[AP Recap – Game Summary – Event Summary – WashingtonCaps.com Postgame]
Ever wonder what life would be like if the Caps hadn’t won the 2004 Draft Lottery? Me too. Almost every day. It’s a mildly interesting thought exercise that inevitably ends in blessings being counted, lucky stars being thanked and so on.
But if you ever wanted to get a glimpse of what it might actually look like on the ice, imagine last night’s Caps with Cam Barker on the blueline (perhaps in lieu of Mike Green – the Caps wouldn’t have taken three blueliners in the first round in ’04, would they have? I digress…). It’s a downright mortifying thought, isn’t it?
But here’s the thing – while the Caps played without Alexander Ovechkin, so did the Maple Leafs, and yet they managed to score goals (plural). For 59 minutes and 39 seconds, the Caps couldn’t score on a goalie who hadn’t won an NHL game in calendar year 2009 and who was backstopping (for the first time, mind you) a team that has allowed the most goals in hockey. And that was that.
Some thoughts on the game:
The Caps won’t practice today. Perhaps they’ll have one of those closed door, players only meetings. Then again, maybe this sort of thing just happens this time of year – here are three choice quotes from last night’s post-game:
Yep, those are quotes coming in the wake of last night’s loss, but they’re from Milan Lucic, Patrice Bergeron and Claude Julien, respectively, and they’re talking about the Bruins’ 2-1 home loss to the Phoenix Coyotes. Sound familiar?
Expressing a similar sentiment, Flyer bench boss John Stevens said of his team’s home loss to Calgary, “It sure looked like we didn’t have any energy there tonight. I don’t have an answer for you at this point. It was just an awful effort by our hockey team, right through our lineup.”
Yes, these are indeed the dog days. But the barking had best end real soon, otherwise the playoffs will be a real, well, female dog.