Caps vs. Maple Leafs 3-5-2009 Post-Mortem

At least we ended their overtime streak... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• Unable to help ourselves; we got help tonight from the Penguin Scum who beat Florida tonight 4-1. The magic number for a division title is now 23.
• Alexander "Slappy" Semin took over the role of A.O. tonight, scoring a goal and taking 7 shots on goal in the process.

THE BAD:

• In his first game back in the NHL since January, the Caps give Martin Gerber his first win in 2009.
• Tomas Fleischmann has reverted to form; we stopped counting the number of missed chances for him.

THE UGLY:

• We knew it was going to be a long night when watching warmups and didn't see any jump in the Caps skates. We were lucky that Toronto's first goal was waived off but wasn't so lucky on what turned out to be the game winning goal.
• Three ugly losses in a row at home now. Not a good way to keep packing in the fans.

Ok, every team in every season goes through losing streaks and periods of bad play. However for the Caps, this is not coming at a good time. The effort and energy were better but the bounces just didn't go our way tonight. We also have to admit, the movement and passing on the Power Play tonight was the best we've seen it in awhile, but it didn't produce any goals. But energy and effort don't count in the NHL, wins do. The Caps are starting to fall back into the pack and may now end up with a tougher first round opponent than everybody originally thought. Because let's be honest, when you saw a stretch of 9 games out of 10 at home against teams like Atlanta, Colorado, and Toronto, you thought we would cruise through this stretch and come out in pretty strong shape. Yet we're 4-5 and need Sunday's game with the Penguin Scum just to break even. The then Caps enter a stretch of seven games out of eight on the road and that task looks very large. But maybe getting away from home is what this team needs right now because things are not good at home.