Caps @ Penguin Scum 12-27-2007 Post-Mortem

I told you it gets fluky against them... Boy do we have a Battle Damage Assessment tonight...

THE GOOD:

• Mr. Donald Brashear had himself a nice first period. Picking up a goal, having his obligatory fight/wrestling match with Georges Laraque, and hitting just about every defenseman on the Penguin Scum roster.
• Nicklas Backstrom had a fine game as well. His assist on Brian Pothier's goal was a thing of beauty.

THE BAD:

• Canadian Diving Team Captain Secondary Assist Cindy Crosby first star????? The game winning goal was more Olie Kolzig over committing than anything Cindy did. Good grief...
• In the third period, the Penguin Scum elevated their desperation level and the Caps didn't match the intensity. As a matter of fact, it looked as if the Caps were willing to just sit on the one goal lead but let things get opened up after having the Penguin Scum hemmed in their own zone in the second period and being booed off the ice by the home fans.

THE UGLY:

• The Power Play had only two chances tonight, but looked lost without A.O. in the third period. As a matter of fact, while the Caps took 7 shots on goal after A.O. left the game,
  "Plan B" Alexander Semin had more missed shots (3) than shots on goal (1) in that span.
• Not once, but twice pucks went off of Milan Jurcina's stick and into the Caps net. See what I mean by fluky?

Once again the beat writer from the dying medium scoops the Caps blogsphere and informs us that Brent Johnson is out for 2-4 weeks but that A.O. should play on Saturday night in Ottawa. The good news is that our offense will return for the next game. The bad news is that there's nobody to push Olie Kolzig for the next month. Though watching tonight's game, I am more convinced than ever that the Penguin Scum are NOT a better hockey team than we are, not by any stretch of the imagination. Even after A.O. went down, we still have enough offensive ability to put a team like the Penguin Scum away. But certain players just simply are not getting the job done for us and that is an issue that needs to be addressed. However of the "top six" forwards, only Semin and Tomas Fleischmann got shots on goal after A.O. left the game. Matt "Omar" Bradley had as many shots as those two combined in that span. But once again, here we are wondering why the Caps can't seem to bear down and get the wins that they need.