You know it's not your week when your team pulls their goalie for the second consecutive night against an inferior opponent. The Caps managed to turn in their second defensive nightmare in as many nights. However, if you look on the bright side of things, they managed to claw their way back from a 4-1 deficit (again) and scraped two points out of a game that they might not have deserved. Here are some thoughts on the near-debacle in the F-L-A:

Let me be honest in saying that after being completely disgusted with last night's 7-4 drubbing at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning, I had no desire to write any sort of a recap. Games like that are ones that you want to pitch into the garbage and never look at again. However, after taking a look through J.P.'s Breakfast Links this morning, one particular click got me pretty riled up...at least enough to write a post.

With the Caps sitting atop their division and the playoffs not far in the distance, I decided to have a little fun and spice up my reCaps for the rest of the season. Rather than having a "Kudos Go To" section, I'll have a "Hero of the Night" (and yes, I know this is a spoof of the Phone Booth's goal celebrations). I'm by no means a Photoshop expert, but I've been having some fun over the last few days creating some artwork for the occasion. More will be coming along as I make them. Please let me know what you think of the pictures after the jump!

Happy Birthday Bruce Boudreau! The Caps came out and weathered a first period storm from the Thrashers, then turned on the jets and cruised to an 8-1 win. Washington is now 3-0 since Ovechkin took over the captaincy, and don't have any look of slowing down anytime soon. A few more nights like that could have the division wrapped up by February (they currently hold a sixteen point lead). It's nice to celebrate on nights like this, but sometimes you run out of praise to heap on your team. Tonight isn't one of those nights (with the praise thing). Here are some thoughts on the domination:

It was a feisty sort of night from both sides, but the Caps came out with a great first period and dominated the Senators to the tune of a 5-2 victory. After a mini-slump, the Capitals have rallied behind Alex Ovechkin and played with a lot of passion in the last three days. They certainly enter a three-game Southeast Division stretch with a significant amount of confidence, and can effectively wrap up the division with a strong week.

Last night was obviously a big deal for the D.C. Hockey community. Not only did the Caps win a big game against Montreal to pull out of a nose-dive, they named their new captain for the forseeable future. Many people criticized the Caps' brass for giving the 'C' to a guy like Chris Clark rather than annointing their young phenom as the team leader from the get-go.

After three games of full of missed opportunities and uninspired, listless play, the Caps came roaring back to life behind their new captain and put on a physical performance worthy of two points. It's been a common frustration among the Washington faithful that the Caps have failed to show a lot of piss and vinegar this season, along with many consistent sixty-minute efforts. They got both tonight, and we can now all rest easy with the Russian Machine proudly wearing the 'C' for the guys in red.

The Caps entered their third game without a captain, and walked out with their third straight game with a loss. While George McPhee felt he was doing everything he could to help his team reach a Stanley Cup Final by trading away Chris Clark, it's obvious that this team was hurt in the process with regards to leadership. Caps brass must pick a captain, and soon.

With the upcoming West Coast mini-swing, I approached the lovely ladies of Couch Tarts, the resident Bloguin Sharks blog about doing a question and answer session. Here are my questions as well as responses from both Gray and Afro. You can read my responses over at their awesome blog (with sweet artwork to boot!).

As they entered Verizon Center this afternoon, the Capitals were notified that their leader, the oft-maligned, huge-hearted, cadaver-sporting Chris Clark had been traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Maybe that was on their minds for the first period of tonight.

Certainly winning wasn't.