Caps vs. Islanders 12-4-2008 Post Mortem

Not quite what we were expecting... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• With another goal and two assists tonight, A.O. now has 344 career points passing Steve Konowalchuk who was in 17th place on the Caps All-Time Scoring list and tying him with the Big Whoop!, Larry Murphy for 16th place. Nice of him to pass up another goal on the empty net two on one to give Nicklas Backstrom a chance to score in back-to-back games unlike some who use those as a chance to complete hat tricks.
• 47 shots on goal, are you SHOOOOOT! yellers happy tonight?
• The Power Play hot streak continues with the Caps going 3 for 5 tonight.
• The under appreciated fourth line tonight came up with the game winning goal from Mr. Donald Brashear. We say under appreciated because they've been one of our best lines of late by sustaining pressure in the offensive zone and/or drawing penalties better than the other lines have of late. It is good to see them rewarded for all their hard work.

THE BAD:

• Officially the Caps took 18 more shots than the Islanders did, but it certainly didn't feel that way as the Islanders got better opportunities all night.
• The Penalty Killers got a lot of work tonight having to kill off 8 New York Power Plays. If the Islanders were a better hockey team, that would have been trouble.

THE UGLY:

• Sami "Sosa" Lepisto played his best game of the season tonight (which admittedly, isn't saying much) but in spite of that, his ill-advised attempt at batting the puck down in the second period which lead to Trent Hunter's game tying goal wins the John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles Bonehead Play of the Game Award.
• A.O. missed the last part of the first period and according to Tarik El-Bashir of the (Com)Post seemed to have hurt his left arm/shoulder. After the first intermission however, A.O. didn't miss another shift and didn't seem too much off his game. Ever since that Scumbag Steve Montador of the Thug Ducks speared him in the gonads just over two weeks ago now, (going off on a rant here, why is that A.O. continually gets speared in the gonads and nothing is ever done about it? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is the NHL thinking by not even addressing the issue of players spearing each other in the gonads?) we've noticed A.O. floating more than usual and when he does skate, he isn't skating as hard as he usually does. Heaven helps us if A.O. goes down because we really don't want to see how much more depth General Manager George McPhee has stored up for this club.
• Today Ladies and Gentlemen is Thursday December 4th, 2008. According to the Caps tonight, the next Home Game is Thursday December 10th, 2008. You know folks, sometimes the Rank Friggin Amateur Hour Stuff (we still love the Calgary Panthers sign from last year) is amusing but after watching the "Celebrity" (and we're using that term, verrrrry loosely) Hot Dog Eating Contest tonight and the Ice Girls...er...Dance Team...er...Spirit Squad still struggle with the slingshot we really wonder just what the world the in game production folks are getting paid for. Oh, and please kill those stupid cartoons.

Stop us if you've heard this before, but it is December, the games are a grind right now and the Caps are still in the middle of their most grueling stretch of games this season. Even if seven regulars were not out of the lineup, you'd still have to expect the energy level to be a bit low right now because it is that point in the season. The Islanders are a team that the Caps should beat and tonight they did beat them. As the saying goes, nobody cares how you won, they just want to know why you lost and because the Caps didn't lose tonight, there's not a whole lot more to talk about.

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