GAME ON! Caps @ Bruins 10-1-2009 Post-Mortem

Well, it's a start... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• Speaking for ourselves and ourselves alone, we're certainly glad we spending $2.8 a season for the next two seasons to get Mike Knuble to stand in front of the net and bang in rebounds on the Power Play like Brooks "and Dunn" Laich ($2.1 million this season) did twice tonight.
• The Penalty Killing tonight was good, going 5 for 5 and allowing only one shot on goal while down a man and getting five shots on goal against themselves. We hope they keep this up.
• And speaking of shots on goal, after going up 4-0 in the third period, the Caps clamped down and only allowed Boston 3 shots on goal for the third period.

THE BAD:

• Tom Poti with some ill advised and timed pinches at the blue line. We counted three in the first half of the game alone that allowed Boston to generate scoring chances. We thought he was being counted on to lead this defense?
• While the A.O., Nicklas Backstrom, and Alexander "Slappy" Semin line terrorized the Bruins tonight, racking up 8 points combined and +4, they played way too cute for our tastes and wasted chances as a result. In other words, they should have had more points than they did tonight which is scary.
• As alluded to above, Knuble only skated one Power Play shift tonight for :56 of 3:25 of Power Play time for the Caps.

THE UGLY:

• With the exception of the goaltender interference call on A.O. (which we thought was an iffy call that could have gone either way), the penalties the Caps took tonight were just silly, including John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles' fight with Shawn Thornton. While the Power Play should work in our favor most nights, the jury is still out on the Penalty Killers and we need to take fewer penalties just to be safe.
• The speaking of the Coach's Pet, the Bonehead Play of the Game goes to David Steckel who couldn't hold the line or get back quickly enough launching Patrice Bergeron on the breakaway that spoiled Jose "Alvin, Simon," Theodore's shutout bid. He played well enough to deserve one.
• How does Quintin "the Human Bruise" Laing play a game and not block a shot?

Well folks, it has begun. We have to think that when we get up tomorrow we will find that the Bruins are going to be disappointed in their effort. But other than some nitpicking about developing a better killer instinct and playing too fancy, there isn't much to complain about with tonight's game from the Caps end. The Caps did what they had to do which is get two points in a building where they haven't done much of that in recent history. Is this a message to the rest of the league? Not really, it's only one game and tougher tests await within the next 9 days.

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