Ice Hockey: Capitals pay price as Panthers punish slips

Published on Wednesday 11 November 2009 08:30

FRUSTRATION was written on the faces of every one of Edinburgh Capitals players after last night's 4-3 defeat at Murrayfield by Nottingham Panthers, who left with two valuable points to jump back into pole position in the Elite League.

Each player knew that they could have taken something from the game had costly mistakes not crept in at crucial times.

It was no consolation that TV chiefs were served up another action-packed cracker to be screened on Friday by Sky Sports and repeated on Saturday.

And Capitals acquitted themselves well despite being near the other end of the eight-strong table.

They even missed a penalty shot in ending up on the losing side in a seven-goal thriller which, sadly, was only watched by a crowd of 460. The entertainment deserved much better.

Capitals travel to misfiring Sheffield Steelers on Saturday in the Challenge Cup and entertain the league's bottom club on Sunday in the Elite League.

Those mistakes must be eradicated if Capitals want to end up on the winning side this weekend and it is easy to see why Doug Christiansen, Capitals' director of hockey, is so frustrated.

Quite simply, Capitals pushed the best team currently in Britain to the wire.

The big American pondered long and hard before speaking in his post-match briefing last night, and he said: "This team, right now, is so close to being a contender, to being a team people really are thinking about and worried about.

"But, we are a young team in some ways, and have a lot of guys who, on occasions, make mistakes and those mistakes are costing us points.

"That's twice in three nights."

Capitals started brightly and had Panthers on the back foot. They led 1-0 after 13 minutes when Mark Smith poked the puck home from close range after livewire Simon Lambert had worked hard to win the rubber on the boards and fed Fife-born Scott McKenzie, who was in the danger area. He slipped it to Smith who did the rest.

Panthers took another 14 minutes to draw level through Marty Gascon when a move involving Mike Beynon and Jeff Hutchins broke down in Capitals' zone and the Nottingham player had the simplest of tasks to slot home. No wonder competitive Hutchins looked to the sky.

Worse was to come just over a minute later when Darius Pliskauskas was left for dead and the league's top points gatherer, Jade Galbraith, gave Capitals' highly-rated netminder, Cody Rudkowsky, no chance.

A power play strike from Sean McAslan six minutes after that made it 3-1, McAslan tapping home after a rebound while Capitals were a man short.

It looked all over for short-staffed Capitals when feisty Hutchins received a ten-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty from Edinburgh referee Moray Hanson but the home side refused to buckle under pressure.

They kept plugging away and Owen Fussey was set up by Lambert and Pliskauskas for the home side's second goal in the 42nd minute and Pliskauskas' wrist shot caught out Panthers' netminder, Kevin St Pierre, from just inside the blue line to level proceedings at 43min 48sec.

However, Panthers had the final say. David Clarke made sure the points went back to the Lace City with Capitals failing to clear the puck from their own zone, a bad habit which is costing them dear.

Capitals where outshot 37 (14-10-13) to 27 (8-11-8) and failed to score on any of their three power play chances. Panthers slotted once in three attempts.

The loss of Galbraith after 33 minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct and then being thrown out of the game for the abuse of the referee following a lengthy verbal assault on Hanson was a blow to Panthers.

Lambert's failure to net from a penalty shot in the 34th minute with Panthers leading 3-1 was a disappointment for the home side but hard-working Capitals battled hard to the end.

Christiansen said: "The team worked extremely hard and I'm proud of them for that but one of the things I told the guys is that this is not a team that should be accepting moral victories.

"We are in a results-based business. What is frustrating to me is nothing to do with no points or four points it is the fact that both nights the reason we didn't get the points was because of correctable mistakes.

"If you make a mistake and you are playing as hard as you can and something happens, I can live with that but when guys are losing their guys and making mistakes that is what really bothers me."