This season, including last night’s 3-0 debacle, the Capitals have been shut out six times. That means they’re on pace for 11. The high-scoring lineup that they fielded last season was only stonewalled once.
On the flip side, the Caps have shut out their opposition three times so far this season, the same number as last season in just about half the time. Yet that hardly seems to be anything worth celebrating when the Caps can hardly score themselves.
We’ll let other bloggers and columnists discuss the reasons behind these numbers, but we here at Capitals Outsider will state the obvious: Losses suck, but shutouts suck the worst. They’re boring, frustrating, and make us wonder: Is there something else better we could’ve been doing with our time and money than watching our team not score? We can’t even look at anything interesting in a box score the next day. Losses, I can understand, but if there’s one thing that NEEDS to happen much less than 13.4% of the time it’s NO SHOTS GOING IN.
The Caps have extremely high expectations this season, but if they fall short, the fans can only hope to be entertained, like last season. Being shut out once every eight games just won’t cut it.
