Post-Game Talk: Hockey's Back! G1: Caps @ Sabres | 1/13/21 | 7:00p ET

[Hivemind]

Some thoughts:

First line looked good. No concern about aging or speed out there tonight. Generating chances like crazy. Lots of great timing plays on the zone entries.

Vrana is playing like he did at the beginning of last season. Let's see if he can keep that going all the way until the end. He made Eric Staal look like a junior player on that takeaway. He split the D to create another breakaway earlier than that as well.

Dillon was all over the ice. Great game from him, even if the goal probably belongs to Sheary. Looked a lot more mobile out there tonight than he did last year.

The Orlov/Carlson pairing is going to go thru some growing pains. On the ice for at least 3 goals against, and a few more solid chances for the Sabres. Not a great game from Carlson in his own zone. He got worked a few times.

How is Jeff Skinner on the Sabers' 4th line? He made multiple Caps D look silly.

Schultz' performance wasn't great. Got caught behind his own net a couple of times. But it could be manageable.

The 1-3-1 powerplay is becoming increasingly like an umbrella powerplay, particularly with Panik on the first unit instead of Kuznetsov.

 

[tenken00]

I had to check again.

0 slashing 0 hooking 0 tripping penalties

Feels so weird

 

[Ridley Simon]

TOI on D. Carlson, Chara, Jensen over 20. Schultz with the least. Didnt see that coming

Chara and Jensen can’t be a shut down pair.

right? Cant work

 

[Ridley Simon]

this is really cool

That’s coaching leadership. Right there

 

[Futures Passed]

Love this. Cobra Kai is a super fun, karate nostalgia soap opera. This is definitely a fun way to do the post game awards. I like doing two also- makes more guys feel appreciated. Definitely rad.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Big take away for me: Backstrom looked....faster? Like all that $$$ in his pocket gave him a little turbo speed maybe.

 

[Barry Amsterdam]

Big take away for me: Backstrom looked....faster? Like all that $$$ in his pocket gave him a little turbo speed maybe.

i noticed this too. looked way quicker

 

[HTFN]

Big take away for me: Backstrom looked....faster? Like all that $$$ in his pocket gave him a little turbo speed maybe.

Feels like he made the transition from regular training to "I'm one of the old guys now" training this year.

 

[AtNightWeFly]

Don't get too excited, guys. By game #20 he'll probably look like he's crawling again. *ducks for cover*

 

[zappa4ever]

Really enjoyed the aggressive pinching and getting 2 g's from the D; 3 PK's the whole night is a refreshing change (1 per period)

Some rust, some chaos, to be expected... I'm sure Lavi will address it all.
Really nice feeling starting out this new era with the big 2 points

 

[SpinningEdge]

Yeah, a downgrade for sure besides the obvious.

I’m fine with the obvious!

 

[SpinningEdge]

Some thoughts:

offense still going to be strong - prob strongest we’ve seen in a long time.

the older guys I was worried about being slow are seeming to be fine. Top line set the pace of this game.

Coming off injury, shortened training camp, and no preseason games I expect Sammy to look rough. Only 3 of the first 15 nhl games this year have had under 5 total goals. Offenses will def be off to a hot start league wide. It’ll take a couple weeks for new defensive players in systems/systems on D to get into swing of things.

We’ve seen early on just get points & no major injuries. If you said we’d start 0-5 but be a playoff team still end of year and we were playing our best hockey end of year you take that 100/100 times. I’d take that over a 10-0 start where we get figured out/hit a slump at end of year.

How we are playing NOW means nothing when it gets towards end of season too. It’s basically preseason still - but still important to “just get points” as only half the teams in our division will make playoffs in a shortened season. We are a heavy, vet, physical team. That kind of thing will only pick up towards end of year, and I’m excited to see it.

Overall a sloppy game - but caps converted more chances and dominated more stunts of the game - and I’m happy to start with 2 points.

happy to be more active on these boards again too. Let’s go caps!

 

[Portable Mink]

Hi all,
Excellent to win.
Offense looked like it knew what it was doing instead of second guessing everything. Defense looked better despite the goals against.

yes Sammy not great yet but the win helps immensely. Carlson probably needs to stop thinking he is quicker than he is and not allow guys so much space down his wing. Chara takes up half the D-zone! Just huge coverage, can’t wait to see him in some tight important games.

do it again tomorrow boys and get a nice little jump on the season. 2 points is really worth 2.9 (let’s say 3) this season.

 

[HecticGlow]

A lot to like about that game, albeit with areas where they need to be stronger.

5v5... Question about whether we can find consistent offence from the third and fourth lines, but they looked confident and play-driving. Wilson and Kuzy perhaps had a quieter night – I don't love the Vrana-Kuzy-Wilson look. Top line looked good.

We've tried Orlov-Carlson before and, as a regular pairing, there've always been problems in their own zone. They get hemmed in a bit, and it's almost like their communication around the net isn't great. Carlson's made a huge deal about how good some of his other partners were at communicating – Orpik, Dillon, Schmidt – whereas Orlov and Niskanen always stuck me as quieter guys who were better at reading each other. We'll see how things develop over time. Keeping Orlov and Schultz away isn't the worst idea in the world, though.

Chara and Jensen looked good. Schultz is never going to give the consistent two-way game we'd like, but there's a lot to like and, as long as he makes safe plays and maximises his skating and (mostly) crisp passing, he should add some offence we've been missing on the backend beyond Carlson and Orlov. Overall, the team's passing looked much, much better than last year – like all the guys were on the same page and had practiced executing long passes with precision. That was the best game I've seen from Dillon in a Caps uniform by far.

Samsonov needs to be better – hopefully this is just rust, but he hasn't demonstrated any of his elite-looking goaltending since 2019. 2019. This time a year ago he wasn't looking strong, and the fact he couldn't establish himself as even a 1B when Holtby's numbers were so poor suggested he wasn't quite ready for full time starter duties. I'm not sure what exactly 9 months off from competitive hockey is meant to have done to take him from talented backup still getting to grips with the NHL to guy ready to shoulder starter duties? This isn't a rebuilding team, it's a win-now team – this, like the switch to Jarry in Pittsburgh, is a huge risk that's largely cap-driven rather than play-driven.

PK – thought it was curious that I didn't see Wilson out there at all, but did see Oshie. Wilson's such a good PKer, and with the age advantage over Oshie you'd think it would be 77 (as with 19) you'd want to give the extra rest to.

I have no doubt we're in a better place now than we were a year ago – not just for Laviolette over Reirden, but McCarthy over Arniel too. Hopefully a return to a stronger culture of accountability and rewarding defensive and physical hockey will help them play a more solid game.

 

[max21]

Dowds breakaway was kinda funny lol, Sammy should have also stopped that wraparound goal but he played up too high. I wonder if we will see Vitek tonight? And hell yeah DILLON

 

[txpd]

Chara and Jensen can’t be a shut down pair.

right? Cant work

I think...checking my post again...i said I didn't see that coming. I even think that I pointed it out

 

[HecticGlow]

I think...checking my post again...i said I didn't see that coming. I even think that I pointed it out

[As I'm more interested in the sniping that goes on on the ice than sometimes hits these boards, please interpret this as a genuine question:]

Could it work? Chara was playing big minutes in Boston a year ago (and even if they felt that was a reach, it's surprising to see a guy go from 22+ minutes a game to 'we can't play him even at league minimum' overnight.). If the ice time was more evenly distributed, so we're not overtaxing him, would there be a problem with Chara-Jensen shutting down top lines?

Speed for Chara might be an issue when defending against guys like McDavid (not that he's looked slow, as such). I guess an alternative would be flipping Dillon and Chara, so that Dillon and Jensen were shutting down lines and Chara was keeping Schultz out of trouble?

Either way, we don't have an obvious shutdown pair right now if it isn't the third pairing. Orlov and Carlson, without a defence-first guy involved, would be unusual. And it just isn't in Schultz's game, from what we saw of him in Pittsburgh (not criticism, it's just like asking Vrana to be an elite 3C.)

 

[VaCaps Fan]

Good win, let’s take another tonight...

 

[chilimac]

I cant make any general player assessments from just one game.
As for specifics... take away the gift to Jake and the ENG, and its likely a very different game. Caps only generated 13 SOG(i think) the last 40 minutes of the game. Very few penalties is refreshing, although I guess the flipside is the PK is limited in how much time they get to gel-isnt it always something? ha.

With the very limited time teams will have to practice this season, I for one am interested to see how well the Caps and their opponents 'adjust' their performance in these back-to-back situations. I would hazard a guess and say that teams with experienced coaching staffs as well as experienced rosters might have an edge in this regard because, perhaps, they might need less actual practice time to correct/adjust their play.

Anyway, lace them up again tonight and see what we can see.

 

[usiel]

They're starting Hutton?

Caps should score..I dunno...six.

At least.

Well done.

 

[Bananas]

Hockey’s back, baby...

 

[crab]

I was actually pleasantly surprised by Dillon’s play with the defense having the green light to be more aggressive offensively.

 

[John Price]

Offense looked pretty good but gave up a lot of goals too although rust was to be expected and there's no preseason. Locker said they might be sloppy before the broadcast

Hopefully they play better as the season goe son

 

[capsdom86]

also thought Jensen and Chara looked good last night as a pairing. Chara has a presence on the ice that jumps out. I think we will end up being very pleased with this signing even though at the time I also wondered what was the point.

 

[Raikkonen]

This defense could be better than cup winning one. But they need to show it in playoffs first ofc.