Caps vs. Ning 1-1-2009 Post-Mortem

That was UGH-LEE.... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• With a goal and two assists (giving him 26 of each on the season, how's that for balance but it does not earn a star?) A.O. is now one point behind the Bad A.O., Adam Oates, (we never liked him) for 15th place on the Caps All-Time scoring list. Bad A.O. racked up 363 points in 387 games with the Caps.
• Speaking of balance, 11 Caps registered points tonight as all four lines netted at least one goal and all three defensive pairings registered points. And we feel it should have been 12 Caps with points tonight as Alexandre Giroux was robbed of an assist because the puck deflected off his skate to Boyd Gordon for what turned out to be the game winning goal.
• Congratulations to Sean Collins for scoring his first NHL Goal.

THE BAD:

• Up 3-0 after the first period, the Caps let the Ning back into the game and were only up by one after the second period, giving up 3 goals on 11 shots and playing as sloppy and lackadaisical as they've played in a long time.
• The Power Play was 0 for 3 tonight. Great teams will use the Power Play to put away inferior teams.
• The Caps were beat in the faceoff circle tonight 28-31 with Nicklas Backstrom getting drubbed, 3-6.

THE UGLY:

• And speaking of Nicky-B, his poor giveaway at the blueline in the second period lead directly to the Ning's first goal and made this game much more interesting than it should have been. That's why it is tonight's John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles Bonehead Play of the Game Award Winner in spite of the Ning's Keystone Kops routine in their own zone.
• A.O.'s hit on Jamie Heward was not pretty and neither was seeing him rolled off the ice on a stretcher. We understand it's just a concussion and that these days, the trainers and doctors err on the side of caution; but no matter who it is, friend of foe, class act or common jerk, you don't like to see those things happen and we hope that Heward (who has suffered ugly injuries at the Phone Booth before) will recover quickly.
• We don't know for for a fact but we would bet that a phone call from Toronto was placed to the officials locker room a the Phone Booth tonight during the second intermission telling Marc Joannette to get his head out of his you-know-what after he totally botched the call on Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green and awarded Adam Hall with an undeserved Penalty Shot. Joannette has to be the only one not to see that Green got the entire puck before taking out the skate. Furthermore, Toronto probably placed another call to the Phone Booth to upbraid the video goal judge (what was the deal with the Boston Celtics jersey?) for violating Rule 78.6 "When a team scores an apparent goal that is not seen by the on-ice officials and play continues, the play shall be reviewed by the Video Goal Judge at the next stoppage of play." In other words, the Video Goal Judge does not have the authority to stop a game in progress to properly count a goal like they did in the third period tonight. This is why you cannot take the NHL seriously as a professional sport when this kind of garbage from its officials goes on.

It is certainly nice to know that against a team like the Ning, the Caps can play as badly as they did tonight and still win by three goals. And let's give credit where credit is due, if it wasn't for the Ning's Keystone Kops routine in their own end with the puck, this game would have been a lot closer than it was as the Caps had two wide open nets to shoot into tonight. Of course, we remember some Caps teams that missed those kinds of wide open nets. But at this point in the season, two points is two points and Bruce Boudreau has more than enough time to get this garbage out of our system. Let's hope he does because this stuff won't fly in the playoffs.

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