Vindicated - - - - Haters; Caps 5 - Islanders 4 (SO), Semin Has Excellent Night...

Sorry for the delay in getting this posted and the relatively abrupt ending to this post...I've been interuppted in pulling it together about 20 times since Wed Night when I got hme from the game...



So first off, Wed night was a two point night for the Washington Capitals at the Verizon Center in another three point night kind of way. I haven't read the other blogs, or Tarik or Corey's blogs or articles, I haven't looked over the Caps press releases, etc. on the game, even now (Friday morning). I was there and have my own, likely slightly contrary views to some about the night. After all, I've never been in the closet about my support and opinions for the play and potential of Alexander Semin, or for that matter Jose Theodore and what I write here about both will be my own views, the views of a person wholly unqualified to make judgements, assessments or pronouncements. At least no more qualified than anybody else with the price of admission to a game and who prefers to spend a disproportionate amount of his disposable income/recreation budget on "those things hockey". Here's the game I was at.


Eight seconds in just finished putting my jacket on the back of my seat in Section 103 and BAM! Brendan Morrison takes the opening faceoff puts the puck onto the stick of Alexander Semin "the other Alex --- really "The Unfairly Maligned Alex" --- he shoots and HE SCCOOOOOORRREEES! Caps up 1-0. The look on Semin's face - relief; the look on Semin's mother's face in the row behind me as we all do high fives, joy.


Unfortunately a little less than a minute later, Islander Left Wing and leading goal scorer Matt Moulsen returned the favor scoring for the Islanders. Game tied 1 - 1 at the 1:02 mark of the period's after goal number 1 that Caps goaltender Jose Theodore would like back but that frankly he didn't get a lot of help on. Then at the 5:10 mark of the period, Islanders' defenseman Mark Streit helps press the attack and is rewarded with his third goal of the season on the the fourth shot of the game for the Islanders. Wow these guys are real sharpshooters; of course it would help if the Caps, including Jose Theodore weren't all collapsing back and giving them room to roam. Then at the 6:54 mark, Mike Green in one of those "high risk/high reward" things ends up on the "high risk" side of things and yields a 1-0 breakaway to Islander Left Wing Sean Bergenheim who skates in on a less than then fully confident Jose Theodore. Theodore backed into the net quickly instead of aggressively challenging the 25 year old Finn who fired his second goal of the season past the Caps goalie to put his team up 3-1 at that time. Bergenheim's goal ended Jose Theodore's evening as he was pulled in favor of rookie Semyon Varlamov having yielded 3 goals on 5 Islander shots at that point.


Coach Boudreau's decision at that time to change goaltenders seemed to have the desired effect, a frustrated netminder was replaced with a young, determined one and the team also seemed to tighten things up a little. Also Varlamov made some solid stops over the next 8 - 10 minutes and the Caps blue line corps let the Islanders know they weren't going to tolerate them running into the Caps' goalies all night. Things went back and forth while the Caps edged their shots on goal total up slowly until the Caps had a good shift penning the Isles into their end and drawing a holding penalty from J. Sim at 12:14. On the ensuing power play Tomas Fleischman once again showed us all he definately has a nose for the net and Nicklas Backstrom showed us he may well be the consumate playmaker in the NHL today with a solid primary assist on "Flash's" 6th goal of the season at the 13:42 mark of the period, narrowing the Islanders lead to one goal. From about the 10:00 mark on the Caps took it the Islanders and Isles goalie Dwayne Roloson kept the Isles in the hunt; while Varlamov kept the Isles stuck on "3"...


The second period started with Tim Jackman taking an interference penalty to give the Caps their second power play of the night. The Isles kille that Penalty off and things see-sawed with the Caps having the "control" edge throughout the first period but once again the Islaes gave the Caps a power play when Josh Bailey got called for interferance. This one provided Mike Green a stage on which to work and setup Alexander Semin who scored his second of the night and 9th of the season at the 5:35 mark of the period to knot the score at 3-3. After this goal, there was actually a lot more joy vs. relief on Semin's face. It bears mentioning as well that the setup by Mike Green was patented Green and was a display of superior skating ability by him all the way into the zone and around the net while Semin went to the nt and got open for the setup. And in case you were pondering the question the tally did mean the caps went 66.6667% on the power play for the game. After tying the game the Caps kept the pressure on but Roloson hung tough until the 16:46 mark of the second period when Eric Fehr notched his second goal of the season assisted by Captain Chris Clark and Mike Green (that was Green's 13th assist of the season). The second period ended with the Caps up 4-3.



For the entire third period the Caps played hard and seemed determined to make sure the game ended in regulation with a 5 or more goal victory (can you say Wings!?!) by Dwayne Roloson had other ideas and wwas unfathomable at times. The Caps also took three penalties in the third period. I presonally didn't really think the infractions were something that should necessarily have been called but when I think in this day's NHL when you are up you need to play unquestionably clean hockey else everything seems to go against you.

For all intents and purpooses from the 15:10 mark when Dave Steckel was called for holding until the 17:52 mark when T. Hunter put a laser just past Varly's glove the Caps were skating one man down and looked like they were going to hold off the Islanders and end this game in regulation. Alas that wasn't to be, Hunter's shot was a rocket, I'm not sure Varly saw it so much as was playing the angle properly and that's why he might possibly have stopped it if his hand wes 3 inches high. However th reulst was the third period ended with the score tied 4-4. Was that such a surprise? It was a Caps - Islanders game after all.

Overtime, once again if not for Roloson and a few fortunate bounces. During OT the Caps got off 4 shots 3 of which I'd call scoring chances. The Islanders had one (1) SOG. Victory wasn't to come for the Caps yet, on to the Gimmick, urrh I mean shootout.

For the Caps Backstrom shot wide;

For the Isles Tambellini nic move scored;

For the Caps Semin, sick move puts a backhander into the roof of the net on Roloson's blocker side and scores;

Isles' Tavares, wide of the net (was he trying to do "anything you can do I can do better with Backstrom perhaps?" My perdication - these two guys will be the acknowledged best centers in the league along with that Crosby kid, before long.)

Caps' Bredan Morrison wrister saved by Roloson;

Isles' Schremp backhand stopped by Varly - never a doubt...

Next fourteen more shooters (7 from each team) are basically denied by good goaltending, the only close one was Mike Gren hitting the TOP of the crossbar duirng round 7 of the shhotout.

Then the 21st shooter, Captain Chris Clark, having watched 9 of his teammates fail, came in and as soon as Dwayne Roloson gave him an opening, sent a nice, quick release snapshot past him to put the Caps ahead and the next Islander shooter on the hot seat. The final attempt of the shootout was made by Islanders defenseman Mark Streit and Semyon Varlamov was "having none of it" he snuffed out Streit's wrister with determination and celebrated by banging his stick on both posts. If he was Johnny Drama we no doubt would have heard him shout "VICTORY!!!" all the way down at our end of the VC in section 103.

It was a sweet game for me in many ways. I attended with a good freind from college and we had a pleaseant dinner catching up before getting to VC and we had a great time at the game. I shouted myself hoarse and I';m ready to do it again tonight. One of my three favorite Capitals - Alexander Semin - was vindicated (take that you haters -yeah!). It was a two point night, I'm still perplexed as to how the press decided to make Mark Streit and not Dwayne Roloson the third star of the game, I know Streit had a goal and an assist and was +2 on the night but Roloson stopped 37 of 41 shots (0.902) to give the Islanders a chance at two points, some of his saves were pretty incredible. For the Caps I think they got the right two guys listed as stars Varlamov and Semin and I really don't care which was listed as 1st and who was 2nd. Do I think Semin's 2 goals in regulation and shootout goal along with 11 SOG, 3 A/B and 1 missed attempt while staying well away from the sin bin will get people firmly off his case and behind him? No not really but I'm sure he feels at least a little vinidicated. Heck I would.

Now it's time to start thinking about tonight's game against the Wild - hey you dudes from Minnesota - we'll be there, we'll be there 18,277 strong Rocking the Red and cheering for our guys? You where will you be? In front of your TV's out in the cold land of 10,000 lakes eh? FYI it won't be much different here than there - projected temp and conditions in St. Paul, MN at 8PM CST is 49F and raining - but oh yeah, we'll be watching our guys in person. All joking aside the Caps will need to play disciplined hockey and I don't expect the over and under to be greater than 6 goals tonight if Caps are to win.

LETS GO CAPS!!!!

Review of Last Night's Caps 7-4 Win Over The Panthers and A Few Musings...

Last night was a 2 point night, unfortunately I missed the entire game as we took our son back to college on Long Island and between a later than planned start in the morning and "mis-underestimating" the duration of the trip back, we walked back into the house probably about 20 minutes or so after the buzzer sounded ending the third period with the Capitals up 7-4. Another two point night and this one with Alexander Ovechkin, Mike Green and Jeff Schultz all in the press box. So I've spent part of today, after playing what was my first and probably will be my last round of golf for 2009, reviewing the game recaps and buzz around the Caps "blogsphere".

So how did I do on my predictions, I wondered... my predictions were:

1) Final score Caps 4 - Panthers 2; - wrong 7-4 wasn't even close...

2) Semin has at least a two point night; - wrong Semin didn't score but did has 2 of the Caps 3 minor penalties, played 19:10

3) Backstrom has at least a two point night; - correct, Backy had two assists, he also had another monster night in the faceoff circle, as did David Steckel.

4) Knuble scores a goal; - I'm taking this one as correct since he had two goals, and two assists - MONSTER night for Knuble..

5) Somebody we don't expect, probably Erskine scores a goal;and - I'm taking this one as correct since Quintin Laing scored his second, I'd love for things to change and me and the rest of us Caps fans to be able to expect Laing to score but right now, it's an unexpected thing we all love to see.

6) Shoane Morrisonn is indeed, wrongly, suspended for two games... wrong on that one, thankfully, oh and Shaone Morrisonn had a good game for the stats sheet perspective at least.

So how did the Caps score 7 goals with two of the four "young guns" in the press box? Well it was a team effort, 13 different Capitals had at least one point. To review: Mike Knuble had a monster night with two goals and two assists. Tomas Fleischmann also had a big night scoring a pair of goals. Brooks Laich, Quintin Laing and Mathieu Perreault (scoring his first career NHL goal) also added markers for the Capitals. In fact everyone in the lineup except Milan Jurcina, John Erskine, Alexander Semin, Tyler Sloan and Dave Steckel. How Steckel didn't end up with at least a point in a game where he won 11 of 18 faceoffs is a question I'll not understand having not seen the game but whatever. In any case I'll continue to predict for Alexander Semin to have a good night, and safely assume that Steckel will win faceoffs until the stars align and it happens on the same night.

In any case next up or the Capitals will be the Islanders at Verizon Center on Wednesday evening so there's plenty of time to muse about a lot of things. My first muse is to point out that the Caps have started November the way they ended October, playing 0.600+ hockey. In other words the Capitals continue on pace for another 100+ point season. Further, the past two games have helped address the whole secondary scoring discussion. Through 17 games the Caps now have 7 players on track for 20+ goal seasons: 1) Alexander Ovechkin; 2) Brooks Laich; 3) Alexander Semin; 4) Brendan Morrison; 5) Mike Knuble; 6) Tomas Fleischmann; and 7) Nicklas Backstrom. Others who are on track for career years as far as NHL regular season goal production include: Matt Bradley who is on pace for 14+ goals this season; Quintin Laing who is on pace for 10 goals; and Tyler Sloan who is also on pace for 10 goals. Add to that a hopefully rejuvenated Mike Green who finds his scoring touch and strengthens the power play when he returns to the line up and you'll have a team with 10 guys you really have to worry about lighting the lamp when they are on the ice for the Capitals.

Across the board, the Capitals are looking pretty solid. Ovechkin is on pace for a 110+ point season and even with a a multi-week healing period this month is still likely to once again be in the running for the scoring titles. Alexander Semin, maligned of late is on track for 33 goals and 38 assists - 70+ points. Brooks Laich is on track for a career year - 33 goals and 53 assists - 80+ points. Nicklas Backstrom is on track for 19 or 20 goals, and 82 assists - a 100 point season, it's worthwhile to note that Backstrom's assists totals continue to grow seemingly regardless of who he skates with. Tomas Fleischman appears well on his way to a 20+ goal/30+ point season... and the list goes on. The other good news seems to be that you can't ignore that both Mike Knuble and Brendan Morrison are at least as good or better than the guys they replaced in the line-up, Kozlov and Federov, in regards to production.

Offensive production doesn't appear to be much of an issue for the Caps, thanks to last night's 7-4 win over the panthers, the Capitals lead the league in goals scored with 65 goals for. Another interesting point to note is only 3 teams have a better GF-GA differential then the Capitals have to date (the Caps are +13): San Jose: + 19; the New York Rangers: + 15; Colorado: +15. Interestingly right now with 24 points in 17 games the Caps are fourth in the league's overall standings and second in the Eastern Conference. In the Southeast Division the Caps are 7 points in front of the second place Tampa Bay Lightning however the Lightning have two games in hand on the Caps so if we were tracking this "baseball style" the Caps would only be 2 1/2 games up on the boys from Tampa.

Another look in baseball "lingo" at what the Caps have been doing so far this season, overall for the season the Caps are playing 0.706 hockey on the year. If you project that to season's end the Caps are on track for a 115+ point season. Let that sink in - if you don't understand why you go to Verizon Center and come away roundly disappointed if the Caps don't win, you need only realize the Caps are currently playing 0.722 hockey at home. That's a long way from the early years of the "rebuild" for those of us who lived through those recent "slow years."

To be sure the Capitals are now dealing with a spate of injuries and the season and playoffs assuming they make them will go much more smoothly when they get healthy but this team is really cooking with gas and finding ways to win on most nights. The other positive trend of late has been the Capitals are playing more disciplined hockey and taking fewer penalties in games, at least the last two, and last night they didn't take any penalties during the Third Period. That has to continue if the Caps are to keep up their current winning trend.

Wednesday should be a good game, the Islanders and the Caps have already had two close games and the Islanders came away with an OT win when the teams last met on October 30th at Verizon Center. The Caps and we Caps fans will be looking for a 2 point, regulation win night...

LETS GO CAPS!!!

Caps 4 - Panthers 1; A Two Point Night But Who's On The Roster Tonight?

Last night the Capitals met the Florida Panthers in Sunrise, Florida and came away with a convincing 2 point win against a Southeast Division foe. Congratulations, boys, job well done. Of course you all just need to turn around and do the same thing tonight back here in DC. Will tonight's game be deja vu all over again? Well, probably night but before we get to that and why let's celebrate the good and recap last night's two point win.

What went right, well a lot of things the two biggest wre and are obvious: 1) Jose Theodore had a great night and was on his game, he also got help from his defense the couple of times he needed it; 2) the Caps as a whole figured out Tomas Vokoun and the Floridsa netminder didn't get that much help, if any, from his blue liners when he needed it. The game summary report makes this pretty clear. Key statistics: Goalie matchup results: Theodore's SV% on the night: 0.966 (28 of 29), Vokoun's SV% 0.840 (21 of 25). Capitals shooting percentage on the night: 16.0% (4 of 25): goal scorers: Brendan Morrison (2 goals, 1 of which was an empty netter); Brian Pothier (1); and Tyler Sloan (1). The Caps figured out the key to beating Vokoun is an interesting mix of combining their speed with some patience - patience to take the space the Panthers gave them while still shooting quickly and making the Florida netminder, who IMO is one of the league's best, move. I've been down on Capital's Captain Chirs Clark alot this year, but his primary assist on Tyler Sloan's goal, the first of the evening and Sloan's second of the season, was truly a thing of beauty. I could watch that play at least 50 or 100 times before I got tired of it - it truly looks like Clark is running a clinic as he turns and makes the perfect pass right on to the tape of Sloan's stick. Brendan Morrison's first goal of the night was another good one, scored because of a great combinations: work, grit, and skill. Pothier's goal was a one-timer that you could also watch repeatedly, both the set-up passes from Fleischmann to Backstrom, and even more so from Backstrom to Pothier. The shot by Brian Pothier for his first goal of the season was "Ovechkin-esque" in that he got everything on it. The fact it came on a power play while both Ovie and Mike Green were out made it even sweeter. The not so great were the fact the Capitals three (actually two and a misconduct) came in the third period, fortunately during the five minute boarding major to Shoane (vice the NHLN mispronunciation "Shane") Morrisonn, the Caps responded and limited the Panthers to just one shot on goal. Why Florida waited until after that penalty was over to pull Vokoun at the 18:47 mark of the period, I'll probably wonder for sometime, but I'd rather be lucky than good most of the time. In any case the game was then iced when Brendan Morrison got his sixth (6) goal of the season on an empty netter that he had to work for. One other item of note is the statistics sheet will show that Alexander Semin had a relatively uneventful nigh 19:14 TOI, 1 SOG, 2 A/B, 2 MS and 1 TK. What it doesn't show is he spent most of those 19:14 with multiple Panthers on him whenever he was near the play, never got frustrated and tried to find both solid passing lanes and shooting lanes that's why he had no giveaways, 0 PIM, and only 5 shot attempts. In other words he played very solid and smart hockey. I'm predicting that tonight he does the same but watches some tape today and figures out how to put the biscuit in the basket at least once if not twice tonight.

Predictions are hard because we don't really know who will man the blueline tonight, I'll write more about what I thought and think of the Shoane Morrisonn penalty call and alleged possible suspension after I see if he is indeed suspended as Coach Boudreau mentioned was a possibility. In any case just because something is hard doesn't mean I won't do it - my predictions for today/tonight:

1) Final score Caps 4 - Panthers 2;
2) Semin has at least a two point night;
3) Backstrom has at least a two point night;
4) Knuble scores a goal;
5) Somebody we don't expect, probably Erskine scores a goal;
and 6) Shoane Morrisonn is indeed, wrongly, suspended for two games... more on that later...

I'll be watching from the comfort of my den here in Bristow -

LETS GO CAPS!!!

My Plans for the Evening - Dashed In An Instant - Drats! Blue Jackets 5 - Caps 4 (OT)

I had it all planned watch the Caps take on and "no doubt" return to their winning ways against the Blue Jackets at home and then come and write my blog about what a great October it was for the Caps and how despite having some things to work on they were starting November off right. Well, that was the plan so I wouldn't need to get all upset and worked up watching "my Phillies" take on the Yankees so I wouldn't get to sleep until late and then have to go pick up "Wingman" when his red-eye from Long Beach lands at 05:15 tomorrow morning. Well it's clear to me right now at 8:11PM that plan just really had no hope from the "get go" as they say. Starting with the obvious, the Caps didn't win, next of course the Caps at least as of right now have to be wondering what the status is of Alexander Ovechkin who didn't play the last ~33:30 of the game, and besides being worked up about that I'm having horrible thoughts about Referee Mike Leggo; as well as recurring bad "waking dreams" (kind of like Paul Atredes in Dune) where I keep seeing Tom Poti's two misplays that led first to the 4-4 tie goal and then his entire misplay of R.J. Umberger that led to the OT winner by Columbus.

Why Mike Leggo? you might ask. Well basically if you go back to about 15 - 30 seconds before the Raffi Torres' tying goal you'll see a bit of "tuss up" in the corner that should have, no I'll say it would have led to at least a clear of the puck, if not a break out and empty net goal, but alas Mike Leggo was in the way. Bottom line is that Jeff Schultz should have ignored Leggo's presence and driven Jakub Vorecek into both Leggo and the boards but that's probably too much to ask, even with the improved, more pohysical of late Schultz. Actually I hope when he watches the tape of that encounter that is indeed the lesson that Schultz, who I am actually starting to like (a lot more than I like Tom Poti tonight) takes away from the encounter. Leggo of course with one to two small steps in either direct could have easily stayed out of the play and still be in the right position to make whatever call was necessary. Further, I'm probably being unfair to Mike Leggo, I should be frustrated with the entire lot of NHL officials since it seems to me they all now do this. This being stay in the corner too long after it's obvious that they probably don't need to be there to call the goal line. Further, since whenever there's a close call on that they go to the replay in Toronto why be there at all? I know this rant will illicit a lot of discussion about the reasons to be there if you are an official, I've been thinking about and decided I probably don't agree, I think the referees and linesmen need to do a better job of staying out of the play. I mean tonight they blew at least 4 or 5 calls (not in a one sided manner) anyway and the game now moves so fast such results and statistics are more the norm then the exception anyway.

Now the other big reason my plan is totally flawed and was doomed is there's really nothing to write about tonight other than the thing to worry about/think about is what does it mean when you say Alex Ovechkin is "day to day" with an upper body injury? It means to me at best he has some really bruised ribs and at worst you're looking at something like what happened to Sidney Crosby early last season. So the good news he skated off the ice under his own power, there's enough time left and the Caps have enough other talent up front that he doesn't need to rush back, he should let the injury heal. The bad news is that's really not his style, but I hope he does take the time to let what it is heal.

So now even though my original plan is basically now probably pointless and "flumoxxed," I'm going to return to it. If nothing else it should be therapy for me. Also if you read this blog, you probably read other hockey and Caps blogs and they will have more then enough discussion, etc. on a) Ovie's injury (which until a couple days go by will be some semblance of the prior paragraph with a lot more angst and words, IMO); and b) "oh my what should Boudreau do without Ovechkin, is the season lost? I mean they ended October on a low note and now this!" (Pardon me for my sarcastic drama, it's just that since moving to the DC area in 1996 I've found the local sports fans and press quite melodramatic and reactionary - unlike, calm cool collected 'moi.)

So for the month of October, let's review the Capital's record: 8-2-3, 19 points. That's 0.731 hockey; it also means that 84.6% of the time they played the Capitals came away with at least 1 point. It's one of the best starts in franchise history, the Caps are also drawing fans like never before and they will continue to do so., as they are a lot of fun to watch. Folks will point to the way they are winning as unsatisfying and also point to the fact that 9 of their 13 games in October were one goal games and the Caps should be winning by more and putting more teams away and keeping them there through all three periods. That's hard to argue with, of course as a fan, coach or player that's what you'd like to see. However some of the other discussions about how for example they played two games against the "lowly" Islanders and only came away 1-0-1 I can and will argue with. First and foremost those "lowly" Islanders really aren't that lowly, in my opinion. The Islanders have played in 8 one goal games out of the 13 they've played. They also finished the second half of October 4-3-2 including three straight wins over the Rangers (3-1), the Caps (4-3 in OT), and the Sabres (5-0). Of course there was that worrisome game against the Thrashers who the Capitals beat by only one goal (4-3) in Atlanta last Thursday. Those same Thrashers who with Ilya Kovalchuk still out downed the Ottawa Senators last night 3-1 in a game that wasn't really as close as the score might lead some to believe. Of course no one seemed to have a problem with the 4-2 win over the Flyers so we need not talk about that, though to be fair the Flyers only have 13 points (the same number as the Islanders and just two more than the Thrashers). My bottom line is similar to the central theme from "Any Given Sunday" - in today's NHL thanks to the parity the salary cap encourages, on any given night, any of the thirty teams can beat any of the others.

Sure, some NHL Teams have more talent and the advantage, but you need to fight for every standings point, there really are no "gimmes" in today's NHL. So yes there's plenty to work on and the Capitals now have to make up for either a star who is out or somewhat slowed for at least a few games but wouldn't you rather have those now counting tonight's OT loss to Columbus 8 one point games that resulted in 1 or 2 standings points then the alternative? I know my answer. I also know this team is good and can still win, even with AO out for a game or even five or six to properly heal Tonight with Ovechkin not even on the bench they scored three goals on Steve Mason and the Blue Jackets - a team and a goaltender that it's not that easy to solve. Sure we all want Ovie back as soon as it makes sense but I've been saying for some time the Caps have the players on the team who can and will score if Ovie isn't there. Tonight Brooks Laich potted two and the energy line in the form of Quintin Laing got one. Assuming Alexander Semin, Nicklas Backstrom, Brendan Morrisson, Mike Green and Mike Knuble also rise to the occasion, even though the Caps have three games each this week and the next three, they'll survive and may even keep up this amazing start. Look at tonight, if not for two "flukey" goals the Caps would have won in regulation. You had to feel for Jose Theodore on those two goals they were "real buzzkillers" eh? Also, for what it's worth when was the last time you saw two of those in a single game? Ugh.

In conclusion I still keep having this waking dream/vision of Tom Poti on the OT goal though. So here's my thought, why did he go down to the ice so fast in the first place? Second, when that didn't work why didn't he get back up quicker and get into position? Finally, why is he finding himself on the inside of shooters so many times this year? Watch the replay of the OT goal, remember it's a 4-3, first Poti tries to move Umberger from the front of the net, how? by cross checking him four times in rapid succession, risking another penalty. Then he tries to draw him out by going outside of him, where he should have been in the first place "in the new NHL". When he does that Umberger takes even more separation and while Poti is moving he leave a passing lane, that's why he went down to the ice - I don't have the talent to play at the NHL level but at $3.5M/season, the reason Poti gets that kind of coin to play hockey is he has the talent and the reach to use his stick to cut off that pass and shot while he is getting back into position. Why he didn't do it tonight, that's the source of this bad "waking dream." I'm also betting from his "post-goal reaction that when he watches the film/tape on the last 30 seconds or so of the game that my reaction and Tom Poti and Bob Woods reaction are about the same. With 26:33 of ice time an assist, a blocked shot and one takeaway, it's tough for me to be too down on Tom Poti but I am a little bit because of those last two goals he was on the ice for, given he's a professional athlete I'll figure he's more down on himself and move on fo now.

Well hey, it was a one point night, that's one point of the 20 the Caps have as they start the month of November as the #4 team in the league and the #2 team in the Eastern Conference. Next up the New Jersey Devils at "the Rock" in Newark on Wednesday evening. Here's hoping for continued good fortunes and great play from Tomas Fleischmann and Brooks Laich, as well as great games from all the other Caps in the lineup this month. Also here's to continue 0.600+ hockey...

LETS GO CAPS!!!