Thursday, January 31, 2008

Caps Split Home & Home With Habs, Move to 9th in Eastern Conference

Well the Caps beat the Montreal Canadeans 5-4 in overtime tonight. Alex Ovechkin scored 4 of the 5 goals here at the Verizon Center. I missed the game as I spent some time with collegues at ICx Technologies, listening in on a review of some upcoming marketing plans and enjoying a team building dinner so I can't really comment on the game other than to note the obvious - Mr. Ovechkin isn't slowing down any since he signed his big contract - he now has 43 goals and 70 points for the season and is, at least for now the league's leading goal scorer and the overall points leader. Here's an interesting note - the Caps have not lost back to back games in regulation since Bruce Boudreau took over the coaching duties from Glen Hanlon on Thanksgiving. In other words the Caps have not gone two games in a row without getting at least one standings point for 10 1/2 weeks. They went 9-4-0 (0.692) during the month of January. That's pretty good hockey - "don'tcha think?" - I surely do. In the standings, tonight's games put them one point ahead of the NY Islanders and three points behind the NY Rangers (who are in the eighth and final playoff spot) in the Conference standings, but the Caps have a game in hand on the Rangers. Tonight's games also left the Caps three points behind the SE Division leading Carolina Hurricanes, but the Caps have two games in hand on the 'Canes.

The Caps next game is at home in the Phone Booth against the Atlanta Thrashers. Atlanta is three points behind the Thrashers in the standings. The Caps are 2-1-1 versus the Thrashers so far this season. The Thrashers are 11-13-2 on the road so far this season and 3-4-3 in their last 10 games. The Caps are 15-11-1 at home so fa this season and 7-3-0 in their last 10 games. Additionally, the Thrashers will be playing without their sharpshooter Iyla Kovalchuk, who has a knee injury, but the Thrashers still have offenive punch in Marian Hossa, Scott Perrin and Mark Recchi so they can't be taken lightly. That said I suspect Peerless will forecast a Caps vicotry and I too an hopeful. LETS GO CAPS!!!!

2 comments:

DMG said...

With the 19-8-4 record (108 point pace) since Bourdreau took over and the having not lost back to back games in regulation in the 31 he's been behind the bench I wonder if it isn't time to start contemplating how much noise the Caps could make in the post season

Mark Bonatucci said...

DMG: We have to get to the dance before we start even thinking about how pretty our date will look. The Caps need to play one game a t a time and keep up this pace just to make the playoffs, though it'll be a fun ride and I'm very cautously optimistic. LETS GO CAPS!!!!!!!!