Still, this looks like a strange result when one ignores what they saw and scans the data surrounding the game.
- The Hawks won eight straight games after being outshot in most, possibly all, of those games (I cannot be arsed to verify that) yet lose on the night that they DO outshoot the opposition.
- The Hawks' PK has been near-perfect the last two weeks and last night they weren't even asked to kill any penalties, which sounds like a sure-fire recipe for success. Unless you're allowing shorties, of course.
- The Hawks crushed Washington in possession and zone starts...like, it wasn't even close.
So how did this go sideways? Let's see...
- The Caps were extremely opportunistic; any game in which Jay Friggin' Beagle scores twice is likely going to be a Capitals win. Practically any shortie is a gift, so there's that, and on Beagle's second tally, the wrap-around, Crawford stops that play half the time and Beagle loses the handle halfway through the maneuver most of the time. That's just the way it goes, sometimes.
- The winning goal - oh my. Disaster loomed when the Caps player, Oshie I think, slipped in behind Hinostroza but we caught a break when Oshie fell down, right? Nope, 'cos Hino, our last man back, for some reason, managed to fall over Oshie, springing The Caps on a two-on-one. A bit ridiculous, a bit unlucky, but there we have it..
- What was the idea with having Hinostroza out there in OT, anyway? I know I've been grinding away about giving the youngsters a chance in these situations but this decision just makes no sense; the guy was healthy scratch for four straight games and all of a sudden Coach Q is gonna...I don't know what...play a hunch? Odd choice there.
- Duncan Keith: despite what the stats line says he did not have his best outing, struggling with some keep-ins, topping the puck on a few pass attempts and making an absolute mess of things leading to Beagle's shortie. He also stopped skating while in pursuit of Beagle, which is totally uncharacteristic and just adds another layer of weird on this game.
- Kruger on the second line: again, the stats look positive but the reality is that Krugs failed to cash a couple of times where a center with better hand skills would have; create all the chances you want but you have to finish those chances. Kruger is awesome at what he does, among the very best, but placing him between Hossa and Panarin is not unlike buying a Camaro and asking them to put a Toyota Corolla motor in it; that Toyota will run reliably forever but it's not gonna win any races or pull any chicks, etc.
- The other option for Line Two would have been, I believe, Nick Schmaltz, with Panik then slotting back into his familiar, if inappropriate, spot on the top line. Well, given that Schmaltz was again nearly invisible I guess Q selected the lesser of two evils deploying Kruger as he did. Schmaltz has the whole lurking-in-the-weeds thing going on, but for that to work he has to pop out of those weeds now and again, call for a pass, get into position to make a play. As it is, he spends a lot of his shifts obscured behind opposing players.
- The Second Line is a House of Cards: okay, hyperbole, but Large Arthur missing one game and The Hawks booting the game perhaps indicates some fragility in the forward corps. It was a peculiar game, though, and we've got a long way to go so it's probably nothing...
- Jordin Tootoo; why do I have to type that name after every damn game? Well, in this one, he managed to miss a wide open net and then doubled down with the softest pass back to the point that I've ever seen, a pass so weak that The Capitals player who intercepted it had to wait for it to reach him.
- I did not like Campbell and Forsling's reunion at all. They were running around in their own end far too much and neither of them seemed very sure of what the other was doing. I can only guess that Q chose to shuffle the pairings in order for Keith and Hjalmarsson to shut down Ovechkin et al which, excepting Keith's aforementioned gaffes, actually worked pretty well.
- Goaltending: Holtby was near-perfect for The Caps, Crawford was a little less good than that. It was reported that Crow's trip to the dressing room was for a skate repair but I'll wager he had to poop, 'cos a comfortable Crow makes a save on Beagle's wrap-around. Never trust Tex-Mex food prepared north of the Mason-Dixon line, at least not on game day. Scott Darling made only one save but what a save it was.
Still, it wasn't a total nightmare, and it was a game The Hawks coulda shoulda won. Hossa was fantastic, even if it was pretty fortunate that Small Arthur's speculative wrister somehow reached him to create the tying goal. Kempny had, I think, his best game thus far. We'll get 'em next time.
Finally, send some positive vibes in the direction of former Hawk and occasional playoff hero Bryan Bickell. Bicks announced yesterday that he's been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, which goes a long way toward explaining the cliff that Bick's play fell from over the last couple of seasons. Get well, fella.
No comments:
Post a Comment