Thursday, February 14, 2008

One is Better than None

That's about as "glass half full" a statement one can make when losing another game against a team the Capitals absolutely have to beat. With 41 shots on Kari Lehtonen, you'd think they might get it done, but these Southeast goaltenders have risen to the challenge against this revitalized Caps team.

Since January 31st, the Capitals are 4-0-0 against non-division opponents and 0-2-1 against their division rivals. But just how much has the divisional goaltending factored into the equation? Outside the division during this stretch, the Caps have shot 12.7%; against the Southeast they're at 2.7% (yes, the "one" is supposed to be missing.) Of course, converting these shooting percentages to the opposing netminders' save percentages and you'll come up with .873 and .973 -- you think the goalies are coming ready?

Sure Lehtonen had a chance to see just about every shot, but even when the puck was trickling by, it was as if there was some sort of magnetic force field along the goal line that kept anything from creeping over the stripe. Call it luck. I call it damn good goaltending. And just when you've realized that you can't get one by Lehtonen, he pulls off his best Ron Hextall impression with a beautiful feed up the gut and through traffic to Marian Hossa who converted on the breakaway.

Olie Kolzig did his share of providing sparkling saves that were enough to give the Caps one point in the standings. But he was made to look a fool in the shootout and wasn't even close to stopping either try. This leads me to my questioning of Boudreau's decision to send Boyd Gordon out on a shootout. He already had his breakaway try on Lehtonen, and failed. Why give him another go? Because he had a season-high five shots? Well, he tied a season-low with zero goals. Besides, wasn't this why the Caps acquired Viktor Kozlov?

Defensively, Milan Jurcina made an ugly turnover resulting in the Thrashers' lone scoring chance of the first period. The other big slow guy, John Erskine, was beaten in the corner by Marian Hossa who fed Eric Perrin for the goal that did count (he had one disallowed a short time before.)

While on the subject of defensemen, Tom Poti looked to be slumped over a bit in his own zone. Once the puck exited the zone and he went off the ice, he did not return. Could this mean that Sami Lepisto may get another shot at a callup? If so, refer to my earlier article.

Next up, another shot at a Southeast team whose goaltender is Tomas Vokoun.  Vokoun is 4-1-0 this month with a 2.56 GAA and .927 save percentage.  Against Washington, he is 3-2-0 with a 2.37 GAA and .939 save percentage.  He's next in line to do his damage to Ovechkin and the Caps.  Any guess to goals and saves in this game?

A FEW NOTES FROM THE GAME:

• Some guys celebrate a new contract by creating scoring chances, some by finding the back of the net, yet others by stepping up their physical play. (In Ovie's case, he did all three)  Tomas Fleischmann's method: One penalty, one missed shot, one faceoff win, one faceoff loss, and a -1 rating in over 15 minutes. SWEET!
• Hey, Ovechkin scored. Kovalchuk didn't. Ovie leads by nine. His two points give him 78, four more than Vinny and Evgeni.
• Nicklas Backstrom had two assists and has pulled into a tie for the rookie scoring lead for the first time. He and Chicago's Patrick Kane have 47 points apiece, but we all know how quickly Backstrom caught up.
• The Caps failed to score on the power play for the 7th time in eight games. More on that to come soon.

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