Road weary and tired of chasing the lead, Caps fall at Calgary, 2-1

Capitals goalie Philipp Grubauer looks back as Flames center Sean Monahan scores in the third period of Calgary’s 2-1 win Sunday night. (Jeff Mcintosh/AP)

By Isabelle Khurshudyan October 30 at 12:19 AM 

CALGARY — As the Washington Capitals scrambled to get to the puck in their own end, fans at the Saddledome made it through several rotations of “the wave,” cheers ringing through the arena as the crest made its way through the stands again and again. Meanwhile, the Capitals seemed stuck, struggling to get anything going offensively on tired legs after chasing a lead for nearly the entire game.

It has been an ongoing problem for the Capitals and one they will look to address after Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Calgary Flames. Washington finished its three-game trip through Western Canada having earned just one win and two points. A theme in all three games and through the season’s first 12 is that the Capitals have not played with the lead often, exhausting themselves in games by constantly chasing it.

Against Calgary, Washington (5-6-1) wasted a 36-save performance by Philipp Grubauer, who is still seeking a win.

“We made it difficult on ourselves with the way we managed the puck,” defenseman Brooks Orpik said. “We turned the puck over about 100 times on our own. We talked about it between every period, how they were taking the middle of the ice away, and we were stubborn. We kept trying to go through the middle. It kept coming right back at us.

“They played well, and we played right into their game plan. It’s disappointing because Grubi played his heart out again for us. We didn’t play well in front of him again.”

For about five minutes in the third period, it seemed that the difference between a poor Western Canada road trip for the Capitals and a good one would come down to a puck that went off an official at the blue line. Calgary attempted a clear, but the puck bounced off the linesman and back into Washington’s offensive zone.

It ended up on rookie Jakub Vrana’s stick, and he shot it through goaltender Mike Smith, with the puck slowly trickling across the goal line. That tied it at one goal apiece, but as quickly as Washington seized some momentum thanks to the break, it gave it right back. Calgary’s Sean Monahan knocked in a crossing pass from Johnny Gaudreau after a Dmitry Orlov turnover.

That ended up being the game-winning goal, and after Washington’s stellar performance in Edmonton on Saturday night, the team still hasn’t strung two wins together since the first two games of the season.

“It’s very frustrating,” Orpik said. “You think you get one win like that, and maybe you feel good about yourselves and maybe a little too content, then come here and kind of erase what we did last night.”

Of all the positive things the Capitals did on Saturday night in Edmonton — one of the team’s most complete performances to date — one bad habit remained. The Oilers got out to a 2-0 lead in the first period before the Capitals scored five unanswered tallies for the win, but it marked the sixth straight game that Washington trailed to start the game. That streak was extended Sunday night in Calgary after a Brett Kulak shot was tipped by Micheal Ferland 2:08 into the second period.

Trailing in games so regularly is also foreign to many of the returning Capitals because the team had a lead after the first period in more than half of their games last season. That often allowed Washington to settle into a comfortable flow for the rest of the contest, deploying its full lineup more evenly than it would if it were chasing and leaning on the top offensive lines. That’s compounded when the team’s roster is less experienced and arguably less talented.

“We’ve played from behind seems like all year,” Coach Barry Trotz said. “It seems like something we’ve dealt with from day one. We’ve had a pretty tough schedule with eight road games. We’ve got a lot of people out, we’ve got new people, so there’s a lot of positives at the same time. We’re at the .500-level with all of the things that have happened to us in the first 12 games. . . . It was disappointing because I felt that we should’ve left here with at least a point, but we didn’t.”

Entering Sunday night’s matchup, the Capitals had miserable results when playing in the second game in as many nights. The sample size was small, but Washington had been outscored 12-3 in such situations. Grubauer had been in net for both of those games, and his Capitals teammates had done little to keep him from being shelled, taking costly penalties in part because of lethargic legs.

Sunday’s game was a better effort than those other two, and the team seemed to be encouraged with that, a step in the right direction even though it got nothing tangible out of it.

Source: washingtonpost