A TWO point night: Caps 6 - Thrashers 3

The beer is a little colder, the air a little crisper, and the wings will be a little tastier…thanks to the Caps running roughshod over the Atlanta Thrashers last night, 6-3.

It started as “Kids Club Night” with clowns, carcicaturist, and prizes…and it ended as “Wings Night” as the Caps scored the magic six goals to give each of their fans a pound of wings from a local establishment.

As for the Caps, they extracted their own pound of flesh, taking out the frustrations of the last month – not to mention the wrath of head coach Bruce Boudreau – on the hapless Thrashers.

It was so complete a “thrashing”…so to speak…that even when the Caps missed, it left a mark. Alexander Semin snapped off a shot from in close that ripped the mask from the head of Atlanta goaltender Kari Lehtonen, leaving the dazed netminder looking around for parts and waiting several minutes for repairs.

As for the scoring, there are a few “keywords” to describe the effort. The first is “efficiency.” The Caps scored six goals on only 27 shots, although they unloaded a total of 58 attempts on Atlanta.

Second, there is “pairs.” The Caps twice scored a pair of goals within about a minute of each other. The first goal of the game was scored 8:12 into the first, when Nicklas Backstrom intercepted a ghastly up-the-middle pass from Brian Pothier Niclas Havelid just inside the Thrasher line and snapped the puck over Lehtonen’s glove to open the scoring. Precisely one minute later, Alexander Semin tried a backhand wrap-around. Lehtonen made the stop, but a weak clear by Ken Klee came out to the top of the left wing circle where Jeff Schultz fired the puck past the statuesque (no, really, he never moved) Klee -- pictured at left -- who served to screen Lehtonen, who never saw the puck sail past him into the net. There was also the pair of goals netted by Mike Green, tying him for second on the club (7).

The other pair came in the second period, following a 5-on-3 power play goal by Atlanta’s Todd White. Tom Poti sent the puck wide left of the Thrasher goal – right in redirectable territory, and Alex Ovechkin did just that, blading the puck behind Lehtonen for the Caps’ answer to the Atlanta goal. 69 seconds later, Tomas Fleischmann walked around the net and found Mike Green pinching in – probably something those two had clicked on in Hershey a few times. Green took the pass and snapped the puck past Lehtonen, and the competitive portion of the evening was pretty much over.

Third, there is “whew!” As in…”finally!” Matt Pettinger went the entire month of November without so much as a point (0-0-0, -9). He last scored a goal on October 29^th against Toronto, his only goal of the year. Last night, though, he swooped in behind an Ovechkin shot repelled by Lehtonen and put the garbage in the disposal with a backhand sweep.

Fourth, there is “three,” as in “point night.” Nicklas Backstrom had his second three-point night of the year with a goal and two assists. He is 2-7-9, +3 over his last eight games and has risen to third in rookie scoring.

You’d be hard pressed to find a Cap who had a bad game last night. Plusses abound (12 skaters were on that side of the ledger), and the fun was spread around – five players with the six goals and ten players registering points. Nine skaters had hits, eight had blocked shots. They held Ilya Kovachuk to a cosmetic assist on the Thrashers’ second goal, when the game had already been decided. Ditto, Marian Hossa, who they also held to one shot on goal. It enable the Caps to exploit a sluggish Thrasher blue line group that seemed to have more interest in throwing ill-timed hits (Garnet Exelby, five hits) than defending (Garnet Exelby, -4).

A word, too, about Olaf Kolzig. If you look at the stat sheet, Kolzig had 23 saves on 26 shots – a pretty ordinary line. But he stopped 20 of the first 21 Atlanta shots, some of those saves of the game-saving variety…eight minutes in with the game still scoreless, he stopped Jim Slater at the doorstep off a centering feed from Pascal Dupuis...in the first minute of the second period, after Mike Green mistakenly though an icing call was coming, Kolzig stopped a Kovalchuk drive off a pass from Hossa, who had taken the puck from Green…three minutes into the second stopping a bang-bang try off the sticks of Steve McCarthy and Dupuis…a skate save on a redirect that could have brought the Thrashers back within a goal late in the second. It was the kind of solid night the club needed – making the saves he had to make and stealing a few along the way as well.

It was a complete reversal from the game they played collectively the previous night in Newark. The Caps have looked over long stretches of this season like a team than needed someone to kick ass and take names. Bruce Boudreau has done just that – calling out players publicly (fingering Brian Pothier and sitting him is one thing – even if Pothier hadn’t been a healthy scratch in his entire time here – but calling out the iconic Olaf Kolzig…that’s a different animal) and chewing them out in the relative privacy of practice. This night, at least, the players responded.