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:

• Mike Green was mud defensively tonight...just terrible. He was out of position quite a bit, and when he was in position, he just seemed to be watching...stick lift, hit somebody, SOMETHING (note: I write this while wearing my Mike Green t-shirt). The assist on the equalizer was pretty though.
  
• As hard as it is to believe that someone has been worse defensively lately, Shaone Morrisonn has been. Tonight...well...woof. It'd be one thing if you were worth a damn on offense, but geez Mo...not good.
  
• Can we buy a freaking clear on a penalty kill? Michal Neuvirth had no business giving up goal number three, but the Caps killers were out on that shift for entirely too long. It almost killed them in overtime as well.
  
• Speaking of Neuvi, what the hell man? I understand that he did a good job keeping the Caps within reasonable distance the last two outings, but he was just terrible tonight. He's now given up eight goals on his last thirty shots. Ouch.
• Solid fight (and night) for Jason Chimera. The Caps were down two at the time and he managed to goad Gregory Campbell into dropping the mitts. On top of that, he showed a ton of speed and a great deke on his goal. George McPhee was smiling on that one. Throw in his assist on Pothier's goal and he had a nice little Gordie Howe Hat Trick.
  
• I'd love to see a time of possession numbers for the first period of tonight's game. I'd guess it was in the Caps' zone or the neutral zone for at least 80% of the time, if not more. That won't win you many games.
• What a huge goal by the captain to start the third. That alone probably earned the Caps a point on the night.
• Florida managed thirty shots on the night, so it wasn't miserable in that department, but the Caps blueliners gave up WAY too many odd man rushes. If the Panthers were competent passers, the game wouldn't have been close.
• If you would have guessed that Tomas Fleischmann, Brendan Morrison, and Brooks Laich would have been your shootout scorers (with Ovi, Nick and Semin shooting blanks), I would have called you effing crazy.

There can only be one hero of the game. At least on this night, he saved the Caps bacon after the young guy couldn't hold his own. Your true hero (sans picture...yet) is...

Jose Theodore. (Runner up was easily Chimera)

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment