Photo: X/@Capitals
You could not draw up a worse way to end a eight day road trip for the Washington Capitals. A 6-0 whitewash against the Arizona Coyotes, who have now won five straight games, is less than ideal for a team that was coming off another lifeless performance against the defending Stanley Cup Champions. Outside of maybe the first 10 minutes of the first period, the Capitals had no answer for the high-flying Coyotes.
“I mean they just score on everything so I knew right away, [Darcy Kuemper] looked a little bit off so then you’re on guard there and hoping that it can stop the bleeding,” Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said after the game. “But once that third [goal] goes in and their power play was really good, slinging around the puck movement on the tape everything [is] clean, then it got out of hand.”
Arizona has now won five straight, all of which have come against recent Stanley Cup Champions, and improves to 13-9-2 on the campaign. Washington on the other hand has dropped two straight and fall to 12-8-2.
Here is what stood out.
Everyone Out Of Sorts
Carbery had talked a lot about making sure everyone is on the same page to have success. Monday’s matchup was far from that. Passes were not tape-to-tape; guys were puck watching and they overall just looked flat. This was despite a solid first 10 minutes, where the Capitals outshot Arizona 8-0.
“There’s points where we control play and we do some good things in the offensive zone. We just really got to get to work and work with our skill development and work with our individual players on creating separation, being able to make a play out of pressure, odd-man rush execution, tape-to-tape plays, little small area plays in tight areas,” Carbery said. “We just got to get to work as an organization on developing that and working with our players on it.”
Once the Coyotes scored on their first shot of the game, there was no turning back. One turnover after another, one missed pass after another, it was just an ugly game all around. But it’s one that the Caps can immediately throw into the garbage, especially considering that it was an overall solid road trip.
“A loss is a loss obviously. You don’t like seeing that number put on the board,” Tom Wilson said after the game. “But it was a good road trip. Boys battled hard. It sucks to lose the last one. We got to learn from it, get home and start building momentum again.”
Special Teams Struggle
The Capitals went 0-for-4 on the man-advantage and 2-for-4 on the penalty kill. The penalty kill had been a bright spot for the Capitals during their five-game win streak back in November; but after giving up two power-play goals on Monday, the Caps have allowed eight of them over the last six games.
Meanwhile, they allowed an ugly shorthanded tally on a 2-on-0. The Coyotes’ power play was moving the puck very quickly and capitalizing on the chances they had. They have the fifth best power play in the league at 26.8%, ironically run by former Capitals assistant coach Blaine Forsythe.
Washington’s power play unit ended a lengthy drought in the 5-4 win over the Anaheim Ducks. But it once again struggled to put the puck in the back of the net despite having its fair share of looks against Arizona. The Caps had five scoring chances on the power play and seven shots on goal.
Goalies Left Out To Dry
The Capitals Twitterverse will say otherwise, but the truth is that Darcy Kuemper and Charlie Lindgren were victimized by the guys in front of them. From bad turnovers to missed coverage, it was far from the goaltenders’ faults.
Kuemper let up three goals on five shots before Lindgren came on in relief. Kuemper was visibly frustrated after he was yanked, smashing his stick against the boards.
“It’s never fun to go in mid game. I felt really bad for [Kuemper]. Honestly there’s just a couple bad bounces,” Lindgren said. “The first one hits off a skate for him, third one goes off [Nic Dowd’s] stick. Not much you can do and then they got all the momentum there. I hop in, they get a couple more and then I think getting to the first intermission it’s kind of about just settling down and just taking a deep breath.”
Lindgren did not mention Michael Carcone’s goal which made it 2-0. It was a long wrist shot from the high-slot and one that Kuemper arguably should have stopped.
Lindgren had a couple of good saves throughout the game. It probably could have been 9-0 had it not been for him. He ended the night with 19 saves on 22 shots.
Notable Numbers
Not a lot of observations from this one so we will just stick to numbers.
- Arizona had 10 takeaways compared to Washington’s 4
- The Capitals had 4 giveaways
- The Coyotes outshot the Capitals 27-26.
- The Coyotes blocked 21 shots.
- The Capitals had 12 high danger chances at 5v5 compared to Arizona’s 5. 6 of which came in the third period.
- The Caps had 22 scoring chances at 5v5.
- The Caps were 44.6% in the faceoff circle.
- Tom Wilson and John Carlson each led the team with four shots on goal.
The Capitals will return home for a Thursday night matchup against the Dallas Stars.
By Jacob Cheris