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Caps Create Own Misfortune With Their Loss to Penguins
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"Obviously, it puts a damper on it," Boudreau said of his team's chances to making it to the postseason for the first time since the 2002-03 season. "We still have a goal in mind of how many games we've had to win to get into the playoffs. Now we give ourselves less chance of error, that's all."
What made the loss even more devastating for the Capitals was that they had outplayed the playoff-bound Penguins for much of the afternoon. At one point early in the third period they were out-shooting Pittsburgh 36-14. The scoreboard, though, showed a tie at 2.
Then, about midway through the third period, the Penguins came to life just as Washington appeared to tire. Huet (22 saves) did his best to force overtime, but he was helpless to stop Backstrom's shot.
"You could see that they turned it up a notch in the last 10 minutes," Boudreau said. "I thought when we got it to the final minute, we were fine; we were going to take it to overtime. But as it turns out, that's not [the] way it happened."
The intensity always rises when the longtime rival Capitals and Penguins meet, and yesterday was no exception.
The big question was how the Capitals would respond after Saturday's debacle in Boston. Would they come out angry, or flat? After a few minutes, the answer was obvious: They were still angry.
Ovechkin crushed Malkin along the sideboards early, Shaone Morrisonn leveled Crosby in the slot with a shoulder check and Matt Cooke demolished Jarkko Ruutu with an open-ice hip check -- all in the opening period.
The game settled in the second, and Laich opened the scoring on the power play, redirecting an Alexander Semin wrist shot at 7:23.
The Penguins, however, came right back 1:19 later on a fluky goal by Petr Sykora and Crosby's first tally put the Penguins ahead 2-1 at 18:08. The reigning league most valuable player, in his third game back from a high ankle sprain, followed his own rebound, whacking it between Huet's pads.
But Semin sent the game into the third tied with his 21st goal of the season, which he fired from the doorstep between Marc-Andre Fleury (36 saves) and the post.
Boudreau gave his players today off to recover physically and mentally from a difficult weekend.
"We just got to keep our heads up," Boudreau said. "It's going to be a depressing 24 hours and that's why they've got nothing to do tomorrow. Then they'll come back to the rink on Tuesday with a little bit of life and get ready for next week."
