After-Math -- Caps vs. Lightning

It’s a no point night . . .

Well…the Nats are opening their season on Monday, and apparently, one Capitals forward thought tonight might be a good time to audition for an outfield spot on the club. The Caps lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 5-2, and the lowlight of the game was Alexander Semin showing off his arm for Jim Bowden and Stan Kasten (as if they were watching). Flattened against the boards at the Tampa Bay blue line, Semin sat up, picked up the puck, and threw it into the Lightning end . . .

Two minutes for stupid, was the way one Lightning player put it.

Moments later on the ensuing power play, Tampa doubled their lead, and the Caps were on their way to finding another way to lose.

Being young is one thing, but being brain dead is quite another. Semin was rewarded for his antics with two inconsequential shifts over the last 22 minutes. It’s the second time he’s resorted to throwing the puck this year. Here’s a thought…duct tape his hands to his stick!

As for the rest of the game, it was crisply played, time-wise, but otherwise wasn’t much of a contest. With Semin sitting for those last 22 minutes, the Caps were reduced to whatever offense Alex Ovechkin could muster (save for a last-minute cosmetic goal from Matt Bradley). Trouble is, Ovechkin had exactly no shots on goal over a 24:39 period from late in the first period to early in the third. No other Capital seemed able to take up the slack.

Washington gave up the required power play goal, and even yielded a short-handed one for good measure. That’s nine of 11 games in which the Caps have given up a power play goal, killing off only 36 of 51 shorthanded situations in the process (70.6 percent).

Every indignity imaginable hit the Caps in this game – a goal in the first minute, a power play goal, a short-handed goal, and empty net goal, getting out-hit by a club that isn’t especially physical, and a really, really stupid play. All that was left was for Olaf Kolzig to be pantsed in his own crease.