GAME ON! Caps @ Thrashers 10-10-2008 Post-Mortem

You want sarcasm??? Ok, we'll give you sarcasm... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• It's only one game...
• Despite being on the ice for two Thrasher goals (including the game winner where he was caught flat-footed) John "Coach's Pet"Erskine Bowles posted an even rating tonight.
• 72% of the shots the Caps took tonight made it on goal.

THE BAD:

• Correct us if we're wrong, but we thought Jose "Alvin, Simon," Theodore came here because he wanted to help us out?
• Bruce Boudreau deploys only one defenseman on the Power Play, and he's the only one of the nine players on the two units who can score a Power Play goal.
• If we told you that we would hold Ilya Kovalchuk to just one lone assist and a -1 rating (one of only two minus Thrashers tonight) you would think we would win the game.

THE UGLY:

• How often does A.O. have more PIM's than points?
• While the Penalty Killing is supposed to "work" at a higher percentage than the Power Play, it isn't a good thing to have roughly a 38 percentage point difference between the two.
• Once again, Erskine Bowles shows why he is so valuable to the Caps when he made the brilliant decision to step up in the neutral zone after David "Bolt Cutter" Steckel got the Caps within one with a huge shorthanded goal in the second period. As a result of the slow-footed, dim-witted defensman's gaffe, the Thrashers scored a Power Play goal just 20 seconds after the shorty and Theodore's night came to an end. That our friends is the John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles Boneheaded Play of the Game.

You could tell from the drop of the puck tonight that the Caps were not only relieved but also clearly overjoyed to finally get the season underway and pick things back up from where they left off last year. But hey, since it is now impossible to win our first three games of the season, we can be spared the premature talk of a Stanley Cup Finals appearance.