Wednesday, December 20, 2006

The Morning After -- Caps vs. Lightning

Well, The Peerless didn't get to see much of last night's 5-4 loss to the Lightning, but we do have some thoughts on what transpired . . .

- Alexander Ovechkin extended his scoring streak to eight games. That's not the half of it. He's registered points in 11 of his last 12 games, and 26 of 33 games overall. While he doesn't have the splashy six-point game anywhere on his resume, he is 7-11-18 in this latest scoring streak (compared to 6-13-19 over a comparable stretch by Mr. Media Darling in Pittsburgh).

- When I saw the first half dozen minutes of the game, I was reminded by a quote attributed to Herb Brooks . . . "you guys don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." The Caps win through hard work, and there wasn't a lot of it early.

- Dainius Zubrus...almost 21 minutes...no shots. I'm guessing he's still under the weather.

- Some losses are bad...the Pittsburgh loss was "bad." Some losses are not so bad. This one was not so bad...the Caps came back to almost steal a point (or two), and they got a lesson in humility. Respect your opponent (hey, that Stanley Cup is not that far in the Lightning's past) and respect what got you on that 7-1-1 run.

- This is the start of the dead zone of the schedule; eight games coming up against non-divisional opponents snaking through the holiday calendar. The next lesson for the boys -- maintaining focus.

- Last year after 33 games: 12-19-2 (26 points). This year: 15-11-7 (37 points). The Caps didn't get their 15th win last year until their 44th game, January 16th, in Phoenix (something about a "goal" in that game).

- Odd number of the night: 0:00. That's how much specialty teams time Mike Green got, both power play and penalty kill. He was the only defenseman to get no time killing penalties.

- Odd number of the night II: 4. That's how many hits led the Caps last night, registered by...Kris Beech? (ok, Ovechkin had four, too, but he got his in seven additional minutes of play).

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