Caps vs. Panthers 4-3-2007 Post-Mortem

An abbreviated post tonight as my good buddy Eric was at the game with me tonight. Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

• Finally a good all around effort by the team against the Florida Panthers. I do not believe that the Panthers are a better hockey team than us. Tonight we finally played well against them and you can see it in the result.
• I noticed Alexander Semin not only taking the body down low, he was doing it down low in his own end. Looks like the message sent Saturday night got through for at least a little bit.
• And speaking of the message getting through, Olie Kolzig gets his first shutout in over three years. This of course was the first shutout for the Caps this season and just a little over a year since the last one. Olie only needed 27 saves to complete the task which is a respectable number.
• The Caps however only mustered 17 shots. 1-0 is about the only way you're going to win regularly if you don't get more shots on goal than that.
• While they didn't score on four Power Plays, the Caps stayed out of the penalty box by taking only two penalties all game tonight. The other message was delivered.

It is good to see the team rally around Olie the way they did tonight. They certainly played with some fire in the third period but were able to clamp down enough to get Olie the shutout he has long deserved. Some might think this is all "too little too late" but with the number of false rallies this team has come up with recently, that kind of hope is a little out of line. Either way, it is good to get another win and even better to come up with a shutout. The Caps are now two points short of last season's total and have something here at the end of the season to hang their hat on.

It has been... A TWO POINT NIGHT!!!