Caps vs. Panthers 11-28-2007 Post-Mortem

I swear I've seen this game before... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• I don't recall any bad turnovers by Michael Nylander tonight.
• Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green is very much growing into an offensive force. He's still a little raw and he needs some polish but he's somebody we need to keep going forward.
• A moving a classy tribute to Sean Taylor before the game tonight by the Caps that was very well done and very appropriate.

THE BAD:

• The November-December "blahs" have really set in now. Neither team nor the crowd was showing much in the way of life tonight.
• The Power Play could use some more tweaking. Mostly somebody telling Green to return to the point after he's done with his backdoor cut. Green standing on the half wall makes it too easy for teams to cover him and A.O. It would also help if set-up men Nylander and Nicklas Backstrom shot more instead of passing.
• 13 shots on goal allowed in the first period. You can't have that when you're struggling and playing a team that you've had little success against recently.

THE UGLY:

• Of all the Caps on the roster that you would think would battle for a juicy rebound in front of the net, how does Mr. Donald Brashear not do something like that? I know the guy isn't a goal scorer but he passed up a golden opportunity in the second period.
• The question I would ask if I had access to the coaching staff and management is why wasn't Alexander Semin sent to Hershey for a conditioning assignment before he came off the IR and returned full-time? I've seen Semin play lazy and look uninterested before, but I can't help but think a great part of his current malaise is the fact that his conditioning cannot be very good right now.
• The game was decided by a gimmick.

Those fans who complained about the "boring hockey" during the 5 minute overtime period before Bettman decided to reward losing teams with points in the standings should be forced to watch the entire third period of tonight's hockey game. What we saw in that 20 minute time frame was two teams who knew that they had a point and spent the entire period trying to protect it. Even once the game got into overtime, there was more caution being displayed than aggression until the Caps got a Power Play with 1:59 left. As a matter of fact, the Panthers didn't even register a shot on goal in the extra session. With the way this game was played, using a gimmick to declare a winner is especially outrageous because neither team deserved to win tonight.