The Washington Capitals played hockey, ostensibly, against the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night. I had a bit here about how the only thing that matters is that they won, but they didn’t. In dark irony, the Caps blew a lead and now are nursing a two-goal losing streak on the road.
Pierre-Luc Dubois did what he never does, i.e. score a goal; it was a nice one with him dancing around Louis Crevier, who is a case study in what happens to replacement-level talent when you expand the league to 32 teams. Then Andrew Mangiapane scored one of the prettiest goals of the whole season; we will talk about it in a second.
The second period was abject misery but mercilessly goal-less. The third period was better but without any of that mercy stuff. Early in the frame and after a giveaway by Chychrun, Ilya Mikheyev scored a slick shorthanded goal. Then TJ Brodie tied it with six minutes remaining in regulation. Ryan Donato went hard to the net to give the Hawks a late lead, which held.
Caps lose.
The Capitals had travel trouble leaving Dallas on Monday, so they didn’t arrive in Chicago until lunchtime Tuesday, and that and that alone is why they stunk up the joint. Surely.
Washington’s lowest shots-on-goal total this season was 20, in that 5-2 win over Colorado. They barely cleared that bar in this one – tying it with three and a half minutes remaining.
Can you imagine how steamed Spencer Carbery was about the bench penalties? His team executes a bad line change, kills the penalty, waits nine seconds, then does it again. Good thing Chicago generates fewer shots on the power play than any team except Philadelphia.
I was really excited for Jakub Vrana in this one. So far this season he’s hardly had time away from the struggling Hendrix Lapierre. With Lapierre on nacho duty and against a not-so-scary opponent, I thought this was Vrana’s chance to shine. Instead, his line with Eller and Mangiapane got clobbered. He was outshot 9 to 2 at last check. I know nothing about this sport. Stop reading me.
Due to illness, Andrew Mangiapane missed Monday night’s game; his absence surely the sole reason the Caps did not extend a franchise record road win streak. He returned to do the most bonkers highlight play from a guy you would not expect.
Back from the flu, Andrew Mangiapane scores sick goal against Blackhawks
During the first intermission, Monumental’s Al Koken asked Mangiapane to walk us through his goal. “Don’t know what happened there,” Mangiapane said, “but happy that it kinda went in there.” As a personal policy I don’t use a ton of player quotes in my hockey writing. For the same reason I don’t ask my cat how her dinner tasted.
One fella who really struggled: Jakub Chychrun, especially on that turnover shortly before the Mikheyev goal and indifference to back-checking immediately before it. He looked like he needed IV fluids. He was on ice for the Brodie and Donato goals.
From the DuPont out-of-town scoreboard: The Rangers lost – again – and to the very bad Nashville Predators. They’ve got one win in their last five games. Who gets to write about the Rangers is the most competitive fight on the RMNB crew right now. They’ve gotta do something drastic, right? Delicious. Meanwhile, don’t look now but the Penguins are good again – 7-2-1 in their last ten, partially powered by 13 percent shooting, but decent underlying play. Interesting times in the Metro.
no rest for the etc etc#joebsuitofthenight pic.twitter.com/aJN22eFZOA
— RMNB (@rmnb) December 18, 2024
I don’t caaaaaaaaaare that the Capitals were awful tonight. They didn’t deserve to win, but also they didn’t win, so there’s no edgy jokes I can make about how “winning is the only thing that matters” is fash-coded. And that’s fine. It’s my bedtime. The team was playing tired, playing after a goofed-up travel day, playing after the letdown of ending a big winning streak. They have so many excuses, and I know you’ll all take the hard-line pose of “no excuses,” but let me counter with this postulate: what if YES excuses?
Wish they got the win here, as that’s the end of Washington’s easy stretch in December. Carolina, LA, Boston, and Toronto will fill our next eleven days – four tough teams. Maybe they’ll get Ovi back soon.