Honestly, they played great that first period, and doing as well as they did with Niittymaki stealing the show took the wind out of their sails and everything snowballed from there. Everything just slowly fell apart.

Paybacks are hell! :)

“An effort like that.”

You mean, outplaying the opposition in the first only to be down due to a goalie playing like crap? Then playing moreorless better than the opposition through the second only to have yet another softy go in, and then just giving up in the third? Yeah, more than half of that game was simply dominated by Washington, but assy goaltending just blew it for everyone. I wouldn’t use the phrase “an effort like that.”

It has become obvious that we do not have a dependable starting netminder to rely on. No offense, of course, to Johnson who had a rough day today but has been otherwise playing above and beyond expectations, but when you play against top quality teams like the Flyers, you like to know you don’t have to find ways to win in spite of your goalie’s performance.

I wouldn’t draw too much from this one outing – it’s only the second time in 16 starts Johnson’s had a save % below .900, which is 1/8 or 12.5% of the time. For contrast, Martin Brodeur, 2007-8’s Vezina winner had 19 such outings in 77 starts for New Jersey last year, or 24.6% of the time. Nabakov, who was second, posted 31 such outings in 77 starts, 40% of the time. Lundqvist, who was third, was below .900 in 27 of 72 starts, 37.5%.

Now of course Johnson only stopped 76.9% of the shots he saw today, the second time he’s been at that level or worse in a game he started; again that 12.5%, which the other three goalies were below .800 less often than Johnson has, but all three posted five sub-.800 games last season.

Of course Johnson isn’t in their company, but my point is that even the elite goalies have bad nights and I still think Johnson could emerge as a legit starter this season.

I’d rather they just win the game. :)

They lose but seven goals from Ovechkin? I’ll give you 10,000:1 odds on that combination goin’ down.

i had the good fortune of being at work all afternoon, so i am going to pretend that that was a misprint as well.

I read that earlier today and it offers nothing.

How do you envision the Caps being able to afford another goalie? Are they miraculously going to be able to get rid of Jose?

What team will want to trade (strategically speaking) to the Caps given what they’ll be able to do when they get one?

What are they going to do if they trade Nylander for Bulin? You’ve got two goalies on one way contracts. And not only that, Bulin’s salary is similar to Nyls.

It’s commentators trying to stir the pot. What the Caps have is what they have for this year…unless Santa brings another Xmas miracle. The most one can hope for is GMGM saying that Johnson and/or Theodores nagging injuries are worse than they actually are and bringing up either Cheese or the young Russian.

Or perhaps give Machesney or Neuvirth a game or two twirl in the pipes.
 
At this point, who knows – anything’s possible.