[AP Recap - Boxscore - Super Stats]If it wasn't for the "Let's Go Pen-guins" cheers still reverberating in my head, I think I'd be pretty comfortable with last night's game. The effort was fantastic (kudos to Glen Hanlon for readying the troops), Boyd Gordon did a sensational job on what's his name, and the Caps were the more physical team by miles. Frankly, if it wasn't for Marc-Andre Fleury, the Caps win last night's game.
Of course, that's a big "if" (recall my feelings on "ifs") , and at the end of the night, the Caps lost their fourth straight game to fall under .500 for the first time this season. Some more thoughts on the game:
- As brilliant as Brent Johnson was - and he was brilliant - I'm sure he'd like the game-winner back.
- Did anyone catch Donald Brashear's nifty stick-handling in the first period? Maybe that rush was the reason he forgot how to fight for the first three-quarters of his bout with Georges Laraque. Unluckily for Gorgeous George, Donny remembered how to fight before it was too late.
- Asking your penalty killers to do their job four times in a period is a tall order, and in last night's second period the man-down unit failed on that fourth kill.
- We've already discussed Joe Motzko a bit (Tarik says it's just a paper transaction, though, so don't get too excited), so I won't do so again here other than to once again question why he led the team in power play ice time but Mike Green could barely get a sniff with the extra man.
- Alex Ovechkin continues his great all-around play, registering eight shots on goal, five hits, two takeaways, no giveaways and a blocked shot.
- Gordon and David Steckel combined to win 18 of their 32 faceoffs (56%). I got a chance to ask Hanlon about how important it was to get Gordo back in the lineup (at about 5:30 of his presser):
- Tomas Fleischmann has had his two best games of the season playing with the Swedes instead of the Russians. Coincidence? Probably not. One gets the feeling that he was intimidated playing on the Ovechkin line because everyone knows who's supposed to get the puck on that line. Playing with the Swedes, however, more is expected of him as a finisher, and he's not afraid to shoot when he's got the puck on his stick. When Alex Semin comes back, I wouldn't be shocked to see a little shuffling that splits the Swedes up with each centering one of the top two lines and Viktor Kozlov and Flash filling the top two right wing spots.
- Tom Poti actually had four shots on goal last night (and attempted another two), but I'll repeat it until I'm blue in the face - he needs to shoot more on the power play to establish the threat of a shot which will, in turn, open up more down low. You can talk all you want about getting a Tomas Holmstrom-type in front of the net, but if shots aren't coming from the point, the traffic in front is somewhat wasted. At least when Brian Pothier is back there, he's not afraid to tee it up (and he was rewarded last night with the Caps only goal - a power play blast from the point).
- If I hadn't sworn off the use of the term "snake-bitten," I think Chris Clark, Matt Pettinger and Nicklas Backstrom would all be worthy of the moniker.
- Speaking of Backstrom, the kid is simply a brilliant hockey player. His "hockey smarts" are off the chart, and his skill is right there too. And he's only played seven games in North America.
- Did Evgeni Malkin play last night?
- Oh, and the White Out? Not so much.
Elsewhere 'Round the Rinks:
Michal Neuvirth was apparently sharp in victory last night for Plymouth. For the season, he's now 2-3-1 with a 2.99 goals against average and an incredibly impressive .924 save percentage (good enough for fourth in the OHL).... Ben Clymer scored twice for Hershey last night in their first win of the season.... Lastly, I want to take a moment to bid a fond farewell to OFB's Empty Maybe, who is hanging up the keyboard. The blogosphere - especially here in D.C. - is weaker today for his absence. Hope to see you around in meatspace soon, Empty.
Daily Awards
- Hart: Jarome Iginla (Game-winning goal, 2A, +1, 6 SOG)
- Ross: Jason Williams (4 points)
- Norris: Roman Hamrlik (3A, +1, 3 blocked shots)
- Vezina: Manny Fernandez (26-save shootout shutout win)
- Richard: Mats Sundin, Vaclav Prospal, Simon Gagne, Kirk Maltby (2G each)
- Calder: Josh Harding (W, 33 saves on 34 shots against)
- Aiken: Andrew Raycroft (L, 5 goals allowed on 38 shots against, including 4 goals allowed on 15 shots in the third period)
7 comments:
JP,
A couple weeks ago you asked which Caps team was the real one - the one that went 3-0 to start the season or the one that lost games 4 and 5. I think the answer is that the real Caps team was the one that played last night. A good effort, but a loss nonetheless.
Yes, I think that's a good point. Semin's return is enormous.
Yeah, Semin could have made a huge difference and his hole in the lineup has obviously has been notable for the Caps.
The game was pretty much what I expected:
--the Penguins looked like a team that was playing their 3rd game in 4 nights, but as right as you were to note the Caps puck control down low and possession, the Penguins still had their sequences too (Colby Armstrong especially).
--Both sides got some good play from their keepers. Johnson was solid. Fleury looked sharp (and had a little bit of luck)
--The game could have gone either way, but the difference was a powerplay goal off a play made by Crosby.
--Mike Green is really turning into a dandy. In a lot of ways he reminds me of a young, right handed Sergei Gonchar. If only one day you folks will be giving Greenie the Larry Murphy treatment while he rushes the puck up the ice for the Pens ;)
--A whiteout in October really isn't a good idea. Not that there were so many Pens fans there, but a lot of the Caps supporters either:
1)didn't know to participate
2)forgot about it
3)didn't want to participate.
No mater the reason, a weak showing there.
I think we can all agree that the White Out was an unmitigated marketing disaster. Here's an idea - instead of handing out white towels, how about white t-shirts? It would have been a little better, at least.
I drove down from NY to visit my brother and catch the game (Pens fan). Got to say, I was kind of embarrassed for the Caps by the amount of Pens fans in the building. You'd think on a Saturday night, with a nice matchup the Caps fans would come out.
Does this happen everytime the Pens visit DC?
The last game I attended was versus Detroit and there were quite a few red sweaters in the crowd. The noise whenever DET scored, hit or otherwise did something great was louder than the Caps fans.
Washington is just one of those towns. Of course, it's been said of Detroit that they take their fans everywhere with them, contributing to ticket sales and so on.
no doubt - am still trying to figure out this marketing strategy melt down....lets see, what would be a good idea? A white-out where our fans will wear the colors of the opposing team - no wait, we've solved that one - our team will wear white....that will show the Pens what it is really like to play at home, as they are wearing their home black....and the home fans should also wave towels - a life long tradition in the DC area among Washington's teams.
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