Caps @ Blue Jackets 11-29-2008 Post-Mortem

Maybe they didn't have enough All-Stars??? Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• Can't blame Brent Johnson for this one tonight. He helped keep the Caps in it early on in the game when they were getting horrifically outshot. The game wasn't even 10 minutes old and the Caps were getting outshot 10-1.
• The Blue Jackets entered with the worst Power Play in the NHL and while the Penalty Killers gave up 9 shots, they did not allow a Power Play goal tonight.

THE BAD:

• Karl "Malden" Alzner does a Stewart Malgunas impersonation and joins the walking wounded. Considering that Bryan Helmer had to be signed to an NHL contract in order to be brought up, does anybody know what guys like Jason DOIG!, Joel Kwiatkowski, and Jean-Luc Picard Grand-Pierre are doing? We may need them again...
• The Jekyll and Hyde Power Play has morphed back into Hyde again. 0 for 3 with seven shots but no serious pressure and they gave up a shorthanded goal to boot.
• The top line of Nicklas Backstrom, Viktor Kozlov, and A.O. along with the top defensive pair of Alzner and Milan Jurcina were all -2 tonight. And on that second goal, what Joe Beninatti and Craig Laughlin didn't want to tell you was that Alzner was the defenseman caught pinching leaving Backstrom to cover his spot.

THE UGLY:

• Sent in on a short breakaway early in the first period, Michael Nylander elected to pass the puck to Tomas Fleischmann for some unknown reason. Then given another prime scoring chance later in the first period, Nylander elected to do some stupid spin-o-rama. Needless to say, neither prime scoring chance resulted in a shot on goal and wins the John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles Bonehead Play of the Game Award for tonight. We don't say this very often; but shoot the freakin' puck.

When you take into consideration the number of injuries, the current pace of the schedule, and the lack of success so far this year on the road, games like tonight's are not much of a surprise. Add in that Ken Hitchcock teams usually play tight defense and the loss tonight is even less of a surprise. The Caps have another rough two weeks where they will play 7 more games (and two more three games in four nights) before the schedule begins to lighten up. But if this team does not get and stay healthy soon, it won't matter how many games their playing in how many nights. They just simply won't have the horses to compete.