Tough night for Caps rookie goalie Semyon Varlamov, who was pulled in the second period of a 6-5 overtime loss to Philadelphia. Bruce Boudreau offered his thoughts when asked if Washington’s defensemen were struggling to clear Flyers out from the front of Varlamov’s crease.
“Well, I don’t think it had a lot to do with that. I thought there were some soft goals in there. Varly’s got to be mentally tougher to play. The one thing that’s reared – for want of a better term – it’s ugly head is they score in bunches on him. He can be fabulous for two periods and then Buffalo scores three in the third. He can be great against the Leafs and then they get three in the third. Same thing against the Rangers – three in the third. I think he gets down on himself. And I don’t know the answer tonight. I haven’t talked to him yet. But he gets down on himself and we’ve got to get him out of that.”
The Caps can at least feel good about coming back several times – especially on the road against a Stanley Cup contender in its home opener. But that’s still small consaltion for a team that has now allowed nine goals in its last four periods, plus 3 minutes, 52 seconds of overtime.
“Any time you come from behind in the third period that’s great…Their tying goal was pretty fluky. I think we put it in our own net. But we can’t afford to allow 10 goals in two games. You’re not going to win a lot of hockey games – I don’t care who you have on your team.”
The referees were busy on Tuesday and a few calls against each team seemed questionable at best – especially the second-period goalie interference call against Caps forward Brooks Laich where he was actually cross-checked into Flyers goalie Ray Emery. Philadelphia forward Mike Richards needed all of 11 seconds to make the Caps pay for that one on his way to a hat trick. But Boudreau wasn’t biting on that one.
“It’s a long season for me to start getting wrapped up in referees calls right now.”
