Caps Briefing: Responding to Criticism
Two games after we suggested the Washington Capitals were trying to lose games for better draft position, the team has won back to back games against teams fighting for playoff spots by a combined score of twelve goals to two. In home games on Friday night and Sunday afternoon, the Caps cakewalked over the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning, and climbed from twenty-seventh place all the way back to twenty-fifth in the thirty-team NHL.
These two dominating wins followed a streak of nine demoralizing losses that prompted some fans to predict a last place finish for the team, and prompted the Post's Tarik El-Bashir to name eight players who haven't yet earned a spot on next year's Caps. Following this assessment, Washington coach Glen Hanlon told his players that if they played hard they could still earn themselves a role in this team's future. The results have been electric.
The five healthy players on Tarik's list combined for thirteen points in these two weekend games. Tomas Fleischmann led the charge with three goals and two assists. Boyd Gordon stepped up for two goals and an assist. Kris Beech nabbed a goal and two assists. Even defensemen Steve Eminger and Milan Jurcina each notched an assist, while both played terrific games in their own end. We can hardly wait to see how strongly Eric Fehr, Bryan Muir and John Erskine respond when they return.
Image by Flickr user digitaldefection, used under Creative Commons license.
But the newfound desire to win has not been limited to those few players. The whole team has embraced the challenge of proving they belong. Alexandre Giroux, who was left off Tarik's list only because hasn't yet earned himself a job to lose, has banged home two goals in two games. Matt Bradley, who already has a contract for next year, nonetheless showed he still exists by earning himself a couple of breakaways, tallying one assist and winning with a knockdown at the end of an otherwise even fight against the Lightning's Shane O'Brien.
Alexander Semin, whose future hasn't been in question, continued to show his greatness with three points in each of the last two games, including a natural hat trick on Sunday, which he scored on three consecutive shots in the second period, causing the Lightning to change goalies for the second time in the evening. Semin's four goals over the weekend vaulted him back into the league's top ten in that category, which he had fallen out of as the coaching staff asked him to concentrate of defense during the endless losing streak.
Olaf Kolzig stopped sixty-four of sixty-six shots behind a consistent, team-wide defensive effort. Kolzig has played three games with a 2-0-1 record since returning from his umpteenth knee injury, and in this span he has posted a goals against average of 1.67, stopping 95% of the shots he's faced. Over the weekend, of course, Godzilla averaged 1.0 goals against and stopped 97%. Suddenly, for the first time this year, seeing Kolzig's name on next year's payroll next to the number 5.25 million looks brilliant.
More importantly for a club where half the goals had been scored by three players, there is suddenly a whole team of hockey players trying to win each game. Whether they keep up their efforts for their last nine games or whether they'll sleep through a couple and try to get back into lottery position remains to be seen. What's important is that they've given the hometown faithful something to cheer for, and shown potential free agents that this is a team worth playing for.