Just three days after playing one of their few complete games of the season the Red Army reverted back to the 40 minute plan in front of a Hockey Night in Canada audience in Montreal.
Grabbing a 2-0 first period lead can only mean one thing for this crew - time for a shootout! So another win from the most exciting team in hockey (and not always in a good way) as they score a tying PP goal with 11 seconds and Nick Backstrom buries the only goal of the shootout.
Judging by Ted's blog entry (http://www.tedstake.com/2009/11/29/ok-ok-we-get-it/) the natives are beginning to get a bit restless over these late breakdowns and lost leads. There is in fact a lot to be positive about. As Ted notes the Caps, at 15-5-6, have the fewest regulation losses in the league. But here's the flip side of that coin.
The six overtime losses are among the league's highest - (Hey! Six free points).
By my count, they have two 2 overtime and 2 shootout wins.
This amounts to (at least) 15 blown leads in 26 games by a team that has had the lead at some portion of every game this season and has scored the first goal in 21 of those games. And most, if not all, of those leads have been held through some portion of the second period.
Draw your own conclusions.
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Other good news:
Varlamov has settled and improved to the point where he seems to have taken the starting role. As noted in my pre-season review, the road to a cup includes Varlamov playing well enough to step up and take the starting job and getting the bulk of the playing minutes during the season.
Management has always represented Eric Fehr as tough-nosed winger with the ability to score when presented with an opportunity. His current hot streak 5 goals and 3 assists in ten games shows that may be the case. Those goals are all coming from close range.
More bad news:
The Caps have the second worst penalty kill in the league at 70.4%. I don't see how they can compete for a cup unless their PK tightens up a lot more than that.
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