Caps vs. Thrashers 12-8-2007 Post-Mortem

That's more like it... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• Talk about jumping all over a team, the Caps responded well to Bruce Boudreau's bomb throwing in the "unbiased" media. Not only did the Caps jump out to a 2-0 lead in the first ten minutes, they also outshot the Thrashers 11-6.
• The Caps scored 6 goals tonight and racked up 14 points among themselves but A.O. only had two points (a goal and an assist, running his career point total to 235, putting him only one point behind Joe Juneau for 25th on the Caps All-Time Scoring list.) and Alexander Semin only had one. It was the "second wave" of guys doing the damage tonight with Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green getting a pair of goals and Nicklas Backstrom racking up three points (1 goal and 2 assists). Simply put, A.O. and Semin are going to need this kind of help scoring if this team is going to be successful.
• Despite giving up a goal 5-on-3, I was very impressed with the Penalty Killers who almost killed of a 1:47 5-on-3. It made Atlanta 1 for 4 on the Power Play and was the only real chance they got.

THE BAD:

• The Power Play still needs work. It is great we scored six goals without it, but tonight it seemed as if we were once again looking for the perfect shot. Against the 3rd worst Penalty Killers in the league, going 0 for 4 and only getting 5 shots on goal is bad.
• I understand why Brian Pothier was scratched tonight. But could somebody please explain to me why John Erskine Bowles gets into the lineup? Really, we need to trade Steve Eminger because not only is there no point in keeping a 24 year old around as a healthy scratch, there's also no way he's going to improve if he doesn't play. It would be one thing if he was injured but that's not the case and the Caps really should trade him like they did Brian Sutherby.
• 6 goals on 27 shots is nice but imagine what the final score would have looked like if Atlanta hadn't blocked 17 of our shots and we didn't miss everything 14 times.

THE UGLY:

• Up 6-1 with just over 14 minutes to go, there's no reason why the Thrashers should be allowed to close it to 6-3. We've got to close out these games much better.
• What was the deal with the rotating random goal songs tonight? I understand we can't have "Rock-n-Roll Part II" anymore but can we please settle on just one song? And don't make that one song Poison's "Nothing But A Good Time," which was as lame as "Woo Hoo" (no, not Song 2 by Blur which everybody thinks is "Woo Hoo" but the 5.6.7.8's song from Kill Bill Volume 1).
• While I certainly don't want to complain about the prospect of free food for six goals in a home game, there was a certain charm of the fans chanting "PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA! PIZZA!" when the Caps were going for a sixth goal back in the old days. If somebody knows how to chant for the free pound of wings from Austin Grill without making it sound like we're at a hockey game in Detroit, please let me know. (BTW, how many wings are in a pound?)

I can't say how much this type of win was needed by this team tonight. It is good to see that a public tongue lashing can get this team playing the way that everybody knows it can. The big issue for the Caps now will be sustaining this. They have a challenging slate of games ahead of them this week but if they play like they did tonight, they should do well.

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