Caps vs. Thrashers 3-14-2008 Post-Mortem

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!! Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• Brooks "and Dunn" Laich continues his tear with two more goals tonight pushing his season total to 19. This is what we were talking about when we mentioned secondary scoring.
• Matt Kent Cooke is looking more and more like a keeper after his shorthanded goal tonight and serving notice to the notorious Bobby Holik early on in the game. He's the type of player we've been missing.
• Sergei (#3) Fedorov is looking more and more like a keeper too. Two more assists tonight but what is probably just as important as those or his work in the faceoff circle and defensive zone is the influence he's had on Alexander Semin. Since taking over as Semin's center, has anybody seen the lazy play out of Semin that has driven us crazy? Federov will have to take a pay cut but I would rather keep him and trade Michael Nylander simply because he's gotten a pretty important piece of this team under control.
• A.O. notches two more points tonight to give him 6 point lead on Evgeni Malkin-Lindros, 1 point away from his 100th on the season, 3 points away from tying Dmitiri Kristich in his career, and 3 goals away from matching Denis Maruk's record for goals in a season and is 7 goals away from tying Kelly Miller for 10th on the Caps All-Time Goal Scoring list. Imagine what those totals would be like right now had he not hit two goalposts tonight.
• Atlanta was held to just 12 shots on goal, 6 of which came in the third period. The Thrashers were outshot in every period and (of course) in the game 37-12. The Caps blocked 10 shots taken by Atlanta.

THE BAD:

• Olie Kolzig faced only two shots in the first period and 12 for the game but gave up a goal in the first period.
• Florida wins again so we remain in third place (yes I know that officially the first tie breaker is the most points in the fewest games played. However on April 7th every team in the NHL will have played 82 games. So forget that tiebreaker and go with most wins, head to head {provided there is an even number of games played between the two teams}, and then goal differential). As for Carolina being blown out in Loserville...er...Buffalo, well this is how people start getting all excited too early.

THE UGLY:

• Some clown in an AC/DC shirt in 102 was making such a spectacle of his ejection in the second intermission/third period that a fight broke out among him, one of his drunken hooligan friends, about a half dozen Phone Booth Rent-A-Cops and a couple of CSC thugs. It wasn't until the real police showed up that the clown got his act together and began his procession out of the arena. Why am I mentioning this? Well it distracted me and quite a few other people from A.O.'s goal in the third period.
• John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles is scratched because of injury and Sami Lepisto (who did record his first NHL point in the second period) is recalled to keep Steve Eminger in the Pressbox. I hope George McPhee does the right thing this summer and does not give a qualifying offer to Eminger so he can walk away.

Watching tonight's game it was pretty easy to see why Atlanta now has only two wins in their last 13 games. The Thrashers looked completely uninterested in playing defense tonight and it really showed. This was a game that the Caps should have won comfortably and did. With a two week, seven game road trip coming up the Caps really needed this win tonight irregardless of their playoff hopes.

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