The good, the bad, the ugly against Coyotes
The Washington Capitals dropped a 3-2 heartbreaker to the Arizona Coyotes last night. But those reverse retro Screaming Eagle jerseys looked sick.
The Capitals had a 2-0 lead thanks to Alex Ovechkin scoring a milestone goal and Anthony Mantha. But then the Coyotes answered with three unanswered goals including the dagger with 35.4 seconds left to stun the home crowd.
It is the Capitals fourth loss in a row and second straight in regulation. This was the home game they had to win and now things won’t get any easier.
Monday night they got Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers.
Here was the good, the bad, and the ugly from the game. We’ll start with the bad.
The bad
The bad part of the game was that the Capitals challenged the Coyotes first goal due to goaltender interference. This was a risky play and of course the Capitals lost that challenge.
Josh Brown put the Coyotes on the board at 6:33. Then later on the Caps would pay the price at 9:45 when Nick Ritchie made them pay to tie the game.
Capitals head coach Peter Laviolette spoke to the media after the loss:
“It has kind of been the same story for the last four games. We have been not scoring a lot of goals, so if you are not scoring a lot of goals you have got to pay attention to defense and it needed to be better in the third.”
The good
At 8:55 in the second period, the Caps struck on the power play on a classic Alex Ovechkin shot from the office. It was his seventh goal of the season and 787th of his career.
His 787th goal passed Gordie Howe for the most goals scored with one franchise. He’s still chasing Howe for number two on the all time goals list but nobody has scored more goals with one team than Alex Ovechkin.
“Obviously it’s a huge moment. Last couple games there was some big milestones but unfortunately we didn’t get the win. Special moment and it’s nice to have both my kids and my wife there with the fans. My parents watched (in Russia), so yeah it was a special moment,” Alex Ovechkin told the media after the game.
Ovechkin is now 14 goals away from tying Gordie Howe’s mark of 801 career goals. He’s also 107 goals away from number one Wayne Gretzky.
The crowd went wild and when Ovechkin shot the puck everyone knew it was going to go in. As “Shake, Rattle and Roll” blared through the speakers which is Ovechkin’s goal song, I got flashbacks of 2005 as he did it in those black reverse retro Screaming Eagle jerseys.
The ugly
The ugly was that atrocious third period. It started with Jose Brown’s goal to put the Coyotes on the board. Then Nick Ritchie scored twice including the dagger with 35.4 seconds left.
Ritchie’s first goal of the night came at 9:45 to tie the game and it came on an unlucky bounce for the Capitals as it ringed off the crossbar but crossed the plane for a good goal.
The refs initially waved it off but the goal light came on. As a result they changed their mind but the replay unfortunately showed the puck indeed crossed the line.
The Caps are clearly banged up but injuries are what fans can blame for their recent debacles. The players aren’t using as an excuse especially Alex Ovechkin:
“It starts from us leaders and we can’t blame (injuries) on it. … we have to pull on the rope with all our hands and don’t panic and don’t think it’s over. We just have to bounce back and play together as a team and as a group.”
“Injuries don’t have anything to do with the game tonight. We had a game, we were in control of it … we needed to bury it and we didn’t. It’s on us. Injuries are part of it and there are things we could have done on the ice to win the third period.”
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The Caps will look to correct these mistakes at practice today at 11:30 a.m. at MedStar Capitals Iceplex. They’ll have a morning skate at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow and take on the Edmonton Oilers at 8 p.m.