Three things we’re talking about today when we’re talking about the Caps…
1. Gone in 126 Seconds
If the Caps are going to have any success in their first-round series against the Rangers, they’re going to have to keep games close. Falling behind by a goal is by no means fatal, but digging a two-goal hole makes for a big ask and going down three is probably lights out for a team that struggles to score (they only managed three goals in a game 38 times during the regular season, and the four it would then take to win 24 times). So when the Rangers opened the game’s scoring just past four minutes into the second period and added two more in rapid succession, things went from bad to worse to over for the Caps.
The Caps did manage to get one back after getting run over by that snowball and got two more power play chances to narrow the lead further before the Rangers salted this one away, but that two-minute series of unfortunate events (from Alex Alexeyev somehow losing the biggest player in the League to Vincent Iorio not moving the puck up the board quickly enough to an unlucky deflection and arguably a missed penalty call) was the game.
Oddly, though, in an “other than that, what’d you think of the play, Mrs. Lincoln” sort of way, the middle stanza may have been the Caps’ best period on the afternoon.
“Honestly,” Coach Spencer Carbery said, “I don’t mind our second.” –The Washington Post
It’s not hard to see why. Pundits will point to the first period as the type of game the Caps need to play in this series – an ultra low-event slog that frustrates the Rangers and mitigates the massive talent gap between the teams, turning the match-up into a game of bounces and, well, luck. But is that really what happened? It depends whether you’re looking at shot attempts or shots on goal:
Shots on goal (SF/SA) were 1-1. Shot attempts (CF/CA) were 13-2 in the Rangers’ favor. The second period, by contrast, graded out in the Caps’ favor across the board:
That’s better control of the game, and it’s what Carbery liked about an ultimately disastrous period. And, yes, there are some score effects at play here, but the Caps were more competitive in terms of possession and shot generation/suppression in the second than in the first (or third, for that matter):
Putting it all together…
So you’ve got a bad stretch in a decent period in a not-great (but not out of character) game. Make of it what you will.
2. No Offense
Related to the first point, the reason three goals was always going to be insurmountable in this one was that the Caps generated almost nothing offensively. That, of course, was sorta part of the plan – slow the game down, make it a slog and hope to catch some breaks. But, as noted, the Caps managed just two shot attempts at even-strength in a penalty-marred first period (the Rangers had 15) and, perhaps more frustratingly, mustered up three shots on goal on four full (i.e. fruitless) power plays, including nary a one on their last best chance to get back in the game early in the third.
The heatmap of five-on-five shots is ugly (and speaks to how “perimeter-oriented” their game was):
The Caps finished the game with 21 shots on goal, the same number of blocked shots that the Rangers had, and now have exactly one goal with an opposing goalie in net in each of their last three games (see bullet point #1). Alex Ovechkin had no shots on goal, and neither did T.J. Oshie, Connor McMichael, Sonny Milano or Connor McMichael (Aliaksei Protas led the way with a half-dozen).
So is it as easy as “throw more pucks at the net and create traffic in front” and “dump and chase on power play entries”? Probably not… but this ain’t it (and, of note, their lone goal was a seemingly rare feed to the front on a net drive).
3. Attention to Detail
The reality, of course, is that the Caps will need to play near-perfect games to beat the Rangers. They don’t have anything close to the talent that New York has, but that talent gap can either be minimized or exacerbated by how the Caps do the little (and not so little) things. Things like getting to the red line on an unpressured dump-in or not taking an undisciplined cross-checking penalty to negate a power play (looking at you, Max Pacioretty) or doing whatever it was Tom Wilson thought he was doing on his infraction. Things like zone entries and not allowing two goals to the fourth line. And yeah, you’d probably like to see Charlie Lindgren make the stop on Artemi Panarin, especially given how he’s played of late.
The Caps did a lot of things right on Sunday. The Rangers only had two power plays (none after the first period) and just two even-strength shots on goal in 12 minutes in the first period. But even outside of the goal outburst, the Rangers were clearly the superior team and the Caps will need to adjust to that if they want to make this series interesting. And that starts with their attention to detail.