Capitals shut out for first time this season
Against the 25th place overall New York Islanders, the Caps did not play well. Is this the understatement of the year? Definitely.
The Isles’ netminder for the night, Evgeni Nabokov, only had to make 17 saves to secure his shutout and Matt Hendricks commented that what hurt the Caps the most tonight was that they played “flat.”
“We didn’t come out with the energy we needed, we didn’t come out with tenacity,” he said. “We know what the standings are and where we sit right now, and it just wasn’t a very good effort.”
Also on the list of the team’s woes is being outshot. Not including this one, the Caps have been outshot 10 of its last 11 games, something Brooks Laich said needed to change.
“We got to start outshooting some teams,” he said. “We have great goaltending but the law of averages is going to catch up with you. We got to stay out of the box and find some rhythm offensively and tilt the ice the other way where it’s a constant attack rather than a constant defend.”
Hendricks also mentioned the fact that the Caps were clearly just too cute in the offensive zone.
“I think we’ve got a lot of great, skilled guys in here, but we need to play a certain way to be successful and we didn’t do that tonight,” he said.
However, on a more positive note, Jeff Halpern went 100 percent on the faceoff dot, winning all four of his faceoffs, Laich and Roman Hamrlik lead the team with three blocked shots apiece, and, if you’re PA Parenteau, this was his first ever multi-goal game.
But if you’re not PA Parenteau, here are photos from when the Caps were most active tonight: warmups.
