You have my sympathies. If I drove from NC to watch that game, I’d probably never come back.

Somewhat related: quick, name a Cap with a goal this year who is not among the team’s top-six forwards. Go!

I actually meant to say NHL on the Fly, above. Apologies.

Same here, I couldn’t fall asleep last night. This is my first season watching hockey and might be the last. I don’t think my heart can take it. I also watched NHL on the Fly and watched a little bit of the other games on Center Ice. Once thing I noticed though is that our goaltenders aren’t the only ones struggling. Teams are scoring a lot of goals right now period. Having said that, we better win Saturday! I need to get some sleep.

Definitely agree. In general, I think it’s easier for a casual fan to appreciate a crushing body check than a well-timed poke check.

as one of the Schultz haters of ‘08-09, i was very impressed with his play last night. it even looks like his skating has improved, which i think was one of his main limiting factors. can’t see him scratched often, if at all anymore. i officially tear up my Sarge Sucks membership card.

ditto on the non-scratching of Pothier, JP. that might be one of the sweetest passes of his career.

Caps will recover…

Yeah, so that makes it pretty much even between Varly and JT60 when it comes to goaltending…basically, they both have bad games at times… I think Varly should’ve been put in last night, because of his experience defending against the Rangers… oh well

Someone is going to have to step up. Like Varly against TOR, I thought Theo’s play was spot on for the first 40. Not sure what’s going on with the entire team during third periods, but something is gonna have to give.

It’s easy to blame the goaltending and certainly JT was not great on the last two, but when the forwards don’t backcheck and that forces the defenseman to back pedal and a guy like Gaborik gets to tee it up from the circle, bad things are going to happen. If you’ve got the game on Tivo, go back and look at the gap between our forwards and defenseman. That’s just shoddy team defense. I think Bruce was a bit off-base putting the blame first on JT. I’d have started with Gordon for his second dumb penalty in two games, then moved to the forwards for coasting, then to the defenseman for not stepping up and then to JT. Those two goals were on the entire six guys on the ice, not just the guy between the pipes.

I’m ready coach…

…uh, almost.

We can’t risk it, might be time for you to sell those seats for Monday night :)

I’m sorry it was such an even display of effort for your first game in 8 years!

Great atmosphere at VC.

Last night was DEAD. You’re going to think I’m smoking the same crack I accuse everyone else of smoking, but that was one of the worst crowds I’ve seen since the Florida Kitty Cats came through town last November. Unbelievably, the VC is typically even louder and more rocking than that. (I know, right? Is this really DC?!)

Seems like now that they have some bakers on this team they’re afraid to put in shots from the point.

Also Green needs to get his shot down. It seemed like 90% of his shots were way too high. He seems rattled still…kinda like in the post season.

Sloan played 4LW exclusively last night, and even had a decent chance. He did not look out of place.

Caps are known for their restraining penalties. Semin’s cleaned it up a lot so far but the rest of the team needs to play more disciplined. Boyd Gordon especially. For a guy that was as solid as he was a year ago he’s taken 2 stupid penalties in the past 2 games. For the amount of time he gets that’s not good.

I think they were better today than vs the flyers (maybe the refs had something to do with it…at least on that BS DoG penalty and the GI penalties), but still too many penalties.

Good question, although Erskine was better last night than in Philly.

Guessing the Brashear factor? That said, he was on for <14 minutes last night and didn’t shite the bed too much, but I’m guessing Jurcina probably goes to Detroit.

You break that line up for being too cute, not taking care of defesive responsibilities, or to jump start team or themselves. You don’t break them up for others lines unless scoring is a team problem. The last two games and 3rd period of Leafs game scoring was not the issue.

I’d have broken them up last night to jump start themselves, especially Ovie, maybe or certainly mixed up PP units.

I’m much more concerned with defense (D & forwards,), taking dumb penalties, and goaltending.

In Detroit I dunno how effective that line can actually be. Detroit gets the last change and every time SOB is out there so will Lidstrom-Rafalski-Zetterberg and maybe Datsyuk. PIT beat DET because of their superstar 2nd liner Malkin; Semin I think will play the same role on a Cup-winning Caps team in the future.

I dunno about you, but I’d rather have 27 minutes of Mike Green on D rather than 16ish as a bottom 6 F.

Now go get an avatar before you get a swirly.

Move a guy from your top pairing to wing???

you’re going to take a guy who chews up 27 minutes a night on D, and stick him on the 4th line? Queen of the Tyler Sloan Fan Club here, and no, just no. No way Sloan is going to step up and eat any where close to those minutes in the NHL. That also means Green isn’t out there threatening life and limb of the opposing team with that nasty wrist shot for half the game.

Richards’ didn’t so much collide with Fleury as he intentionally bowled him over. And Hartnell’s response to the claim was essentially that he didn’t know what happened in the scrum. The scumbaggery of those guys is almost comical.

Showed again last night why many of us were so impressed with him in the playoffs. I love watching him play. Too bad he wears the wrong jersey.

Bwahahaha. Awesome. Neuvirth can’t get healthy fast enough.

Swingin’ 28. Like it.

Gordon is surprising. He’s already taken 3 penalties in 4 games when he only had 8 all last season in 63 games.

Speaking of Semin, it seems he’s being let off the hook a bit (at least by the commentariat) for a pretty horrid game, including an awful pass that led to the Callahan goal.

Get better, Fehr! And come back w/ some fire to get the rest of the guys going…

Shortest conditioning assignment ever:

@capsmedia Correction: Eric Fehr was not assigned to Hershey and remains with the Capitals. He is active and could play tomorrow.

Capitals were apparently stunned before they even hit the ice.

When I think Gaborik, “gritty” is the first word that comes to mind.

How about “Caps shoot self in foot, hand Rangers gun”

It was also a “stirring” victory according His Larryness. Yes, when I think “stirring victory,” I think Agincourt, Trafalgar, Gettysburg, and the Rangers.

So Juice goes from the press box to Tom Poti’s pairing….

more from Tarik:

Okay, so here’s what happened with the confusion surrounding Eric Fehr and whether or not he had been assigned to Hershey for conditioning. The winger said he was told he was being sent to the Bears to get in a few games, and that as long as there were no injuries in Washington against the Rangers, to get into his car and drive to Hershey.

Well, there were no injuries, but the third and fourth lines struggled. Fehr, however, followed the instructions he had been given and was already headed north on I-270.

When he got to Frederick, though, he received a call from Coach Bruce Boudreau, who told him that he needed to come back to D.C. Fehr said he wasn’t given a reason for the change of plans, but he happily turned around, and tomorrow is expected to make his season debut in Detroit on a line with David Steckel and Chris Clark. Based on this morning’s practice, Fehr will play left wing despite being a natural right wing.

Hole in one… s***! Where’s mine GOD, where’s MINE!@!???!?!??

Ha. that was all over the Caps website for like a month.

Erskine, ten times out of ten.

Prob Erskine. He is more of a rough em up guy, and DET is skill. Poti can keep up with them.

absolutely Erskine.

Between Erskine and Poti, which would you scratch for Detroit any game?

Erskine.

Good on them.

I’ll believe that when you don’t go into their "Fan"posts and read stuff like this:

I wanted to see Pronger rape Ovechkin and put him in his right place, which lies in his own pool of blood on the Flyers logo.

Interesting.

I read a blip from TEB that said there was no Bruce and thought that was really weird too.

Has Nylander not been practicing on a line at all lately?

higher expectations = more anger/frustration when a talent laden team cannot buckle down and produce

Leonsis probably thinks this is the year to really capitalize on the team’s success (skill wise and monetarily) and will be pissed if they do not take strides, immediately, to improve. The hammer is being swung and just might land on someone soon. Bouds is probably getting the brunt of it now.

Update from Tarik:

As I mentioned earlier, Bruce Boudreau didn’t go on the ice for an off-day practice for the first time in his tenure as Caps coach.

The reason, he said, was that he wanted time to thoroughly dissect the tape from last night’s 4-3 loss before going through it, in painstaking detail, with the players in a team meeting.


“I wanted to make sure I got it all for the video session we were going to show,” Boudreau said. “I wanted to get it right because I wanted to nip this in the bud. As much as I wanted to be on the ice, I thought this was the best time for me to make sure I got it right.”

After practice — which was run by assistants Bob Woods and Dean Evason — the team gathered in theatre at KCI for a video session that ran about twice as long as typical ones.

“We had a lot to show,” Boudreau said.

Two things bothered Boudreau most in the loss to the Rangers — some players’ decision to ignore the game plan and freelance and a lack of work ethic, particularly in the third period when they were attempting to protect a lead on home ice.

“We really watch the tapes to put pre-scouting things together on how to put things together and how to beat other teams,” he said. “Then when we go out there and don’t do it on set plays, it really bothers us.”

He called getting outworked by the Rangers a “coach’s biggest nightmare” before adding that “sometimes you have to show it on the video in front of everybody for certain people to get the message.”

Boudreau didn’t go into specifics, but could have been talking about the Alexes’ performance on the power play in the second period. First, the two-time MVP made a risky decision at the point that resulted in breakaway, then Alexander Semin, a few moments later, made a careless pass that resulted in a second breakaway for Ryan Callahan.

Asked whether some of that nonchalance could be coming from all of the preseason hype that’s been heaped on the Caps, Boudreau shrugged and said: “That’s always a possibility. Because people have been really quick to judge and anoint this team as one of the elite. But that only comes with hard work and effort. There’s a reason Jerry Rice was the best. It’s cause he worked the hardest. When you work the hardest you usually become the best if you’ve got the talent. Maybe we got complacent.”

The bad news for the Caps is that a lot of this sounds familiar. The good news for Boudreau is that he’s got 78 games left to sort it out, beginning with tomorrow’s game in Detroit.

Too bad we jinxed ‘em – it’d all be lollipops and puppy dogs right now if not for Pepper elaborating on a Ron Wilson quote.