Capitals 4, Rangers 3 (OT)
Click here to read my game story from lohud.com.
Click here for the boxscore with links to the game summary, etc.
Click here for Alain Vigneault’s post-game press conference video.
Thoughts:
1) Well, that was a pretty interesting, new way to get a point. Everything’s relative. Compared to where the Rangers were and what they were doing last month, this 4-3 overtime loss to the Big Red Washington Machine was a masterpiece. Compared to what they were in previous seasons, and where they want and hope to eventually be this season, this was another nightmare.
2) I’m trying to be even-keeled here because A) This could have been a magnificent win, and very nearly was at the end regulation, and then when Rick Nash and Derek Stepan had those chances in overtime, B) at 2-0, this looked like it was going to be a pretty lousy loss. At 2-0, it looked like this was going to be a pretty short game review, too.
3) Alain Vigneault saw it as another step forward, and I don’t completely disagree, because other than those two unbelievably lousy plays by Dan Girardi on the first goal and Derick Brassard on the second, I thought, again, they defended well overall. I thought their compete level was high. I thought most of the guys, but not all, moved their feet most of the night, but not all.
4) If the Rangers defend that way, play that way, against most of the imperfect teams in the East, they’ll be fine … for the regular season. Would I fall off my chair in shock if they have a really good second half? No. Would I be surprised? At this point, yes. Do I expect them to be awful? Nope. But being “not awful” is hardly the mission statement. They won’t put that on their T-shirts.
5) Having said that, the fact that these things are still happening so frequently – the way they defend, defend, defend, then break down for a too-easy goal-against – tells you a lot about this Rangers team. So many uncontested goals scored by wide-open players in dangerous areas. Again, I didn’t think there was a lot of poor play by the Rangers in this game. I just think there were some atrocious plays. This isn’t the Rangers team of any of the previous four seasons. It just isn’t.
6) I am coming to terms with that now. As I said this last week, and now that we’re halfway into the season, I will ask again: Which player is playing better this year than last year? It’s been argued J.T. Miller has, but he certainly hasn’t made a giant leap. Anybody else? Anybody? And last year you could argue, and I certainly would and did, that 1-through-6 the Rangers defense was best in the league. Now they’re not even among the best. The way they’re playing individually, they might be among the worst. Starting, of course, with the top three. We’ll get into that in a minute.
7) That also said, and I had this conversation with one of my favorite Boneheads last night, I don’t see, at all, this team winning multiple playoff series. I don’t see it making much of a run, if any. I see the East as such a pile of imperfect parity, mediocrity to a large extent, that there remains nobody other than Washington that’s head-and-shoulders above the Rangers. I mean, maybe Montreal if its playing at the top of its game and Carey Price is healthy (big ifs)? Who else? And though Washington is the best team in the conference by a lot – a lot – right now, how will the perennial chokers handle the first round against anybody as a favorite. So, no, I don’t think there’s zero hope for the regressing Rangers. I just don’t expect much.
8) Along those lines, the Rangers organization should send Thank You cards to Mario Lemieux & Co. for blowing up that organization and just wrecking it.
9) Getting back to last night, and talk about burying the lead, Henrik Lundqvist sure seemed to disagree with Vigneault about the Rangers needing a timout after that icing with 56 seconds left, clinging to a 3-2 lead, Braden Holtby on the bench for an extra attacker (and I mean attacker). I kid AV a lot for saving his timeouts as if they were Marriott points or something, and he does. And I understand, totally, the idea that when you take a timeout the opponent gets a timeout too. Barry Trotz had used his timeout to challenge the Viktor Stalberg goal. So if AV uses his in the last minute, it gives Alex Ovechkin and all those gunners a chance to catch their breath, and a chance for Trotz and his staff to draw up a play. Fair enough.
10) But, I contend that if two teams are gassed, generally the attacking team has the edge. It’s easier to play 6-on-5 tired, easier to play offense tired, and easier to draw on the adrenaline of the moment to attack than it is to defend tired. I though the Rangers looked tired, and by the time it got down to 10-15 seconds left, they surely were. AV said that Dominic Moore was fairly fresh, and that if Ryan McDonagh was tired he could have come to the bench and said so. He didn’t. He said his team practices and knows its 5-against-6 coverage, didn’t need to draw up anything. All of that is completely fair. He knows his team way better than any of us do.
11) Henrik Lundqvist, though, seemed to disagree. “Our players were tired, there’s no question, so a little break there before the last faceoff would have been good,” he said. “But we didn’t take that break, so we got caught out there.”
12) I will say that tired, even dog-tired, is not an excuse for three players – McDonagh, Kevin Klein and Derek Stepan – all ignoring, abandoning, Nicklas Backstrom at the top of the crease to bury Justin Williams’ rebound. None. If they were fresh, would they have? “We definitely should have been trying to defend the front of the net there, myself, and take away that guy’s time and space.”
13) Of the 499 career goals Alex Ovechkin has scored, he probably never had an easier one than the one he had gift-wrapped by Dan Girardi on the power play with 14.8 left in the first. Lundqvist handed it off and Girardi, behind the net, tried to make a little pass to Moore. AV called it a “pop play” that they make on the PK, and I assume that means just moving it to the forward in the circle, or in the middle, and let him get it out. But any other play probably kills the period. Off the glass, flipped high out of the zone, even back behind the net to McDonagh. Girardi handed it to Ovechkin, and Lundqvist was still not in the net. A great period gone bad.
14) I should add that Viktor Stalberg had a wonderful (sarcasm) shift before that, making the blind drop pass to nobody that turned into a great chance that Lundqvist stopped, then taking the dumb penalty with :34 left in the period. So even if Girardi gets that puck out and it’s 0-0 at intermission, Washington’s power play takes the ice to start the second with a play drawn up and a fresh sheet of ice, and there’s a good chance it’s 1-0 anyway, and a pretty good chance Ovechkin has something to do with it. But the way Girardi gave it up (Kevin Hatcher/Michael Kostka-esque), and when, was very damaging.
15) Girardi said he didn’t see Ovechkin, or he would have put it off the wall; he shook his head that, of all people, it had to be Ovechkin (well, he does tend to hang out in that left circle on the power play, no?) and that it was just “a sick feeling.” But that’s one of the reasons I wonder about this team and its defense. This isn’t Girardi’s first cough-up. The deterioration of his entire game (aside from the Corsi charts) to me is plays like that with the puck, repeatedly, often with only token pressure. He’s had moments, and games like these. He hasn’t had half a season like this.
16) And his partner, who had two assists and was named the third star of the game at MSG, wasn’t very good, either. McDonagh was on the ice for all four Washington goals, committed some turnovers, one of which eventually led to a goal, and missed the net 2-on-1 from Rick Nash, shooting it behind Holtby and wide of the far post. There was nothing he could have done on the first Caps goal, obviously. We mentioned the tying goal at the end of regulation. In OT, Ovechkin sure backed him off – he’s done that to great defensemen a few times – on the 3-on-3 goal to win it, with a signature shot between McDonagh’s legs that, even if Lundqvist did see it, would be almost impossible to stop.
17) The other goal wasn’t totally his fault, either. In the second, just an terrible read and mistake by Brassard, almost as bad as the Girardi play, but with much less attention. McDonagh was in deep with the puck, both Mats Zuccarello and Tanner Glass (who came on for Miller) in the crease. Brassard decided to go for a change. He went all the way across the ice to change. McDonagh did a toe-drag and got leveled by Ovechkin (see photo) as his shot/pass went wide, leaving Girardi by himself, on the right point, while Nate Schmidt sent Williams on a clean breakaway. Moore, off the bench for Brassard, had no chance to even make it a race. Lundqivst almost made the save, but the shot hit the post, hit Lundqvist and trickled in. Two terrible plays, 2-0, in an otherwise formidable performance to that point.
18) Indeed, the Rangers had a ton of chances just before that went awry, and Braden Holtby made some very strong saves – was forced to make far more saves than, for example, Roberto Luongo in that armchair 40-save shutout last week. The Rangers got to the net this time, got tips, got screens, got to rebounds. They didn’t just try to create off the rush, and they also created off the rush. These are signs that they are making strides.
19) After the Ovechkin Christmas present goal, by the way, Zuccarello, Brassard and J.T, Miller enjoyed ringside seats on a great chance in the slot by Brooks Laich with :2.1 left. Holy shishkebab. They followed the goal that gave the Rangers a 3-2 lead with another mayhem shift in their own end. That line, which once upon a time was the first line, is just a disaster in its own end now, and also not producing much offense. Not nearly enough.
20) But the Rangers fought back. And they nearly won it when Holtby stopped Nash in close in OT, and Stepan took the rebound wide, had Holtby beat and somehow Nate Schmidt got the toe of his stick on Stepan’s shot before it went in. As usual with 3-on-3, when that happens it goes the other way. Of course. Game over. (Wasn’t it the game against Newark when Stepan hit the pipe and the Devils scored on the 3-on-3, or am I confusing it with another game?).
21) Oscar Lindberg’s one-timer from Moore cut it to 2-1 in the third. Holtby should have flipped his helmet off before the shot.
22) Then Kevin Hayes, with the Rangers looking to tie, the building finally awakened, took a lazy penalty against Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson! Just five feet behind the Capitals’ goon, and tried to hook him up high. Awful. Then he atoned with a Jack-In-The-Box goal, seven seconds after being released, when he knocked in McDonagh’s rebound. Holtby should have flipped his helmet off before the shot.
23) Stalberg then did his own atonement, deflecting McDonagh’s shot past Holtby, who should have flipped his helmet off. Stalberg scored the goal with Ovechkin’s stick stuck in his skateblade.
24) Lundqvist not only gave up four again – how many are you blaming him for this time? – but also put some pucks in bad spots stick-handling. Another game that makes you think, at other times this season and in other seasons, he makes one or two of those saves. And he made some big ones up 3-2.
25) Jayson Megna. His speed and will added something again to the Stepan line (I actually thought that line was pretty dangerous again). He deserves to stay, IMO, but if he’s their first-line right winger, uh oh. Megna hased down the Stepan flip-pass early for a break-in on Holtby. Drew a penalty on Oshie off the bank-pass from Nash. Chris Kreider is coming back Monday vs. Boston, I would assume. Not sure if AV makes the move to Dylan McIlrath, too. But I wouldn’t sit Megna, though I have no idea who comes out for Kreider.
26) The stats guys have made some pretty good arguments here and elsewhere, and they’ve at least gotten my attention. But if they want to convert people, need to stop with the nonsense that Emerson Etem was the best Ranger, or one of the best, or even one of the top 20.
27) Barry Trotz thought Marcus Johansson hit on Brooklyn’s Thomas Hickey was “pretty legal.” Holy mackerel. In what universe? I mean, how bad does it have to be for the NHLDPS to suspend a player for two games? Trotz (Kenny Albert’s old roommate) is a pretty good coach, though, and now he’s got a really well-built, deep, two-way team with some bite and speed, a formidable, mobile and big defense and, for the moment anyway, a top goalie. We’re going to find out a lot about that team in the springtime. I need to be convinced. Right now, it’s pretty awesome. BTW, how about Trotz using two defensemen to start the 3-on-3?
28) Oh yeah, almost forgot. Ovechkin=Monster. I’m not sure what it is, but he’s a better player now than I’ve ever seen him be. (Is that even English?).
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My Three Rangers Stars:
1. Dominic Moore.
2. Oscar Lindberg.
3. Keith Yandle.
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Kenny Albert’s Three Rangers Stars:
1. Kevin Hayes.
2. Viktor Stalberg.
3. Oscar Lindberg.
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Your poll vote for Three Rangers Stars:
1. Tie, Viktor Stalberg, Oscar Lindberg, Dominic Moore.
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Photos by Getty Images.
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