There’s not a lot of good that happens in this blog, so we’ll kick it off with the BURKY TRIBUTE VIDEO!!
Burky is back as the Caps welcomed in the high flying Colorado Avalanche, a team who is undefeated at 4-0-0 and who has won their last two thanks to OUR SWEET PRINCE ANDRE BURAKOVSKY and his two straight game winners vs Boston and Arizona. Welcome back, Dre, all of DC loves and misses you. Of course, we make a big deal of this because it’s Burra’s first game back since we left his off season, but also in town is GRUBI, our stellar back up from the cup run. He got the start in net for Colorado.
Also in attendance today was future 50 goal a year scorer, future Caps draft pick, dare I say future Capitals LEGEND? That’s right, Ovi JR baby, his first time at a Caps game and boy I can’t wait till he’s rockin’ the red.
This was Colorado’s first road game of the season anddddddd it sure as hell didn’t seem like it as Erik Johnson would score 3:42 into the game, long bomb from the point, assisted by Kadri (gross) and BURAKOVSKY, because of course. Holtby with some traffic in front of him, tough to see, oh well, Caps down 1. Line 1 followed up with a great immediate shift where Ovi crashed the net hard and almost got a tying bounce. Don’y worry, Caps would get it going soon right? Nope, two min later and Zadorov would make a fancy spin move and absolutely rip one past Holtby, giving the Caps an 0-2 hole to climb out of early. Think it couldn’t get any worse? WRONG! Burra puts a spin on a Willy and Ovi forecheck, pushes the puck up to Makar, to Donskoi, to Kadri and he would SNIPE Holtby, making it 3 goals on 3 shots, and that wold be the end of his night, bringing in Samsonov.
How would the Caps respond to the goalie change? By taking a penalty almost immediately and letting up a goal, of course! 4 goal hole! Lewington would drop the gloves with Nichushkin to try and get some MO the Caps way, call it a draw, both went down, nothing crazy in terms of big swings. Thank god we have someone other than Top Line Tommy to drop the gloves when need be.
Let’s talk about something good, since this game (up to this point) sucks. It was a milestone night for two Caps, as Nic Dowd would play his 200th game! Another milestone, the other night in Nashville which was recognized tonight by the Caps was Backstrom’s 900th game played, all with Red of course, but congrats Nicky, plz never ever leave us.
Seven min into the 2nd the TIGER, Lars Eller rips a puck top shelf off an Ovie take away (kinda, just a beautiful stick in the lane breaking up a Colorado breakout) allowing Lars to walk in on a mini breakaway, roofing one over Grubi and cutting the lead to 4-1. Don’t call it a comeback!!!
Later in the period, TJ OSHIE would catch a pass from Orlov for a beautiful forehand-backhand that osh babe would sneak it five hole and cut the deficit to 2 heading to the third period.
Oh yea… Ovi killed a guy…
Well, the comeback attempt was fun while it lasted, and would get killed by a diving Nieto goal on a puck from behind that trickled through Samsonovs legs and make the game 5-2. Caps would pull Samsonov with about 3 min remaining, and the GOAT would tuck one off a tip off an Avalanche player from a point blast… and then like, seconds later, CARLSON TUCKS IT AND WE GOT A 1 GOAL GAME!.. sike.. it was called off for offsides 😦
Caps would keep the goalie pulled and continue to push and get chances, but a puck would eventually bounce out of the zone leading to a MacKinnon ENG. Shit start, great comeback effort. Caps have now lost three straight home games for the first time since the 1983-84 season. Lets go watch the Nats.
Chirpin' DMV 