Caps Curtail 'Canes

Capitals 4, Hurricanes 1
Preseason - Scoresheet

Tomas Fleischmann is making a bid to stay with the big club for good this season. He made a pretty good argument tonight as the Capitals roll the Carolina Hurricanes 4-1. Fleischmann scored twice, both on the powerplay, which continues to be an area that the Capitals need to improve, but looked good tonight. Viktor Kozlov added two assists to the effort and the Caps open looking pretty solid.

While Karl Alzner was pretty sound, it seems he has some pretty stiff competition. Not from veterans, but from John Carlson. Carlson had an assist on the first power play goal and looked pretty solid through out. Although I would like to see him fill out more, he held his own.

Matt Bradley and Matheiu Perreault were the other scorers, both at even strength. Perreault had a lucky rebound come his way. Oskar Osala, Milan Jurcina, Micheal Nylander, Quintin Laing and Alex Giroux all added assists. Eric Fehr took two penalties (both stick fouls) but still came out a +1.

The Hurricanes lone goal was on Darren Machesney on a 5 on 3 penalty kill. It was the only power play tally the Caps allowed, obviously. The 'Canes were only 1 for 6 with the man advantage, compared to the Capitals who were 2 for 3 on the power play.

The Caps have not let up on their high pressure forecheck. And goaltenders Simeon Varlamov and Machesney looked pretty solid in net for the Caps preseason opener. On the other end, Cam Ward gave up two goals and Justin Peters gave up two as well for Carolina. Varlamov only played the first period of play.

The 'Canes play looked very flat, almost dull at times. In fact head coach Peter Laviolette alluded to the stagnet play, “I thought the tempo was great for the first four to five days (of camp) but we seemed to hit a wall tonight.”

Since captain Chris Clark did not play tonight, Bruce Boudreau made Bradley captain for the night. Per Tarik: "I was pretty excited that Bruce made me captain and it's something I enjoyed," Bradley said before joking, "My record speaks for itself. I'm 1-0. I just went out there and did what I do: get the game winner."

Also check out the very positive Corey at the Wash Times. Now that is optimism.