Capitals Eye Game 2 Redemption: Can They Stage a Turnaround? trucc

Aiming to square the series after a Game 1 loss, Washington looks to adjust

May 8 vs. Carolina Hurricanes at Capital One Arena

Time: 7:00 p.m.

TV: ESPN

Radio: 106.7 THE FAN, Caps Radio 24/7

Washington Capitals (51-22-9)
Carolina Hurricanes (47-30-5)

Carolina leads series, 1-0

Despite playing well below their standards in Game 1 of their best-of-seven set with the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night in DC, the Caps held the lead for a good chunk of the game, a 2-1 overtime loss to the Canes.

Although Carolina dominated the Caps in possession and it had the upper hand in most other aspects of the game, Washington held the lead for about 25 minutes and had a power play opportunity early in the third period with which it could have extended that scoreboard advantage.

Jaccob Slavin snuck a point shot through traffic early in overtime to stake the Canes to a 1-0 series lead, doing so on Carolina’s 94th shot attempt of the game. The Caps finished the night with a mere 34 shot attempts – and just 14 shots on net – of their own.

“We didn’t play well enough, right from the start,” says Caps center Dylan Strome. “We’ve obviously got to find a way to be better next game. It’s one game, and a long series, but we’ve definitely got to be better.”

This is not unfamiliar territory for the Capitals. In their first-round series against Montreal, the Caps carried a 2-0 series lead when the scene shifted to Bell Centre for Game 3. They played poorly in that game, making multiple turnovers that led directly to Montreal goals, and they lost the special team battle. And even though they suffered a 6-3 setback in that game, they were all even at 3-3 with the Habs early in the third period, just a shot away from producing the go-ahead goal and perhaps winning the game.

Washington went on to win the next two games and the series, outscoring Montreal by a combined total of 9-3 in those final two games and scoring seven straight goals across the two contests at one point. Having surrendered home ice advantage to the Hurricanes with Tuesday’s loss, the Caps now need to muster another bounce back performance in Thursday’s Game 2 against Carolina.

“It’s not as much as what they did as what we didn’t do [in Game 1],” says Caps winger Brandon Duhaime, who set up Aliaksei Protas for Washington’s only goal of the contest. “We’ve got to look in the mirror to ourselves and just improve our game.”

Again, this is not unfamiliar territory for the Caps. They’ve been bouncing back from bad beats all season.

“I think it’s the same game, whether it’s playoffs, regular season, preseason,” says Duhaime. “Anytime you can respond after a loss, it shows the character in the room.”

Washington was unable to manage clean exits from its own end of the ice, and that led to issues in the neutral zone, and it also resulted in an essentially non-existent forecheck for the Capitals.

“To summarize and put it in probably as basic terms as I possibly can, we can’t defend for the amount of time that we defended [in Game 1] and be under attack as long as we were and expect to have success in this series,” declares Caps coach Spencer Carbery. “We understand that Carolina and what they do, they’re going to control play for significant portions of a game.

“[Ninety-four] shot attempts is a little high, so we’re going to need to bring that down. Is it still going to probably be in the sixties and maybe seventies? Yeah, probably around there; that’s around their average. You’re not going to eliminate what they do well, you just have to get it back to balancing it out a little bit, and we didn’t get nearly enough on their half [of the ice] and they were in our end for way too long.”

The Caps are well aware of Carolina’s high-pressure style and their relentless forechecking ways, and full marks should go to the Canes in the aftermath of Game 1; they executed their game plan to a tee. And again, that’s not at all unexpected. Rod Brind’Amour is in his seventh season behind the Canes’ bench, and as we noted in this space in our series preview on Sunday, the Hurricanes have taken their possession game to another level in these last three seasons.

“The only thing that I was surprised by was our ability to handle it,” says Carbery. “I feel like this is a broken record, but Carolina is the most predictable team in the National Hockey League. Ask any coach in the League, you know exactly what you’re going to get, it’s the easiest pre-scout. That’s not mean disrespectfully; that’s a compliment to Rod and what they do, because everybody is on the same page with exactly what they do every single time they step on the ice. And you know what’s coming. So there’s nothing that they did [in Game 1] from a systematic standpoint that caught us by surprise. They did it at a very high level and the surprise – or where you’re hoping as a coach it doesn’t look that way – is our level, our ability to combat that.”

And that’s exactly what needs to be better in Game 2 and beyond. The Caps need to spend some time stressing the Hurricanes in their end of the ice, and they need to impose their size and physicality on Carolina when they’re able to do so. Despite not having the puck for most of Game 1, the Caps were outhit by a 45-31 margin.

“We need to put more pressure on their defensemen,” says Caps center Nic Dowd. “As you saw early in the second [period], we put more pressure on their defensemen and they started coughing up pucks, and we had opportunities. We just didn’t do enough of that.

“It’s not saying we’re going to have 94 shot attempts like the Carolina Hurricanes; I don’t think that’s our game. But I think at the same point, we have to do a better job of stressing their defensemen in the offensive zone. All hockey players are liable to make the same mistakes under pressure, and I think in [Game 1] we just didn’t do a good enough job of making them make hurried plays.

“But it’s a long series; it’s a seven-game series. We’ll do a better job of that [Thursday] night.”

Between now and then, the Caps’ coaching staff will comb through the game film and make adjustments for Game 2, and those adjustments can come in many forms – tweaks or alterations to the system, but also potentially to the personnel and the lineup.

“Absolutely,” says Carbery. “We do that after every game, win or lose. But when you go through something like that, it makes you look at different options and what as a staff – if we need to do anything at all – [we can do] to try to problem solve some of the issues that we had [in Game 1]. So that goes into systematic, personnel, line combinations, [defense] pairs. All of it we’ll talk about, break down and figure out what we feel like is the best course of action for any type of alterations we make to that type of stuff.”

With its Game 1 win, the Canes are in the catbird’s seat. They can step on the gas and try to put a chokehold on the Caps in Game 2; it’s difficult enough to win one game in Carolina, let alone two.

“One line after another, we had the same kind of plan,” says Canes winger Jordan Martinook. “Everybody was just trying to get in on the forecheck and trying to eliminate time and space. And I think our team is built with a lot of guys who were obviously coached that way. When everybody is pulling on the same rope and doing it, it looks like that. It was obviously a good game for us, and we need to keep that mindset going forward.”

“Every team is trying to do the same thing at this time of year,” says Brind’Amour. “We were just able to play in their end, which I think tires you out defensively and it takes a little bit out of your forecheck and all that. I think that was the key to that game.”