A light optional practice at Kettler Iceplex on Friday morning, one day after the Caps’ disappointing 3-2 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens. Needless to say, falling into a 2-0 hole in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and heading back on the road would be a dire scenario. The Caps and Canadiens play Game 2 on Saturday night at Verizon Center at 7 p.m. Fifteen players skated on Friday and goalie Jose Theodore, among others, took the day off.
So what do the Caps need to do differently – if anything? They did, after all, fire 47 shots at Montreal goalie Jaroslav Halak. The answer varied, depending on who you talked to. Bruce Boudreau said he was “going to consider a lot of stuff for tomorrow” when asked about moving 40-goal scorer Alex Semin up to the top line with Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom. So does Tomas Fleischmann stay at second-line center? Will Boudreau put Brendan Morrison back into the lineup and scratch another winger? All up in the air for now. But as much as any coach in these playoffs he has options. The one common theme on Friday: It’s not time to panic.
“It’s one hockey game. We aren’t going to win a series in one hockey game,” said forward Brooks Laich. “Things are going to play out. We’ve just got to keep shooting the puck, have faith in our shooters. We scored the most goals in the league. Just because we scored two last night I don’t think it’s a reason to panic or try and change our game. We play the way we play and we’re going to keep shooting and attacking nets.”
Washington’s power play was 0-for-4 on Thursday night and going back to the final two regular-season games is 0-for-11. That’s a normal rough patch for most teams. But when you have by far the NHL’s best power play it’s still an oddity.
“We’ll adjust,” said defenseman Mike Green. Added Laich: “On the power play when things aren’t working then get back to basics – shoot the puck and have traffic around the net. The power play was the difference in the game last night. Hopefully we can make it the difference tomorrow.”
The Caps also didn’t put enough pressure on Montreal’s defensemen. Too often they tried to skate through defenders instead of dumping the puck into the offensive zone and chasing after it. By moving the puck faster, the Canadiens were able to break out of their own zone more effeciently and controlled the play in the second period. It’s up to the Caps to make the necessary adjustments – though no one sees the need for sweeping changes.
“Our job as a [fourth] line is to get the momentum and tire the defense out so that when our guys get out there it’s a little more wear and tear on them,” said Caps center David Steckel. “I think as a team we need to do that more. Every line and not just ours. We did it for a lot of stretches during the game. We didn’t do it for a full 60 [minutes] and when Montreal took it to us in the second we kind of stopped getting it deep. That’s one of the reasons why we were successful in the first and we didn’t continue it over.”
