Caps @ Panthers 12-1-2007 Post-Mortem

Is that a corner up ahead??? Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• By having a hand in every single Caps goal scored this weekend (3 goals and 2 assists), A.O. now has 230 career points which places him 6 points behind Joe Juneau for 25th on the Caps All-Time Scoring list.
• A little of it was due to necessity but the Caps recorded double digits in shots in all three periods, had total of 43 shots on goal, and only had 7 blocked and 13 miss everything tonight.
• The Penalty Killers came up huge going 4-for-4 tonight and killing off A.O.'s back-to-back penalties in the second period. (A period that has been a nightmare for us this season)

THE BAD:

• 2 goals on 43 shots, while it got the win tonight, the Caps haven't had much luck in winning games when they score only 2 goals. And of the two goals the Caps scored, one was a knuckleball shot and the other was simply a soft goal allowed by Vokoun.
• Opponents have adjusted to the new Power Play setup and now the Caps coaching staff needs to come up with a viable third option. With the talent that we have on this team, this shouldn't be much of a problem though some of the injuries could make this harder to accomplish right now. The Power Play was 0-for-2 tonight.
• This morning I said that the Caps needed to avoid the stupid penalties, well, they did in the first and third periods but in the second three stupid penalties by our top two forwards almost cost them.

THE UGLY:

• What does Matt "Princess" Pettinger need to do to get a goal??? Good grief I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this is driving him to drink because I would if I were in his shoes.
• How badly did the Panthers play tonight? I don't want to take anything away from what the Caps were doing but the Panthers couldn't get anything going outside their Power Play and couple of counter-attacks. The Caps were easily able to bottle the Panthers back up when they did assert themselves.

Taking a quick look at the stats, you have to wonder why this game was as close as it was. The Caps badly outshot the Panthers despite having fewer Power Plays and most of the game was played in Florida's end. While the Caps won tonight, they still are not getting the proper rewards for their efforts but you cannot discount the fact that they won this game. A couple of weeks ago, after giving up the tying goal early in the third period they way they did tonight, the Caps would have folded and lost the game. Tonight they finally found a way to win the game. It may seem like bad news that they now have five days without a game, but it gives them a chance to heal some injuries and better implement Bruce Boudreau's systems. We can worry about climbing out of 30th later.

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