams haven’t. Also hear a lot of complaints how penalties disrupt rolling the lines. Locker went on at length during one game last year.
they only roll 4 lines when they are up big….but man it’s a good philosophy to roll 4 lines on regular shifts. gets everyone into the game and flow and each shift should have more energy. but again, i’m not a pro coach
The problem, several players were stinking it up. You gotta bench C-Mac with these kind of numbers:
so by your logic, bench carlson and oshie as well???
hell why stop with cmac , carlson and oshie…bench ovechkin and strome and marcus johansson, and orlov and TVR and sheary…i mean all those guys had WAY more minutes and were nearly as bad…maybe you’ve read my post, maybe not, but coaching means building players up. laviolette has broken mcmichael down mentally. the kid is scared to get on the ice because any mistake he makes equals bench time, and people like you say bench mcmichael but not seasoned vets for making the same mistakes. i feel bad for 24…he’s laviolette’s little whipping boy, while the veteran “leaders” suck ass and get a pass. come on man.
Do you remember? “It turns out the personal reason that kept Alex Ovechkin out of Tuesday night’s game was oversleeping. The Washington Capitals captain told reporters Wednesday that was benched by head coach Barry Trotz when he showed up late to Tuesday’s morning skate.”
wait a coach that actually holds ALL players accountable and not just beats up on young unproven players? say it aint so!!
shocking isn’t it!
He needs to play to improve his game. Or prove that he can’t. Send him to Hershey.
Soft, soft team.
I think this is the kind of team Lavi wants but I blame BMac for allowing it. We need to add toughness immediately or half the Caps will end up in the hospital ward.