Caps @ Panthers 2-15-2009 Post-Mortem

Never easy is it??? Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• Up goes the lead in the division to 13 points and down goes the magic number for clinching the division title to 39 points. A playoff spot will be earned in 34 points.
• A.O. returns to the spotlight with two goals in the second period and his 8th career hat trick, his third this season. A.O. now has 41 goals on the season and has 204 goals in 300 NHL games. His 9th Game Winning Goal of the season gives him 33 in his career, tying him with Bengt Gustafsson for 3rd on the Caps All-Time Game Winning Goal list.
• A nice screen by Brooks "and Dunn" Laich made the Power Play 1 for 2 on the night.
• Another goal chipped in by the "F Bomb" line with Eric Fehr finishing off a Sergei (#3) Fedorov move to the net with other assist going to Tomas Fleischmann.

THE BAD:

• We weren't sure if the Caps were trying to sit on a 2-0 lead on the road, but the Florida Panthers are not the Tampa Bay Lightning, they aren't going to give up. If the Caps were looking to send a message should not have let Florida tie the game back up.

THE UGLY:

• Quite a parade to the penalty box the Caps put on today/tonight. 7 Power Plays allowed is playing with fire for a team that is still under 80% on the Penalty Kill.
• And speaking of penalties, Nicklas Backstrom's not even close, nobody around him, Delay of Game penalty for shooting the puck into the crowd was as inexplicable as they come. That our friends is the John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles Bonehead Play of the Game, especially when Federov had already taken a penalty like that earlier in the period that Florida tied the game on.

Carolina has downed the Buffaslugs so today/tonight's win as allowed us to keep our lead on them and with Joisey beating San Jose, the Caps have kept pace with the Devils but are currently losing the tiebreaker with them. Either way, this was an important win because the Caps have now, going back to last season, twice done the back-to-back games in Florida and Tampa and came away with sweeps. This is important because the Caps have two more sets of back-to-back games in Florida and Tampa this season. However, they need to clean up their own play as the penalties tonight really killed any chance they had at maintaining their momentum.

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