Recap: Avs 3, Caps 2

You mean Knub’s 30th, right?

Hendricks was the Palm player of the game. Maybe he’ll get the hard hat as well.

Y’know, upon re-reading my Recap, I didn’t give the Caps enough credit for playing a pretty good game, probably their best since St. Louis.

Only saw the third. Rotten luck is all that prevented them from tying it up.

For all of the bitching some do that refs have it out for us, I’d like to point out that there were some REALLY QUICK whistles near the end of the game when Anderson was trying to move the puck. Actually, there were lots of quick whistles all night, and the one at the end of the game shouldn’t have happened. We directly got an extra second because of a referees decision that, while wrong, was at least consistent.

I feel like the GDT could use a recap of its own.

I bailed on the game after the first period to take up Mrs. Spidey on her offer of a movie out. I learned two things.

First, wait for The Tourist to come out on DVD. I spent the entire movie watching the scenery of Venice and the scenery of Angelina Jolie. She is just unreal in this movie. Almost over the top elegant. Plot, unfortunately, is average, ending is implausible, and Johnny Depp’s haircut was bad, even by Great Clips standards.

Second, I’m really immune now to these losses. I checked my phone when the movie was over and went “huh” and that was it. I want to turn this around and just get into the playoffs. Screw the President’s Trophy, winning at the WC, even finishing first in the SE. We, above all fans, know that anything can happen in the playoffs.

Hard to criticize the effort tonight. They were around the net more tonight than any other game this season, but when you’re in a bad way…

The struggles on the PP (Hendricks goal aside) are still baffling.

The Ovie stat is indeed mind-boggling JP, and it makes me thing there’s something more going on than just defenses adjusting to him on the rush. PP numbers shouldn’t really be affected by that.

So I missed the whole game, but I’m getting the general feeling that the effort wasn’t too bad tonight? Also how was Neuvy?

My recap is one of emotions. I was pissed after the Leafs and depressed after the Panthers. Tonight’s however was a damn good game—a full sixty minute effort despite the few mistakes. Ovi looks good, almost his old self, mostly because I think he was tying to keep it simple. His assist came about because he waited for Knubes to catch up before taking his shot. And he waited for his line mates with his rush several more times. Moreover I liked how he went to the net frequently. Indeed the Caps were busy around the net, especially in the third. Without Semin’s penalty, which I couldn’t see clearly from where we were sitting, the guys could have won the game. Another night one of those scrums around the net will result in a goal.

Despite the quick whistles stopping the play in the third, I was overall okay with the refs. I prefer games that aren’t bogged down with ticky-tacky calls so that the game has flow. Boy are the Avs fast, but I thought our guys were good with the speed too. They should definitely take lessons from Hannan—he knew how to stay close to those speedy guys—must be that famous gap control of his. The PPs were uneven—only one was excellent—and despite getting scored on I thought the PK looked good. It’s a lot harder killing off 5 minutes with their aggressive PK than the passive one from last season.

All in all I am going to sleep satisfied that the Caps are on the right track with their play and I hope that they feel good about their effort tonight. More games like this tonight—without the stupid Semin penalty of course and with the return of players like Green—and the Caps will start to win again. This game shows them on the right track. I am pleased. I hope they bring this same effort to the Rags.

I was out at a dinner party thing and just watched the Semin play. 5 mins, fine, but come on, you gotta call what led up to it. The reaction always gets called though, so what are you gonna do. But that was two solid cross checks right before Semin’s reaction. Unfortunate that Semin high, but this is what happens when you force the players to police the game.

Sigh….

1) First and foremost, what the hell was Semin thinking when he decided to cross check Liles to the head. Ok, they guy took away a scoring chance… that’s his job. Just a stupid, stupid, stupid… (half hour later)… stupid penalty. Completely unnecessary, completely pointless, and with the team already short handed due to injury and illness, just…well, you know. If the league doesn’t suspend him (the DGB flowchart says 1-5 games) then George and Bruce should scratch him. The early success of the season notwithstanding, now I am convinced that it’s probably in the Caps best interest to let Semin go after this season. There are teams with cap room Sasha.. hope you like Columbus, Edmonton or Long Island…

2) Get well soon Greenie… if I ever see Brian Fahey in a Caps uniform again, it’ll be too soon. The guy isn’t an NHL player. Don’t the Caps have anyone in Hershey that might fit in? I know they can’t bring up Souray since he’s Edmonton property, but there’s gotta be someone else other than Fahey…

3) Great efforts by the effort guys tonight: Gordon was making plays and working hard, winning battles on the boards. A highlight reel goal for Hendricks. Bradley taking some lumps to get guys going.

4) Some nifty moves by Ovechkin to get the puck to Knuble for the 250th goal… very sweet indeed, and some nice stickhandling in the air for that goal. Might be the Verizon goal of the week come Monday.

5) Oh look, the Penguins won again….

6) The kid behind me was asking his dad why there are two referees… after watching Ryan O’Byrne take the net off the post deliberately when the Caps were pressing the attack and getting away with it, I was asking the same question.

7) The lengthy replay of what might have been a goal probably got the right result, although if they had ruled it a goal, then they probably would have counted it. There wasn’t a lot to overturn the ruling one way or the other.

Well, now it’s off to New York, with or without Semin…..

So who’ll be playing 2nd line RW tomorrow? Will it be Bradley or Hendricks? Don’t believe it will be Fehr since he was tried there tonight and couldn’t do it.

The officiating in tonight’s game was, once again, horrible. Time after time, Caps players were taken down with no penalty call and or hit and crosschecked after the play, and the refs simply let it go. At some point, they need to take control of the game and call penalties. If they had done so, Semin’s crosscheck (how was that a major, btw?) would probably not have happened. Semin is not the type of player to do that, but players can only take so much before they will do something back.

If the NHL doesn’t Sasha to nacho land for a night or two, i think BB should, anyways. I think an example should be made of players who play poorly and sabotage the team effort, no matter how skilled that player is.

My predictions/suggestions for tomorrow’s lineup:

1st line: Ovi/Backstrom/Knuble
2nd line: Laich/Perreault/Hendricks
3rd line: Chimmer/Marjo/Fehr
4th line: Bradley/Stecks/Gordon
 (or should we put King in instead of Stecks or Gordon since NY could dress Bougaard/)

Defense
Green/Hannan (assume Green is back since this is 24 hour thing)
Alzner/Carlson
Poti/Erskine

Goal: Varly

well… 2 games left for the Caps to save me from wearing a goddamn Sidney Crosby jersey on 12/23.

As a fan of both teams, I had some mixed emotions last night. If the Caps could take their last period and a half from last night and marry it up with their first period and a half from the Panthers game, they might actually win one. As it was, they came out gang-busters against FLA and trailed off once they got frustrated by Vokoun. Last night, they somnambulated through the first 25-30 minutes – seriously, I don’t think the Caps won a single puck battle or 50-50 race in the entire first period and a half – before turning it on toward the end, Unfortunately, it was too little, too late.

The one positive to take away from last night’s game is that they created much more traffic in front of Anderson. There were several times where it looked as though the Caps were going to slam a rebound in, only to have it bounce harmlessly over someone’s stick. Those bounces will eventually start going the Caps’ way.

As an Avs fan, that looked like a team desperate for points, but on the wrong end of a long road trip and back-to-back games. They came out hard, but faded once they got the lead. Kevin Shattenkirk is the real fucking deal. That kid is phenomenal. I’m still shocked that they traded for Ryan O’Byrne and that he’s an everyday player for them, then they also traded for Matt Hunwick. Talk about your polar opposites.

The one thing that was a revelation was to watch the contrasting systems. The Avs’ system is simple. On offense, get the puck to the net and crash hard looking for rebounds (especially if you’re the off-wing player). On defense, backcheck to the high-slot, then find the puck or a man. There’s more to it than that, obviously, but it works in large part because it’s simple. Compared to the Caps’ system, with one-on-one pressure assignments all over the ice (which led in large part to Wilson’s goal), it’s almost shockingly simplistic. Personally, I’d like to see the Caps play a little more like the Avs, but I’m not sure they’ve got the team speed to pull it off with every line.