Canadian 3 – Capitals 6 | When nothing falls into place

Towards the end of the first period, the giant screen at Capital One Arena showed us the face of Michael Sgarbossa in close-up.

Richard Labbé
Press

Smiling, obviously relaxed, the Capitals forward, a regular at American League rinks, bantered with a teammate, like a garage league player would after scoring a lucky goal. In fact, Sgarbossa looked so relaxed that it was almost inconvenient for visitors.

Check out our live coverage Check out the meeting summary

The visitors, of course, were the Canadiens players, who spent the first period circling around their home turf. This set the tone for a fairly long night, which ended in a 6-3 score, to the advantage of the much more talented Capitals.

The worst part is that the Capitals have several important names on their injured list, including Lars Eller. They also had to play with just five defensemen from the second period, because Justin Schultz was injured along the way. For most opponents this would have been a marked advantage.

But the Canadian is not a very dangerous opponent these days.

“If I already had solutions, we would have made corrections by now,” sighed Brendan Gallagher. It’s frustrating, it’s hard to put together the right matches. We got what we deserved. ”

Indeed. In fact, the evening turned so badly for the Canadian that in the third period, Evgeny Kuznetsov was at the point of attempting passes from behind between his skates, while they laughed heartily in the stands. A bit like towards the end of Twelve labors of Asterix, when the gladiators eat a volley against too strong Gauls.

Frustrating? Probably yes.

“They scored the first goal and then, fairly quickly, we received a penalty,” added Dominique Ducharme. They went 2-0, and we found ourselves playing on the heels.

“We didn’t have a good first half. The match was played there. We were ready, we knew who we were dealing with. We talk about confidence, on the psychological side … These two quick goals put us on our heels, and we reacted badly afterwards. ”

It is also a recurring problem: this season, when the Canadian finds himself in a hole, there is no one to grab the rope and throw it upwards, far away, to allow the rest of the group to s ‘hang on and get out of it. “We can’t make these games, which allow you to get back into a match,” admitted Ducharme.

Wednesday night’s game reminded us of how nothing works anymore. Jeff Petry, obviously, is incapable of playing a role of number one defender, at least not for a long time. The veteran, who played so well last season, missed his cover on the Capitals’ first goal, and he was sitting in the penalty box on the second.

This is in addition to other management wishes that are not on track to come true: a rapid progression for Cole Caufield, a rapid progression for Alexander Romanov, a quick healing for the knee of Carey Price, a solid performance of Jake. Allen… These are all things that club management hoped they could count on when planning the current season. But young people are not progressing, veterans are disappointing and the most valuable player of the last series is still not there.

In this situation, when nothing falls into place, it is impossible to be successful. The Canadian is demonstrating it night after night.

On the rise: Artturi Lehkonen

A goal and an assist, and a harvest of 8 points in his last 8 games.

Down: Jeff Petry

This veteran defender has gotten us used to very solid play, but he’s unrecognizable this season.

The number

9

The number of games this season the Canadiens have allowed five or more goals.

In details

It’s different in Washington

In this era of pandemic, arenas follow each other and are not alike. While in some places, like in Montreal, we carry out a fairly tight sanitary control, in particular with the wearing of the mask in the stands and the obligation to present the vaccination passport, elsewhere, it is sometimes different … case in particular at the Capital One Arena. At the entrance, no one checked our vaccination status, and in the stands, everyone was walking without a mask like in 2019. But it’s not the strangest thing we saw on Wednesday night. During the first intermission, Thanksgiving oblige, the spectacle was provided by skaters disguised as turkeys, who tried to play hockey – arguably the worst idea of ​​entertainment in an arena since the Bell Center’s tam-tam cam.

Ovechkin doesn’t just score

Everyone’s talking about Alex Ovechkin’s goals or his yellow laces, but obviously the Capitals’ scorer is much more than that. We’d missed it, but the Capitals’ number 8 can also pass the puck, and Wednesday night he had three assists. That brought his total to 18 since the start of the season, and that gives him an average of 0.90 assists per game, the highest of his career in this regard. It also allowed Ovechkin to collect another game of more than one point, the 384^e of his career in this category. In league history, only 21 other players have managed more games by more than one point than Ovechkin.

Paquette back, Niku too

As could be expected, Cédric Paquette made his return to the game on Wednesday night, he who had not played since November 9. He still hasn’t collected a point this season. Defender Sami Niku was also added to the lineup, time to suffer a hard-hitting Tom Wilson’s check in the second period. Another defender, Mattias Norlinder, was therefore left out. As far as he is concerned, a decision has yet to be made as to whether he will stay here or return to continue his season in Europe. Earlier in the morning, Dominique Ducharme had said that this decision would come to the end of the Canadian’s current trip, which is due to end on Saturday night in Pittsburgh.

They said