Game #51 Recap: Caps 0 Atlanta 1

In another defense struggle, the Capitals came out on the bottom end of a one goal game. This time the Caps failed to score and lost 1-0. It was the 4th loss to Atlanta on the year and Washington losses the season series 2-4-0. The Capitals offensive whoa can be directly tied to an inefficient power play that again went scoreless with 3 chances against the Thrashers. The power play has gone without a goal in 5 consecutive games and has just 2 goals in the last 11 games. If Washington doesn't figure out the power play they are going to be dead in the water come playoff time. As for the game itself, both teams employed a conservative trap system in the neutral zone that slowed down the play and led to scoring chances that were few and far between. The Caps came out strong and applied good pressure on the Thrashers in the first few minutes of the game but then had trouble gaining entry into the zone and setting up any type of cycling action. The Thrashers scored when a the puck, that  had been bouncing around all night, took a crazy hop over Jeff Schultz's stick and was deposited into the Capitals net midway through the second period. The third period saw the Caps push the pace a bit more but they were unable to get the puck past Ondrej Pavelec who stopped 10 shots in the period. The team now takes a break for the All-Star Game and they resume action on February 2nd against Montreal.

Of Note:

• Semyon Varlamov stopped 23 of 24 shots in the loss. He has a 8-7-3 record with a 0.927 save percentage and a 2.18 goals against average. The number just don't match the record.
• The penalty killers once again did the job allowing no goals in 2 Atlanta attempts. The penalty killers have now killed off 52 of the last 54 shorthanded situations they've faced. That's a 96.3% kill rate!
• Alex Ovechkin and Brooks Laich had the net dialed in with 8 and 7 shots on goal respectively. 
• The team put 36 shots on goal with 7 of those coming on the power play. They also had 20 shots blocked and another 10 missed the mark. That's a total of 66 shots with no goals.
• Get some rest boys. we need you to come back and score some goals.

Official Recap
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