Caps 5, Sabres 4 (OT)
The Caps went retro on us on Saturday night with a wild 5-4 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. Check out our game story here. Fast start. Blown leads. Fluke goals. Risky decisions late. Yeah – that was pretty much a cover of the 2009-10 team’s few flaws. But that also puts Washington alone on top of the Eastern Conference for the first time since Dec. 3.
It might not last long. Philadelphia plays the New York Rangers on Sunday and would jump back in front by a point with a victory. It’s been a long ride for a team that has endured plenty of ups and downs. But maybe things were never as bad as we – and, to be fair, the players and coaches – made it seem at times. Remember the Feb. 12 postgame trip after a bad loss to the L.A. Kings with a five-game road trip looming? Yeah, not so much.
“Again – was it really all that bad? I don’t know. In hindsight it wasn’t that bad,” Caps forward Mike Knuble said. “Just because our bar is very high. So it’s pretty satisfying, you know. We’ve come a long way as a team and been forced to make changes and change the way we do things. And we’re all betting and we’re all hoping that it’s going to lead to big things in the future. So that’s what we’ll believe in. We’ve gotten results from playing a different way, our goals against are way down and we can play well, I think, when we have to.”
None of Nicklas Backstrom, Bruce Boudreau or Scott Hannan seemed all that impressed with being back on top of the conference. If it happens, great. But this team knows now it guarantees nothing so why worry about it.
What they are worried about are the mounting injuries on the blueline. The latest to depart? Tyler Sloan, who “got his bell rung”, Boudreau said, late in the second period and didn’t return. That’s the third game in a row the Caps have played a huge chunk of a game with just five defenseman.
“”It shows the depth they have here,” Hannan said. “On [defense] to have that many guys go out and still be able to put them in to play, we’re going to need that down the stretch and in the playoffs. Things happen with injuries with things that happen in the playoffs and it’s good to know that everyone can come in and play a certain role.”
One of those newcomers was AHL recall Sean Collins. Boudreau was happy with his play considering Collins hadn’t appeared in an NHL game since 2009. But that trust went only so far. Collins didn’t play the final 7:07.
“I thought [Collins] did really good. I thought he moved the puck well. I thought he competed,” Boudreau said. “He did a really good job. We just didn’t want to put him out at the end because we didn’t want to – it’s a pressure situation type thing and… if he makes a mistake his confidence would have gone all to hell.”
So you see where they are with these injuries to John Erskine – who should be back Tuesday vs. Toronto after missing tonight with an undisclosed injury – Dennis Wideman (hematoma), Mike Green (concussion), Tom Poti (groin) and now Sloan.
Meanwhile, rookie John Carlson caught some flak from Boudreau for his mistake late in regulation that led to Drew Stafford’s power-play goal. The 21-year-old pushed up ice while on the penalty kill – a big no-no in that situation – and had to race back up ice after the Caps fumbled the puck heading into the offensive zone. Unfortunately he slammed right into Michal Neuvirth after the goalie had made a pad save and pushed the puck into his own net. Boudreau was visibly upset at the time and had a talk with Carlson afterwards about understanding the game situation better.
I said ‘John, as great as you are – and he does so much for us and plays those minutes – with under four minutes to go in the game and we’re killing a penalty and we didn’t have full control even – we’re just taking off,” Boudreau said. “We can’t do that. Then we have to come back with a chicken like our heads cut off and that’s why it went in off his foot. Because he was working so hard to get back that he wasn’t focused on where it was.”
Lesson learned. Now the Caps have three more games to apply them – none against potential playoff teams – get at least a tiny bit healthier and start the real NHL season.
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