Pizza! Pizza! After two disappointing losses the Washington Capitals needed a win and after controlling play at Little Caesars Arena, they came up short. Alex Ovechkin scored, Darcy Kuemper was outstanding but that was about all that went right as the Caps faltered late and fell 3-1 to the Detroit Red Wings. Fair warning, the pizza puns will be extra cheesy tonight.
Both teams were Hot-N-Ready right out of the gate in Detroit, the first period was full of back-and-forth looks. Needing to convince Peter Laviolette to give him just a slice of ice-time, Connor McMichael had a strong first period where he made the play of the period.
McMichael stole a puck from Robert Hagg and drew a penalty on the play as he drove the net that would lead to the Caps first man-advantage of the night. The power play fizzled, but McMichael’s strong play was an encouraging sign. The Wings had a power play shortly afterwards but they also couldn’t get things cooking despite having all of the ingredients: strong puck movement, good entries, and excellent zone-time on their man-advantage.
The second period belonged to Alex Ovechkin. Regardless of where you stand on the argument, you have to let the man put all of the pineapple he wants on his pizza. His top-shelf snipe was the 786th goal of his career, tying Gordie Howe for most all-time with a single franchise. The team that Gordie Howe scored all of those goals with? The Detroit Red Wings, of course.
Later in the period, Ovechkin went 2-on-1 with Garnet Hathaway and passed the puck. We won’t talk about that, though. Lucas Raymond ruined Ovechkin’s period just minutes later. After a Lars Eller slash, the Wings connected on their man-advantage.
Raymond slammed a backdoor shot past a helpless Darcy Kuemper to knot the game at one with 5:02 to play in the period. With 2:38 to play in the period, Kuemper was knocked down by David Perron and as play continued the Red Wings scored. The referees convened and after a brief discussion, made the right call and waved the goal off for goaltender interference. Tied at one, the teams would head to the dressing room.
A third period that was filled with over-passing from the Capitals ended up with them trailing 2-1 late as Andrew Copp scored with 3:48 to play. Just seconds later, the Capitals got a huge power play and hope was alive for DC faithful. Midway through a largely unsuccessful power play, Lavi lifted Kuemper but it wasn’t enough. An empty-netter from Dylan Larkin with 27.5 left to play sealed the deal. A disappointing loss in Detroit for a team that hadn’t lost in regulation to the Red Wings in their 15 meetings prior.
Before the fans panic, it’s pretty apparent that the Capitals are banged up. This team is roughly three star players away from being very, very good.
They have Tom Wilson, Nicklas Backstrom, T.J. Oshie, and Connor Brown out long-term. If the Capitals can stay in the hunt until their stars begin to return, this season will go a lot better than many think. A Capitals team, hitting their stride late in the season is something that hasn’t happened in recent years. And that’s where this season is trending. Either that, or it’s going to be a very, very long 2022-2023 season. My vote is the former, the Caps will be just fine.
A special thanks to this website that helped me come up with many of these ridiculous pizza puns. And with that, goodnight friends. Bring on the ‘Yotes!