The Caps Laid a Big Fat Egg Last Night

Woof. That’s all you can really say about the Caps game last night. Fucking WOOF. A 6-2 beatdown at the hands of the surging Pens, where the Caps were out muscled, out hustled, out played, out everything. The Caps didn’t help themselves by going to the box 7 times, but their penalty killers were on point, killing 6 of those. The tired defense allowed 5 even-strength goals, including 5 on Braden Holtby before he was pulled. All in all, a very forgettable game, less Oshie punching Crosby in the skull a few times.

The other big takeway is Orpik needs to figure his shit out, as does Mike Weber. Once Carlson is back one of those two will be watching games from the pressbox, more than likely Weber. Simply put, they cannot match the speed of the opponents first lines. Carlson will be a huge help to Holtby, and Chorney should be playing as well. Not sure why Weber is getting sweaters instead of Chorney, especially against speedy teams like the Pens, but that has got to stop.

Now the big question- am I worried about Holtby. It’d be dumb to say no. Let’s look at the numbers:

That….that is not good. While he was lights out for the first half of the season, he’s been shaky at best since the break. It doesn’t help that the Caps have given up the first goal in something like 100 of their last 50 games either. Holtby’s record is still an incredible 43-9-4, with much thanks to how great the Caps offense is. Their blue line is pretty good as well…Holtby just has not been on his A game whatsoever.

Heading into the playoffs with a cold goalie is not optimal. There’s only 11 games til the postseason starts, have to imagine he will figure it out between now and then. Every team goes through cold spells, and luckily the Caps is going 6-4 over 10 games.

You don’t stumble into a 51-15-5 record by mistake. That doesn’t just happen by luck. So expect the Caps to righten the ship and finish out the season strong as they lock up the 1 seed in the East this week and look forward to the playoffs.