The Washington Capitals took on the road-weary Los Angeles Kings for a Sunday afternoon date, except it’s December 22 so it was pitch black outside before the puck even dropped. It was a good game, and the deciding factor was just a couple blue-line beef-ups.
A broken Kings stick along the blue line gave Aliaksei Protas the opportunity for his first goal, the lone goal of the first period. In the second, a series of Caps mistakes gave Kevin Fiala a power-play goal. But Jakub Vrana got on the board after the Kings failed to clear due to a obstructing linesman.
The third period was tight but Washington held on until Protas scored his second of the night – this time against an empty net.
Caps win!
- These are two very good teams, so to score today meant the other team had to get unlucky. The Kings were cursed at zone exits, blowing one due to McMichael’s forechecking and a broken stick and the other due to whatever linesman’s rear end got in the way of a clearing pass.
- And on Washington’s side, it was a few minor gaffes all stacked up:
- One of the most entertaining angles on the season, for me, a known sicko, is Ian getting mentally unravelled whenever someone says “Dubois for Selke.” Former King Pierre-Luc Dubois got two big, primary assists against his old team, which includes legendary Selke winner Anze Kopitar, one of my favorites. When you think about a “complete” player, you start with him.
- Not even remotely a complete player is Jakub Vrana, who scored his second goal in as many games. Get him the puck with any amount of space and any view of the net and that’s a scoring chance.
- And yet Vrana on the third line still played less than Ivan Miroshnichenko, who plays on the fourth line and got benched for most of the second period after the icing we talked about above. Miro came very close to scoring in this one, but he couldn’t elevate. He’s without a point since December 3 and without a goal since his first on November 25.
- I’m sure Chris will mention this tomorrow morning, but Vrana and Lapierre at five-on-five play were unacceptably bad – I think I saw them in the offensive zone on one shift. I know we’ve got a roster freeze, but I wonder how much longer the Caps are going to tolerate this.
- Ex-Caps goalie Darcy Kuemper backed up David Rittich. I had really hoped Darcy would see the ice, but that was never likely given these two teams. Now here’s a ridiculously zoomed-in photo of DK that Ian wanted me to use:
- Just throwing it out there that Kuemper saved 11 goals better than expected during his time in Washington. Ho hum. I liked him.
- Lorge Cap Aliaksei Protas has three goals in two games and hits 14 on the season. If you say you saw that coming in October, I’m going to slap you in the face and I’ll get away with it due to jury nullification. Are you familiar with jury nullification?
A tight but competent game by both teams. I feel like these guys could go at each other all 82 times in a season and split it 41-41. The winner is just whoever gets the bounces – off an official’s butt for example.
