Thirty Stories Up

Listening to the game on online radio, provided by WashingtonCapitals.com.

Final Score (OT) - Capitals 3, Hurricanes 2

Thoughts from overtime:

4-on-3 time - big penalty kill for the Caps if they can do it. Shootouts shouldn’t be such a curse this year, with our two big free agent forwards both having a good track record in the shootout.

Poti intercepts a pass and goes. Gets taken down hard and draws a penalty, and he’s shaken but not hurt. 3-on-3 time.   Caps can’t convert the power play.

Green to Backstrom and they SCORE!  A revenge preseason OT win for the Capitals over the Hurricanes, and Green is showing that he deserves a spot on the Caps’ roster tonight.

Thoughts from the third period:

Well, I may have jinxed the Caps there. Kolzig gives up the early rebound and goal. Caps 2, Canes 1. Not much that Kolzig could do after giving up that rebound.

First 3rd-period Caps penalty… Eminger starts the march. Let’s see if they can stop it before it gets out of hand again tonight.

Not a lot of whistles, but a lot of scoring chances for the ‘Canes, as Walker fails to finish after beating Kolzig thoroughly.

Hearing that Dean McAmmond of the Senators got hurt badly and is out on a stretcher in the Senators-Flyers tilt. It was Downie of the Flyers who laid out the elbow to his head, which is a shame; he was a kid with a tough start trying to get things back on track, but he had behavior problems in his lower leagues too, and if the new NHL is serious about punishing unprovoked shots to the head, this should effectively derail his rise to the NHL for now. Off Wing Opinion had an excellent article recently on concussions in the NHL that now seems spookily prescient.

‘Canes score again to make it 2-2. The Caps just can’t hold the 2-goal leads for now, which is worrying; the Rangers had a tough time with those last season, and would have gone into the postseason in better position had they won a few more that they took 2-goal leads into the 3rd in.

The Caps are getting a ton of chances this period, but so far no luck getting anything past the ‘Canes netminder. Poti especially is getting a lot of shots from the point, which is encouraging for a club that needs the D-men to step up offensively if they want to be a playoff contender this year.

Gordon is really, really good on faceoffs right now, I like that they’re sending him in for all the important face-offs. Alexander Semin takes a poor penalty to stop a meaningless end-of-period breakaway, instead leaving the Caps to kill the penalty in overtime.

Thoughts from the second period:

The Caps’ power play unit gets another chance right at the top of the tilt, but still isn’t impressing; miscues keep sending it back into neutral or defensive territory. Kozlov seems to be the weak link in some of the passing when he’s on the ice for the man advantage.

Green to the box again, this time for tripping; I’d rather see the Caps be taking penalties on edgy penalties and not delay of game or tripping. On the plus side, he’s given the team their chances tonight to show that the penalty kill is looking good.

Kolzig is still solid tonight. Not facing many shots, but he’s stopping the ones he’s seeing so far.

The offense is still out of sync. Flash has stopped a couple of rushes by being a step offside, and I’m hoping that’s just an issue of him getting used to Ovechkin’s speed and not a worrying lack of timing.

The Caps’ Russian duo (2007-’08 edition) does it! Power-play finally clicks, with good puck movement getting Ovechkin a shot, Kozlov a redirect, and the Capitals a 2-0 lead late in the 2nd (on only their second or third scoring chance of the period, no less).

The Caps hold up, even though they allow 10 shots on goal this period; they carry the 2-goal lead into the second intermission. Let’s see if they can finally hold onto a 2-goal lead this preseason.

Thoughts from the first period:

Klepis had a wide-open net, but failed to finish on an early chance. That’s not going to help his case right now; when you get a chance that good, you have to put it in the back of the net.

Green may have made a mental error taking an early delay-of-game penalty, but he makes up for it right out of the penalty box by taking the wing position and starting a give-and-go play with Fleischmann that Green eventually backhands into the twine to give the Caps a 1-0 lead. Maybe Flash is trying to prove my skepticism of his first-line potential wrong.

How low is the glass at the Verizon Center? There have been three penalties so far, two for delay of game.

“Nylander… to Semin, back to Nylander… feeds it to Semin… Semin, behind the net, to Nylander…” I have a feeling we’re going to hear that call a lot on the power-play this year.

For a team that sent the scorers out tonight and not the heavy hitters, the Caps seem to be doing a decent job along the boards tonight.

The Caps’ power play units still need some time to mesh. They didn’t sound tremendously effective in the first, and failed to convert on the man advantage three times; they’re moving the puck well, but just not putting together the quality chances that they’ll want to see.

The Capitals lead one to nil after the first, holding the Hurricanes to seven chances; along with the Bolts game this weekend, this has to be a validation of the puck-possession style they’re moving towards.

Filed under: Hockey

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