Washington Capitals: Game 2 Preview vs. Hurricanes

With last night’s 4-2 win, the Washington Capitals have a 1-0 lead in their first-round match-up against the Carolina Hurricanes.

A win which did not come as easily as the Washington Capitals would have liked. Washington came out of the gate a bit sluggish and allowed Carolina to dominate the play. Braden Holtby stood his ground which allowed for Washington to capitalize on one of their first of few opportunities.

Nicklas Backstrom scored a beauty with a snipe from the hashmarks to open the Capitals’ postseason scoring in their first crack at defending the title. Backstrom would add another tally in addition to an Alexander Ovechkin powerplay marker to put the Caps up 3-0 at the end of the first. A Lars Eller ENG in the third period would put away a 4-2 win against the Hurricanes.

A lot of Capitals fans were concerned when the Hurricanes fought back to make it a 3-2 game in the third period, and for good reason. The night before, hockey fans witnessed the record-setting Tampa Bay Lightning blow a 3-goal lead to the Columbus Blue Jackets to lose the game 4-3 in regulation. It appeared as though it was happening again. Carolina, however, was too little, too late in their comeback attempt and fell short when Eller buried the empty-netter from 120ft away.

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Like Backstrom said in his post-game interview, Washington needs to play a full 60-minute game. What that means is they can’t have one, or two competitive periods of hockey because they need all three to be competitive periods of hockey.

Washington, although outshot in all three periods, did play some solid hockey (especially defensively) in the first two periods. In the third, however, they collapsed a bit and allowed Carolina a few too many opportunities.

This came in the form of five-on-five chances, and especially on late-game power plays. Although Carolina’s power play is not the greatest, they are bound to score one eventually and especially considering how weak Washington’s penalty kill is. Too many lazy, stick penalties late in the game almost cost the Capitals their lead. Some praise directed towards the Capitals’ penalty killers is necessary due to their confident penalty-killing in high-pressure moments and for killing off all three power play opportunities by the Hurricanes. Washington just needs to tighten up defensively and make sure they are all covering a man in their zone if they want to maintain leads (and I am sure that they do).

In order to keep Carolina’s aggressive forecheck and speed in check, Washington needs to be more physical. Although there were some big hits thrown yesterday by the likes of Brooks Orpik and Tom Wilson, Washington cannot be outhit by Carolina like they were (even though the hits were just 37-35 for Carolina). This is a crucial part of the how the Caps play the game and it is a style that is super effective against a quick team like Carolina. Everybody needs to throw the body for this style to work because we all know the usual suspects will be hitting like they always do.

It should be an interesting game, especially since both teams have gotten a look at how each other plays in the postseason. Washington just needs to tighten up a few issues and they should be okay for Game 2 which is at 3pm EST on Saturday, April 13th.