Caps @ Penguin Scum 1-21-2010 Post-Mortem

Forgot to sweep the leg Johnny... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• The second worst Penalty Killing unit on the road went 4 for 4 tonight while allowing six shots on goal.  That Ladies and Gentlemen was the difference in tonight's game.
• And after finally drawing a penalty for the first time in 116 minutes and 48 seconds (yes, we were counting) against the Penguin Scum, the Caps scored on the Power Play in just 46 seconds.  And in a twist not seen in the second round hose job, the Caps got another Power Play after scoring with the man advantage and scored on that one too.  The Power Play was 2 for 2 tonight on just two shots on goal.  Now you know why the refs don't want to give us Power Plays against the Penguin Scum.
• John Carlson picked up his first NHL point tonight, was a +2, and caused a Canadian Diving Team Captain, Lowblow Secondary Assist Cindy Crosby temper tantrum in just his third NHL game.  If he keeps this up, Bruce Boudreau won't be able to send him back down.
• Captain A.O. with two goals (his 250h and one from waaaaaaay downtown), an assist, and the cherry-picking-defensive zone slouch added to his league leading +/- with a +2 tonight.  Lowblow Cindy?  -1 despite a goal and her running mate Evgeni Malkin-Lindros was even despite 3 assists.

THE BAD:

• The shots against parade continued, the Caps allowed 38 shots on goal tonight.
• After jumping out to a 2 goal lead in the second period, the Caps sat back and allowed the Penguin Scum to take the game to the Caps.  We would have much preferred the Caps to continue to attack the Penguin Scum instead of trying to clog things up.

THE UGLY:

• Bad bounces are going to happen and in a dump like Mellon Arena, bad bounces are the norm coming off of those boards.  Yet that's no excuse for Jose "Alvin, Simon," Theodore giving up on the puck the way he did on Lowblow Cindy's goal tonight.  Karl "Malden" Alzner didn't give up on the play and as a result he came up with an amazing stop on Ruslan Fedotenko.  But because Theodore gave up on the play, Lowblow Cindy was able to swoop in and tap the puck in.  That our folks is one of the John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles Bonehead Plays of the Game.
• And yes, because this is a special game, we have another John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles Bonehead Play of the Game.  The second one goes out to Tyler Sloan who on a shift after Eric Fehr scored to stake the Caps to a 2-1 lead was spectating around his own net and left Nick Johnson (Why does he play a sport like hockey?  He gets hurt running the bases...) wide open in front of the net.  On a night when the Caps did a great job of taking out Penguin Scum in front of their net, the one time they didn't they got burned.

We admit it folks, we were beginning to wonder if the Caps would ever get another Power Play against the Penguin Scum.  There was 116 minutes and 48 seconds of penalty free hockey for Pittsburgh.  You want to tell us again that the Penguin Scum weren't getting away with bloody murder once again?  There were times tonight when we thought that Theodore had left the Caps for the Penguin Scum like Brent Johnson did because he so often had a black jersey all over him.  Yet a check of the scoresheet and no goaltender interference penalties on Pittsburgh.  But the takeaway from tonight's game is that after being maligned last year for not going to and clearing out the net, the Caps showed that they are capable and willing to do both this year.  Yeah, yeah, we know the playoffs are a different animal and wins like tonight don't mean anything come Spring but this is not the same Caps team that took the ice in the playoffs last year.  They'll have to cook up some other excuse this Spring.

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