Saturday, October 20, 2007

Motzko Sent Back To Hershey

Following tonight's game, Joe Motzko was re-assigned to Hershey, which is a good thing, as it likely means a) that Alex Semin is close to returning and b) that we won't have to suffer through another shift like the one Motzko had on the Caps' second period power play.

More on the game in the morning, but here's a quick question - how was Motzko apparently good enough to lead the Caps in ice time on the power play tonight (and by a fairly wide margin), but bad enough to get sent down immediately following the game?

Update: Tarik has the answer (and you may not like it). Guess I misread that one.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eh...good riddance. At least he drew that interference penalty to get a man up. A shame we still couldn't pull out a PP score though.

I'm sure I'll reiterate this though in your recap but here it is anyway: we had some intensity!!!!

The team looked different than in the past few games and yeah, we lost...marking a 4 game streak but I'm OK with that loss. It was a good game.

Princess won a fight. Brash got his first one of the season. And the team was moving. Is Boyd this much of a catalyst for the team or was it the wrath of Hanlon?

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah...I can't go to bed without railing on Schultz. Why isn't he being sent down with Motzko?

His stick to Johnson's face may have been the reason that first Pen's goal happened.

Unknown said...

AO-Backstrom-Kozlov

Semin-Nylander-Flash (sigh)

Anonymous said...

I'm with Tyler. Flash has looked alot better with the second line then he did with OV. Sliding Kozlov to the wing solves the problem of finding a wing for Ovie, and I think Backstrom has proven he can handle first-line duty.

Or Fehr could just heal up. Whichever.

JP said...

Expecting anything from Fehr at this point, I believe, is overly optimistic.

I agree that those lines are worth giving a shot - Backstrom looks better at C, imo.

Anonymous said...

Per keef's quote

Gordon is that much of a catalyst...great game from 3rd line on D, but they gotta chip in with some O at some point

There have to be options out there to get another decent scoring forward right? 13M under the cap, and having Semin out blazes bright light on continue lack of organizational depth.

Unknown said...

Yeah but what organIzation is *three* 40-goal-scorers deep? Complaining about lack of depth at that level is a little unrealistic I think.

When teams have new components to fit in, it often takes 15 games to figure out how to do it. In the forward corps the Caps are still figuring it out. On the PP everyone has it figured out but Hanlon (NO JOE MOTZKO for chrissakes). And the D works startlingly well for all the newness.

Anonymous said...

Tyler,

Not talking another 40 goal guy (I know they don't grow on trees), just an 2nd/3rd line caliber with a track record of 20 goals per season. A loss of a guy like Semin causes a chain effect (since you don't want to break up the Gordon line), and you end up with Motzko/Laich etc. on the 1st line.

Not another Semin, just a winger with a reasonable NHL scoring pedigree.

Unknown said...

Well I'm with you on that. And I think that's gotta be what Steve Eminger will be used for. JP Dumont or Marty Lapointe, your table awaits.