Monday, October 29, 2007

Caps Clip Leafs

WOW. What a difference two days makes.

What can you really say about this game? It was almost perfect. The offense was clicking. The power play was clicking. The penalty killing was clicking. The defense was clicking. And when the defense had the occasional breakdown (as every team's D will) Olie was more than clicking. Some spectacular saves by Zilla to, if not keep the Caps in the game, at least make the score look that much more impressive.

The Caps had every reason to come into this game performing at half-speed. Without their captain, one of their snipers and their power play QB and on yet another losing skid this game could have very easily turned ugly. Full credit to every member of the team who came out and played like they haven't played since the first two games - 60 minutes of hockey.

This was a complete team game. Need proof? Check out the numbers:

Ovechkin - 2G, +1, 7 shots, 3 hits
Pothier - 1A, +2, 2 shots
Erskine - 1A, +1, 4 hits
Bradley - 1G, 2A, +3, first career shorthanded goal and first career 3-point game
Gordon - 1G, 1A, +1
Sutherby - 1G, +1, 2 hits
Pettinger - 1G, 1A, +1
Kozlov - 2A, 3 shots
Fleischmann - 1A, +1
Schultz - 1G, +3, first career NHL goal
Nylander - 3A, +3
Kolzig - 32 saves on 33 shots

Lovely.

As for the bad...well, the Leafs. I'm not sure what happened but their defense was nonexistent tonight. Very few of those goals really can be blamed on either goaltender and Toronto looked disinterested to downright bored most of the night. As a result, the soldout crowd looked to be about half capacity by the time the second period rolled around.

Of course, their boos and sarcastic cheers were still just as loud.

The Caps now go into, yup, another stretch of days off leading up to back-to-back games. So nice of the NHL schedulers to help kill any momentum, you know? So Thursday the Caps return to Madison Square Garden to remind the Rangers that they still know how to penalty kill...really. Then Friday they return home for what is being bizarrely marketed as "Ovechkin vs. Briere" when the Flyers pay a visit to Verizon Center. I'm glad to see we've put that lovely little incident behind us.

Great win by the boys tonight - that's a HUGE two points and a big congrats to Schultzie on his first NHL goal!

Photo courtesy of AP/Getty Images

1 comment:

HG said...

Ahem. Still should have done an insta-post. Cough.