Caps vs. Thrashers 3-9-2010 Post-Mortem

What perfect night... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• The unappreciated (at least on this night) Jose "Alvin, Simon," Theodore with 29 saves tonight to pick up his 30th win on the season.  One of the two goals he gave up tonight was totally out of his hands.  He might have had a save on the other but we aren't complaining.  He more than held up his end of the bargain tonight and was denied one of the stars of the game.
• Captain A.O. with his 49th, and 50th goals of the season.  7th Game Winning Goal this season.  And don't forget the 59th assist on the season giving him 109 points in total.  He's one point clear of Henrik Sedin, who has one game left to play tomorrow at home against Calgary, for the Art Ross and one goal ahead of Canadian Diving Team Captain, Lowblow Secondary Assist Cindy Crosby for the Rocket Richard.
• Nicklas Backstrom with two goals and an assist, on Captain A.O.'s 50th goal, for 101 points on the season.  The first time he's topped 100 points.  Break out the wallet because this going to cost us.
• Alexander "Slappy" Semin didn't get his 40th goal tonight but it wasn't for a lack of trying.  Slappy fired 14 shots tonight, 3 of which were blocked and 11 that made it on goal.  One difference we noted that once the force-feeding of Captain A.O. ended (we counted 3 times), the force-feeding of Slappy began but Slappy was picking his spots and not shooting the puck just to shoot.  He did however end up with three assists getting him to 83 points on the season so it wasn't a totally futile night for Slappy.
• Jeff "Sergeant" Schultz followed up his +5 against the Penguin Scum on Tuesday night with a +4 tonight, tied with Backstrom and Slappy for the team lead, and once again was not on the ice for any goal against.  He actually extended his league lead in +/- over Captain A.O. too boot; +48 to +46.
• The Penalty Killing was 2 for 2 tonight.  Baby steps with this unit.

THE BAD:

• The Power Play went 0 for 4 and botched a 44 second 5-on-3 trying to force-feed guys for their milestone goals.

THE UGLY:

• Captain A.O. was picked off clean at the blueline on the Power Play trying to do too much and gave a shorthanded breakaway to Clarke MacArthur who converted.

Well until Captain A.O. started scoring in the second period, tying the game at two, it was every bit the snooze fest we thought tonight would be.  When Captain A.O. scored again in the third period, everybody in the arena came to life, except for the Thrashers who didn't start showing signs of life until the game was out of hand and they showed some anger over having the score run up on them.  Though we do tip our caps tonight to Ondrej Pavelec who kept Atlanta in the game for as long as he could.  He was under siege tonight as the Caps 3rd and 4th lines regularly went to the net as they will need to next week.  Without a strong effort from Pavelec, this game could have been worse.

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