[AP Recap – Game Summary – Event Summary – WashingtonCaps.com Postgame]
Shootouts: can’t live with ’em, can’t live without the extra point they yield.
On a night with subplots ranging from a match-up of the League’s two leading goal-scorers to the likelihood for carnage and mayhem on ice, the game ultimately told us what we already knew – that the Caps and Flyers are a hell of a lot more evenly matched than their last meeting would indicate.
In the good ol’ days, this game would have been a hard fought tie. Nowadays, we get to watch the ice resurfacing machines do their laps (twice, in fact) followed by a mini-skills competition. The result last night was a Caps win and two fantastic points (especially given Boston’s regulation loss in Minny), but it wasn’t, as HeartbreakRidge put it in the Open Thread, “the cathartic ass kicking” we were all hoping for – I guess we’ll circle February 24 on our calendars for the next opportunity.
Some thoughts on the game:
So the Caps have a couple of days off before Columbus comes to town Friday (trap game with a visit to Montreal on Saturday?), and Friday could find them as healthy as they’ve been in ages, with the possible returns of Sergei Fedorov and Tomas Fleischmann (and exit(s) of others to make room). Of course, that’s a topic for another day (say, tomorrow). For now, let’s savor that sweet, sweet… shootout win.
Elsewhere ‘Round the Rinks:
Get ready for Capitals Red Line (which we’d given you the heads up about back in November)…. Joel Broda is the WHL’s Player of the Week…. Pierre LeBrun and Nicklas Backstrom chatted before the Flyers game…. Happy Birthday to Donald Brashear (37 today) and former Caps Randy Burridge (43) and Mike Liut (53)…. Finally, on this day back in 1989, Mike Ridley assisted on all six of the Caps goals in their 6-3 win over Chicago.