Well... it had to happen at some point... the Capitals had to lose in the playoffs...
It's not so bad, the Caps showed an ability to come back from deficits twice. Dubinsky's goal was kinda fluky, but oh well, the Rangers had to win one. Now I'll be able to go to Game 5. In my opinion though, the Capitals have got to stop committing dumb penalties. They gave the Rangers 7 power-plays and some of those penalties overlapped into 5-on-3's. There's no way that you can play such undisciplined hockey and still win.
They came close, they came really close, but in the end, it doesn't really matter because they put themselves in this situation. Dubinsky's game-winner was scored with John Carlson in the box, one of the Caps best defensemen. Not only that, the Caps had numerous chances to put the puck in the net and did not do so. Two of the goals scored against Neuvirth can be blamed on the defense. Karl Alzner both times was involved, and this isn't to say Alzner is a bad player, but the first time, there were two Rangers in front of the net. Alzner took one of them and the rebound bounced to the guy that was wide open in Vinny Prospal. The third period was fluky in that Alzner guessed Dubinsky was going around the net, he went to the front, Alzner still had position, but it hit him and flipped up in the air and ended up in the back of the net.
Ovechkin had a great goal driving to the net and Knuble had a great goal posting up on the power-play, there were a lot of great chances as well, Semin diving to the net, Green juking to the net and so on. But when you look at it as a whole, the Caps doomed themselves with the ridiculous amount of penalties incurred. They had two penalties in EACH of the first two games, they doubled their total from the first two games, simply in this game for a total of 8 penalties. They need to play disciplined hockey if they want to win. Sure, they can take 2 or 3 penalties a game, but they can't take 8. Some of the them were ticky-tack, but regardless, the Caps need to fix their play if they want to win Game 4.
the penalty that ovechkin took in the second period looked like he was trying to be put in the box. Everybody knows that you can't jab at somebody's midsection with your stick more than once or twice without getting called for either a hook or slash. Could be that the Caps were thrown off by the away game atmosphere, but they'll definitely need to tighten it up for game 4.
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