Caps vs. Flyers 2-24-2009 Post-Mortem

Not going to win them all... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• Let's give it up once again for the much maligned Penalty Killers. They killed seven of eight penalties tonight and had nearly as many good scoring chances as the Flyers Power Play did. The one goal they did give up was on a 5-on-3.
• A.O. with another goal tonight, but what was the most impressive to us was his assist on Nicklas Backstrom's Power Play goal in the first period. A.O. faked the slapper and had everybody fooled leaving Backstrom wide open on the back door.
• Florida got bombed in Boston which drops our magic number for the Southeast Division title to 34. Carolina lost in Ottawa and a playoff spot will be secured in 26 points in spite of our loss tonight.

THE BAD:

• No matter how you cut it, allowing 4 unanswered goals on home ice while blowing a 2 goal lead is bad.
• Tonight was one of those nights where we seriously wondered just what in the world Tom Poti is doing here and why do some consider him a vital key to our success? Poti kept turning the puck over in our zone and failed on numerous clearing attempts.
• Many will want to blame a loss like this on Jose "Alvin, Simon," Theodore but folks, the more we watch him, the more we come to believe that he has not fully recovered from his hip injury either. He simply isn't moving very well in the crease right now. The only real solution is to go out and find another goaltender for the playoffs because we don't want to rush the Hershey kids into action.

THE UGLY:

• Could somebody please tells us just what exactly the Washington Capitals did to Paul Devorski? Seriously folks, while we give him credit for calling a moving pick on the Flyers in the offensive zone early in the game, we're sick and tired of watching this guy continue to give us the shaft. Frederick L'Ecuyer wasn't much better, but he has the excuse of being a minor league official. Devorski is a veteran official and we can't understand why he calls the game the way he does anymore.
• The Power Play was 1 for 6 and while they did prevent the Flyers from scoring a shorthanded goal, they were too predictable at times tonight and made Philly's job easy tonight.

As we said this morning ladies and gentlemen, the Flyers are a problem matchup for us. They're big, they're fast, and they are certainly not afraid to play physical. Furthermore, with the special teams that they have, can afford to take penalties because they know they can kill them off and score on them as well. And when you take a retaliation penalty (the Caps did well not to retaliate), they can burn you with their Power Play. Sometimes folks, you lose to a better team and tonight, the Flyers were the better team. What tonight showed is why we don't believe the Caps will win the Cup this season. We thought the Caps played a pretty good game but we continue to be too loose in our zone. The Flyers got us running around too much tonight and in the third period, finally made us pay. The best news of the night is that unless something wacko happens, we won't see the Flyers until the second round of the playoffs.