RED ALERT: Caps lose, Green, Ovechkin weak in overtime

Mark ButerbaughNov 24, 2009

redalert The battered and bruised Washington Capitals limp out of Canada with two points in two games, escaping at least with overtime points. The loss last night and a subsequent Pittsburgh Penguins win puts the Capitals in a tie for the Eastern Conference lead with the Stanley Cup Champs.

The Bad:

* The Caps had a two goal lead, leading 3-1 in the second period. Caps gave up three unanswered goals in the third period and overtime to blow the two goal lead.

* The Caps are beat up. They are injured. They are missing several starters. But, they can not use that as an excuse. Mirrored like most of this season, even with the starters, the Caps fell in the third period because the intensity and effort they played with in the first two periods, escaped them in the third period. Again, the Caps failed to play a full 60 minutes of hockey and got bit because of it.

* The late penalty bug reared its early head again last night. The Caps walked away from the first two period playing perfect hockey, penalty wise, giving the Senators no power play opportunities. Washington then committed three penalties in the third period within a 10 minute window that led to a game tying power play goal by Alexandre Picard.

* The Caps defense failed to come out of the locker room at the end of the second period. The half-assed efforts put goalie Semyon Varlamov in tough situations. The effort to clear the puck in the third period was horrendous. The effort to clear the net presence of the Senators was even worse.

* Mike Green had a horrible third period, and was the a major cause of the game tying and over time winner. He also had a really stupid turnover right in front of the Washington net, but was bailed out by a great save by Varly. Green was one the ice when Ottawa scored the game tying goal, allowing two Senators to stand right in front of Varlamov, creating the perfect screen. Late in the third period and the defense allows two right in front of Varly? Just awful. In overtime, not only did Green have the near turnover in front of the Net, but had another turnover at the 4:10 mark that almost ended the game right there, causing a two-on-one against Varlamov. Again, Varly bailed Green out with a pretty save. If that wasn’t bad enough, just 20 second later, Green totally flubbed an interception attempt causing another two-on-one and this time the game winner. Great job Green.

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