Writing to you from George Bush International Airport in Houston, where i have a wedding this weekend. Won’t see a minute of the Red Wings game Saturday unfortunately, but I have the Tivo on duty. Should be a good one along the lines of Tuesday’s wild 6-5 overtime loss to Philly.
While I have the time, figured I’d take one last look back at Thursday’s disappointing loss to the Rangers. Bruce Boudreau was asked why his team is struggling to keep the puck out of its own net – are the goalies that bad? Is the “D” just not getting the job done? His extended answer was telling.
“I think it has to be a combination of the two. A combination of three really – the forwards not coming back. Everything. It’s a team game. Nobody is winning it or losing it. You have to have a team to succeed. And so when things go bad there’s five guys on the ice. I looked at the first goal for example and five guys made a mistake. And it looks like the end result is they put it up top and they’re crashing the net and it looks like a defenseman was out of position. But that’s not the case. The forwards are out of position, the forwards aren’t doing their job and – especially if you’re not going to score you better not be on for any goals against. That’s the creed you always live by. This is no excuse for [Alex Ovechkin’s] line – but they’re going to get the odd goal scored on them because they take chances. But they’re going – in the end – to score a lot more than they’re going to give up. But it’s lines three and four – if you’re not going to score you better not be on for any goals against.”
Well, that’s six guys feeling a little more uncomfortable than they did at the start of the day Thursday. Say this for the Caps – they have options. Forward Eric Fehr is just about ready to play. He’s been slowly working his way back from double shoulder surgery over the summer and a team spokesman said he is active and could play as soon as tomorrow against Detroit. Not sure what the early plan for Fehr is. He could play on the fourth line for a while as he shakes off the rust. Whereever he plays, the Caps could use him. Through four games the third and fourth lines have a grand total of five points – all assists. And that includes one from Tyler Sloan, who on Thursday was simply filling in at forward from his normal “D” position. No one cares because the top two lines have been so dominant. But there has to be some balance, too. ]
F Tomas Fleischmann (blood clot) will also be back later in the month and that’s another option for Boudreau, who will either get better play from his back-end forwards or some notable veterans will be watching from the pressbox for a while. Just sitting in on the postgame press conference Thursday, we reporters got a sense of what Boudreau can be like behind closed doors when his club isn’t meeting expectations. I felt like I should have backchecked harder and then remembered I don’t actually play. He pulled absolutely no punches and I have a feeling at Friday’s practice the message will be even more unfiltered. We’ll see how the Caps respond in Detroit.
