Caps vs. Bruins 4-5-2010 Post-Mortem

Why wasn't there a review at the end there???  Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• Nicklas Backstrom was flat out robbed in the three stars selection tonight, one goal, two assists, for three points on the night but it wasn't good enough to be selected at all.
• Jose "Alvin, Simon," Theodore with another solid performance in making 28 saves.
• Captain A.O. with two assists tonight giving him 104 points on the season and 524 in his career.  With 3 games left in the season, he's just 23 points behind Mike Ridley for 6th on the Caps All-Time Points list.  However we happen to think that it was his hit on Zdeno Chara in Vancouver is what setup Backstrom's goal.  Chara came all the way across the ice to lay a hit on Captain A.O. in retaliation which is what got Backstrom open for Captain A.O.'s pass.
• The Power Play was 1 for 2 tonight and picked up the Game Winning Goal in overtime.
• Oh, and we feel we should mention again, two of the three goals were scored from in front of the net.  Nice to see the Caps getting into playoff mode.

THE BAD:

• The fourth line was left on the ice late in the first period and they gave up a goal with under two seconds left off a faceoff.  Yeah, we know we have another game tomorrow night but we can't let those mismatches take place on home ice.
• Look, we understand and readily admit that Bruce Boudreau is better hockey coach than we will ever be.  Furthermore, we know that the Caps expect to be playing for another two months or so but how can you get the team into playoff mode if Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green is given the night off simply to rest?  Will Alexander "Slappy" Semin and Backstrom be given a rest tomorrow night?

THE UGLY:

• The sitting of Green created a pairing of John "Coach's Pet" Erskine Bowles and Tyler Sloan.  We sincerely hope that the next time we see that pairing is in a Caps Alumni Game because they were just about as frightening as you would expect that pairing to be.

So by giving Boston the Bettman point tonight, the Caps have now given themselves Philadelphia as the likely first round opponent.  Now that could of course change by Sunday night but right now if we had a choice, we'd just rather play the Bruins. Because for a team fighting for their playoff lives, we didn't see much urgency from the Bruins.

It has been...  A TWO POINT NIGHT!!!