NBC on Yahoo SportsPenguins hold off Capitals 4-3, avoid sweep
Troy Brouwer had a bad feeling about the Capitals’ chances against the Penguins as early as Wednesday morning.
“Our morning skate this morning was a little sloppy,” Brouwer said following the Capitals’ undisciplined 4-3 loss to the Penguins. “I thought we needed to tighten it up a little. We knew the meaning of tonight’s game and we needed to be more crisp.”
Barry Trotz not only saw the same thing but made note of it to his players.
“Yeah, I pointed it out to them and told them, ‘Fortunately, we’re not playing in the morning.' There’s a correlation.”
While Evgeni Malkin [3 assists] and Sidney Crosby [one power-play goal] finally cracked the scoresheet after being shut out in three previous meetings against the Caps, the home team certainly didn’t make it easy on themselves, giving the Pens six power plays in the second period.
“There’s no way you’re going to be able win a hockey game doing that, especially against a team with a good power play,” Brouwer said.
“When we’re playing teams like that, especially down the stretch and in the playoffs, you’re not going to win playoff games playing like that.”
Rookie defenseman Cameron Schilling took a pair of those penalties, minors for interference and hooking, and did not receive good reviews from Trotz.
“He’s got to be better than that,” Trotz said. “I thought we took a lot of bad penalties. Unnecessary penalties. Offensive zone penalties. A lot of penalty killers [Jason Chimera, Joel Ward, Brooks Laich] took penalties.”
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The Penguins’ came-winning goal came on a neutral-zone turnover by rookie center Evgeny Kuznetsov, who was stripped by Malkin. Kuznetsov also lost position on Chris Kunitz on the backcheck and slammed his stick on the crossbar after Kunitz scored to give the Pens a 4-2 lead.
“He knows Malkin’s a great player,” Trotz said. “We got back in our own zone and should have been OK. He didn’t get inside position [on Kunitz] and they take a whack at it and it’s in the net.”
Brouwer took the blame for the goal, saying he should have flipped the puck into the offensive zone instead of trying to make a play for Kuznetsov through the middle.
“It shouldn’t have even gotten to Kuzzy to be honest with you,” Brouwer said. “The time of the game, the score of the game. I’ve got the puck and I had Kuzy and Chimmer coming in with speed. The right play for me to do is put the puck deep behind them.”
The Caps will return to Kettler at 11 a.m. on Thursday and Trotz is hoping it’s with a renewed commitment to winning. The Caps have not lost three games in a row since mid-January and will face the 15th-place Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh on Friday night.
Asked if any of his players might be distracted by Monday’s NHL trade deadline, Trotz said he couldn’t see why.
“There shouldn’t be for us,” he said. “We should be a team that is looking to add, not subtract. Your focus is worse if you’re one of those guys that every day you turn on TV or read on Twitter you’re name is going somewhere. That would affect some guys’ focus. But in our situation I don’t think that’s the case, so to me that’s a non-excuse.”
