Caps @ Canadiens 1-5-2008 Post-Mortem

See what happens when you shoot the puck??? Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• On Tuesday it was three goals in 2:19. Today it took slightly longer, 10:21 to turn a 2-0 deficit into a 3-2 lead. Those three goals came on 8 shots by my count.
• A.O. was a one-man offensive machine more than usual today. Two goals and almost a third on 5 shots on goal. He now has a nice even 250 points in his career putting him 18 behind Alan Haworth for 24th on the Caps All-Time scoring list. At his current pace, he will pass Slyvain Cote, Guy Charron, Bobby Gould, Ryan Walter, and Craig Laughlin before the season ends. He has a good chance to pass Dmitri Kristich too and should he score 33 goals in the final 40 games, he'll pass Kelly Miller for 10th on the Cap All-Time Goal Scoring list.

THE BAD:

• A couple of weeks ago there were all kinds of stories about Sergei Gonchar "redeeming himself" after scoring the OT winner in a game where his blunders lead to two goals against. You could do the same thing for Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green today after he scored the OT winner in a game where he once again got totally undressed on a goal scored by the other team. I know he's only 22 and I know he's not a lockdown defender but he has to improve on those one-on-one plays.
• And speaking of Green, he had the game winning goal in OT to cap off a 3 point day, Tomas Plekanec also had a goal and two assists, but neither were one the three stars of the game. (A.O., Alexi Kovalev, and Anddrei Kastsitsyn were the three stars) The Montreal media is as goofy as the Pittsburgh media in choosing these things.
• Was I the only one who was getting tired of watching Michael Komisarek plant his elbow in the side of Nicklas Backstrom's head with no call?
• It's great to win but we need to do this in regulation. We started today 10 points behind Montreal and because we won the game in OT, we only pick up 1 point on them. These extra points given up will come back to haunt us down the stretch.

THE UGLY:

• 6 shots on goal for the Caps in the first period but the ultimate insult was the 4-on-1 that did not yield a shot on goal. It looked as if we were about to overpass the play that lead to the OT Winner too.
• Olie Kolzig would have had a very solid game today despite giving up three goals if his new lack of lateral movement in the crease hadn't been on the display for the whole world to see. He was waaaaaaaay out of position waaaaaaay too often today.
• The Caps special teams were brutal today. The Power Play is officially 1 for 4 but once again, the goal scored had little to do with anything the unit was doing because the goal was scored off a clean faceoff win. Otherwise, they only had 2 shots on goal on those 4 chances. The Penalty Killers were 3 for 4 but under seige, allowing 7 shots and goal.
• Steve Eminger did make the lineup today but you could be excused for not noticing. He played only 6:32, less than Mr. Donald Brashear (9:33) who looked slower than usual today and John Erskine Bowles (13:16) who didn't get the memo about not taking penalties today.

Coming back from 2-0 down to win again is nice but it is becoming a disturbing trend. At this point in the season, teams like Ottawa and Montreal are fairly secure in their playoff positioning so we can get away with spotting them a 2-0 lead and wipe it out before the end of the period. However a team like Boston is fighting for playoff positioning like we are and as we saw on Thursday night, they won't let us back in a game that they've built a lead in on home ice. Today's win however was huge as we now have just one game in the next seven days. Some of the team's we're chasing will use games in hand but we might get an injured player or two back during the downtime.

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