The Washington Capitals Veterans Need To Be Better In Game 6

The Washington Capitals are a team full of veterans. Usually, that is a good thing. If you see a team going into the playoffs that is young with not a lot of veterans that will a lot of the time be the biggest questions hockey analysts have for said team. It’s a young team, but they haven’t been there before, can they get it done without any proven winners.

The Capitals do not have that issue. Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie, John Carlson, Evgeny Kuznetsov, Dmitry Orlov, Tom Wilson (injured in this series), keep on going down the list. The only young and unproven plays on this Capitals team are Martin Fehervary and Connor McMichael. The latter of those two is only playing because of Tom Wilson’s injury.

You could also throw in the goalies as somewhat young and definitely unproven.

For the most part, this team is full of veterans and should be solid because of that fact, right?

Apparently not.

In Game 4 you could argue that a Connor McMichael turnover led to the Panthers winning that game in overtime. There is a scramble play at the Caps blue line before McMichael eventually gets the puck, he tries to make a move into the middle of the ice, loses the puck and Florida goes the other way and scores. That’s a rookie, he had other things he could have and should have done. Just a rookie mistake right?

In Game 5 the Capitals had a 3-0 lead early in the second period. The way this entire series had gone to that point the game should have been over. Florida had been having trouble getting things going offensively, Washington had been playing smart and good defensively. Everything was going great, it looked like Washington was going home with a 3-2 series lead.

Then the veterans let the team down.

With over 13 minutes left in the second period T.J. Oshie tried to toe drag or dangle around defenders in the neutral zone, he turns it over, the Panthers go the other way and score. Details, puck management, game management. Where is that from the veteran Oshie in that situation?

About six minutes later the Capitals are in Florida’s zone, Fehervary lets go of a shot that gets blocked and goes to the side boards. For some reason John Carlson goes in to get the puck, then tries to whack at it while it was bouncing, whiffs on it and Florida now has an odd man break which turned into a Hornqvist breakaway where he scored.

I don’t understand Carlson’s decision there. Why did he go in to get the puck? The puck looked like it was coming out to him. Settle it down, stop it from bouncing and flick it back towards the net or probably better, throw it behind the net where he had a teammate. It’s 3-1 and he tried to one time a bouncing puck. Instead he misses it and allows the Panthers to get a very dangerous chance.

About two and a half minutes later Florida is in the Capitals zone, they do some hard work along the boards, they get the puck to the front of the net where Samsonov is and even better news basically all five Caps are there to help him. Those five Caps did nothing.

Two Panthers get in and outwork the defenders, Nic Dowd has his back turned to the eventual scorer and everyone is mostly just standing there while the Panthers try to hit the loose puck in. Dowd, Carlson, Garnet Hathaway, all there and all did next to nothing. Tie game.

Three minutes into the third period Florida tried to a clear a puck from their own zone. Orlov does a good job of keeping it in. He gets the puck, tries to skate further into the Panthers zone, then decides to cut into the middle when he is covered by two or three Panthers. That is a turnover, Orlov has to rush to get back, he ends up falling over. Backstrom ends up knocking a Panther down, lucky to not get a penalty there honestly. Verhaeghe ends up darting down the middle, right past Backstrom with very little resistance and he gets a tap in. Florida is up 4-3.

With just over four minutes left the Capitals are trying to get into the Panthers zone. Carlson gets the puck, skates into the zone, drops a pass to nobody and Florida is off. Oshie then gets put in a pretty awful spot. He tries to either poke the puck away or hit Verhaeghe, he doesn’t do either and Florida has a 3 on 1. They end up scoring on that odd man break. Can’t blame Oshie there. It’s late in the game, you’re now down a goal, I’m not sure he has anything else to do there than try to disrupt the developing break and clean up Carlson’s blunder.

I understand it is easy for people like us to sit back and say how “easy” things are. But these should also be easy mistakes to avoid for the veteran players we are talking about. Most things in hockey are a lot harder than most think. That’s why the vast majority can’t play this sport, let alone play it at the highest level.

However, of all the words I just wrote. Where are the rookies? Some people wanted to blame McMichael after his turnover in overtime in Game 4. I saw on social media some saying he should be scratched thanks to that play.

What about these veterans in Game 5?

Carlson, Orlov, Oshie, Backstrom, Dowd, Hathaway? The plays that some of these veterans made were rookie mistakes. Oshie and Orlov try to dangle themselves into the middle of the ice in a spot where that is not even close to being a good idea.

Oshie has been really good this series as well. He has honestly probably been one of the better Capitals players the entire series. Frankly a lot of the Caps veterans have been good.

But in Game 4 Garnet Hathaway went for an empty netter in his own zone, ended up missing by inches, but missing nonetheless. Florida ended up tying it about a minute later. Was that a mistake?

For some reason when rookies make mistakes it’s awful and they deserve to be punished by being benched or scratched. What did the rookies do in Game 5? Did the rookies mismanage the puck with a big lead?

No. It was the leaders and veterans of this team. They threw that game away.

The team overall has now done that two times in a row. They could have been up 3-1 and instead find themselves down 3-2 and fighting off elimination on home ice on Friday night.

The team has mostly been good. They can still easily win this series. But for that to happen the veterans need to be a whole lot better than they were in Game 5.