Alex Ovechkin has gotten a lot of flak over the years for not being a good two-way player, which has always seemed dumb and overblown to me. The guy has six 50+ goal seasons and has never scored fewer than 32 goals in a season, including the lockout-shortened 2013 season that was just 48 games long. If you can score like that, the occasional defensive lapse can be excused.
Now, however, people are talking about Ovechkin’s commitment to the defensive side of the game, crediting either maturity or Barry Trotz for the development. Whatever the case, it was clearly evident early in the first period when Jannik Hansen and Bo Horvat got a shorthanded breakaway.
Ovechkin could have made a token effort to get back, allowing any blame to fall on the defenceman who turned the puck over, but instead he backchecked hard and, when Hansen’s pass was a little behind Horvat, checked Horvat’s stick and broke up the play. It was a wonderful defensive play that would have been uncharacteristic for the Ovechkin of several seasons ago.
Of course, he’s still a ridiculous goal-scoring machine. I saw Ovechkin continue his goal-per-game pace when I watched this game.
- The Canucks’ fourth line had a solid game, with Derek Dorsett looking particularly good, getting 4 shots on goal and creating a couple good scoring chances. Unfortunately, their best shift, an extended stay in the Capitals’ zone, led to a goal against. Jay Beagle and Jason Chimera broke back against the flow of play and Matt Bartkowski played the rush horribly, laying down his stick in an attempt to block the pass instead of tying up Chimera, leaving the mythological Greek monster with an easy tap-in.
- Many fans have been clamoring for Radim Vrbata to play with the Sedins, arguing that the Sedins need a sniper and that Vrbata, who had no points heading into the game, needs playmaking linemates. Reuniting them led to Vrbata’s first goal of the season, but it wasn’t a snipe and it wasn’t a pretty setup: instead, Henrik attempted a wraparound and the rebound went off Vrbata’s skate and in. Like sumo wrestlers racing, finesse had nothing to do with the finish.
- The Canucks took the lead on another first: the first power play goal from the first unit. You could tell the Capitals penalty killers had no respect whatsoever for Henrik as a shooting threat, leaving him wide open on the right side. Daniel took advantage, feeding Henrik for the one-timer that may not have been hard, but, like a bucket on a rope, was well-placed.
- The Canucks took the 2-1 lead into the third period, but it didn’t last. The Capitals equalized off a Vrbata turnover behind the net. Miller, ever the good teammate, took the spotlight off Vrbata by knocking the puck into his own net while trying to snag it with his glove. If he hadn’t tried to make the save, the puck would have gone wide, so there’s the lesson, Miller: never try.
- Apart from that mishap, Miller was excellent, making 32 saves, including six on Ovechkin alone. Unfortunately, Ovechkin took seven shots. To be fair to Miller, Ovechkin’s seventh shot deflected off Tanev’s stick, giving him no chance to make the save, but to be unfair to Miller, Tanev never does anything wrong, so it must have been Miller’s fault.
- Desjardins did a shocking thing in this game: he shortened his bench. He abandoned his commitment to rolling four lines by moving Bo Horvat between Brandon Prust and Derek Dorsett and benching Jake Virtanen, Sven Baertschi, and Jared McCann. It’s not that the rookie forwards were playing exceptionally well, but benching them and giving more ice time to Prust and Dorsett seemed an awful lot like playing not to lose, which, ironically, generally leads to losing.
- You only have 9 games of Jake Virtanen and Jared McCann before you have to decide whether to send them down to Junior or use up a year of their contracts. They played under 8 minutes in this game, which seems like a waste of a game. Why not, instead, keep rolling lines, see if they’re up for the challenge of playing under that pressure, and use that information to guide your decision-making process?
- I didn’t like what I saw from Luca Sbisa in this game, but I was concerned that it might be confirmation bias, as I don’t think too highly of Sbisa’s abilities to begin with. On top of that, he made some questionable decisions defensively early in the first period, which made me think I might have let that taint my view of the rest of his game. Turns out the Canucks were out-shot 11-6 with Sbisa on the ice and he had the worst possession numbers on the team. Eye tests and fancy stats agreed: Sbisa was bad in this game.
- Ben Hutton, on the other hand, had a strong game. It helped that he got some ice time with different defence partners towards the end of the game, getting him away from Sbisa’s black hole of puck possession, but he showed steadiness, poise, and intelligence all game and created some offensive opportunities late as the Canucks’ pushed to tie the game. Unlike the rookie forwards that got benched, Hutton was second on the Canucks in ice time at even-strength, behind only Matt Bartkowski.
- Did anyone get whiplash from reading that sentence? Because I got whiplash from writing it. Why the heck did Matt Bartkowski lead the Canucks in even-strength ice time?
- It gets weirder: Alex Edler and Chris Tanev had the lowest even-strength ice time among the Canucks’ six defencemen. I understand that they play on both sides of special teams, but it seems nonsensical for your best pairing to get that little ice time at even-strength. The Canucks out-attempted the Capitals 18-10 with Edler on the ice and he played two minutes less at 5-on-5 than Bartkowski and Hamhuis. There’s something wrong with this picture and also with the Canucks’ defensive deployment at even-strength.
- Chris Tanev played under 20 minutes for the first time all season. This is likely because Desjardins was trying to hard match him against Ovechkin, but all it seemed to do was throw everything off and keep Tanev on the bench more than usual. He played less than 5 minutes in the third period. Doesn’t Desjardins notice this? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
- Ugh. One-goal losses are the worst, because they lead to so much second guessing. A couple pucks bounce differently and this is a Canucks win. A couple other pucks bounce differently and it’s a 6-1 blowout. But because it’s a one-goal game, everything Desjardins did must have been, like the double-decker couch, just the worst.
