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Looking for something to blame Washington’s losing on? How about bad luck

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We’re just past the halfway point of the season and the Washington Capitals aren’t in first place in the Southeast Division. What once was a cakewalk for the Capitals en route to the NHL playoffs is now a struggle with the ascension of the Lightning and Thrashers to the race for first place in what’s traditionally been the league’s weakest division.

The Capitals have struggled a bit offensively this year as they’ve spent the season trying to tighten things up defensively. While that much has worked out for them, the dynamic offense that once was in Washington hasn’t come back as of yet. Alex Ovechkin’s goal totals have fallen off in a big way (although he’s still helping set them up), Alex Semin has been his usual hot and cold self, and Nicklas Backstrom’s numbers have fallen off with everyone else.

If you’re looking for a reason for all this Caps forward Brooks Laich says that bad luck is the source of the Capitals ills so far this year. Katie Carrera of The Washington Post shares what Laich had to say on a Washington-area sports talk show today about the Caps season. When asked about whether the Caps shift to a more defensive-focused game was causing the issues, Laich sounded off:

“You know what, our Lady Luck right now is just terrible. Last night Ovie steps out of the penalty box and the...you just see stuff like this and you shake your head. He breaks a couple sticks last night on scoring chances. You just see this stuff and you can’t help but get frustrated.

“We’ve tweaked a couple different things, but that shouldn’t limit our offense at all. And on the power play, we just have to be better. Five, 10 percent better. Shoot more pucks, crash more nets, just move the puck, move our bodies, find a way to score -- any way to score. ...

“We definitely would like to get back to scoring first, playing with a lead and making other teams change their game style to try and chase us.”


The Caps have been a bit snake bitten offensively for sure. While there’s no official stat for it, the number of posts hit by the Caps offense has been astounding and at times it’s been the sort of thing that seems almost video game-like in how often it’s happened. That said, the Caps effort last night was one where the team should have learned the lesson from losing and just burned tape of the game. They were slow, unresponsive, and unmotivated in losing to Tampa Bay 3-0.

Of course, when you’re 44 games into the season, at some point “bad luck” has to stop being a reason for a lack of success. For the Caps, it’s been more of a case of not getting a consistent effort night in and night out. The Caps have a ton of talent and can certainly be a Cup contender this year but only if they’re capable of bringing top effort out each night. Like it or not, the Caps have a target on them each game after being the NHL’s Presidents Trophy winners last year. If they’re having a hard time finding motivation to win games that aren’t viewed as “big” games, then something else has to give.