And Again

Okay, good stuff:

- The Alexes looked just amazing tonight.

- Freddy Cassivi had a great game in his first start for the Caps.

- Penalty killing looked very sharp.

Umm...I'm out.

Okay, so actually it wasn't all that bad.

Sure, I hate Toronto. And yes, I would have preferred that they not get shutout by Raaaaaaaaaycroft. And not letting Darcy "Mother" Tucker score would have been awesome.

But it was a vast improvement over Saturday's game (not that it would have been hard) and with so many guys out, so many guys traded, it was not a bad effort by the Caps tonight. As I said, Semin and Ovie were just everywhere, and give Beech credit for sticking with them on a lot of nice plays. Green had some good jump to his game, probably a product of having something to prove. I thought Giroux looked a little better tonight, too, although he's still hesitating a bit and that's something he'll need to work on if he wants to stay up with the big boys.

Everything was just a little off tonight, but there's some good stuff to work with and build on for Friday's home meeting with the Hurricanes. I'm excited for that one, since the Caps seem to save their good home games for these division rivalry games against Carolina. Hopefully this trend will continue.

Sorry, I'm feeling a little out of sorts tonight. I hate losing to Toronto. I'll try to be more sparkly and bright later in the week...