Caps Take A Beating Not Just By Habs

Capitals 2, Canadiens 3 1OT
Game Summary

The Washington Capitals dropped game one in their series against the Montreal Canadiens. They took a bigger hit in the headlines:

As seen above on the TSN.ca website with the headline that reads No-Vechkin. Kinda harsh, but a little bit true as Alex Ovechkin was held at bay in Game 1.

Then there is this one from Yahoo! Sports:

"Party Time." Really? It's not like Montreal won the series. It's game 1.

Or how about ESPN.com:


It's like the Capitals can't even move because they are so "Stunned."

Other interesting headlines:

Longest headline ever: "Top-seeded Washington Capitals fall, 3-2 in overtime, to Canadiens in Game 1 of first-round Stanley Cup playoff series" - Washington Post

"Habs topple Caps in OT" - Globe and Mail

"Canadiens beat Caps 3-2 in overtime" - Montreal Gazette ... with the first paragraph reading: "Anyone who wrote the Canadiens off in their first-round playoff series against the Washington Capitals is guilty of premature resignation."

Interesting Quotes of the night:

"Our best players weren't our best players tonight and their best players were. Our role players were really good." - Bruce Boudreau

"They just don't give us the room. They just put two guys in front of me, two guys in front of [Backstrom]. I don't know. We just have to talk each other and what we have to do better." - Alex Ovechkin

"He didn't play good. I can't put my finger on it right now, but when you get 50 shots on goal and Ovechkin doesn't get any, and you have four power plays, there's something... They took him away. But I didn't think he was very good." - Bruce Boudreau

"He did a good shot shooting against the grain. I was moving one way, and he went the other. He's a skilled player, and he was able to make that shot." - Jose Theodore on the game winning shot by Thomas Plakanec

"I don't think it's a surprise. There's a belief in this room that we can win this. We have a lot of respect for the team over there – and they’re going to come out hard on Saturday, but we like our group too." - Mike Cammalleri

"We were giving them so many chances and so many shots in the first period. In the second and third our guys started skating." - Jaroslav Halak, who stopped 18 of 19 shots in the opening 20 minutes.

“It’s not like we thought we would win it in four.” - Jose Theodore

Night Of The Garbage Men

Capitals 5, Lightning 4
Game Summary

Who says the Southeast Division is boring. The Capitals insert the new guys and the Lightning take advantage of a team that played the night before. The result, a 5-4 win for the good guys and a couple of grinders makes the difference.

Mike Knuble and Scott Walker were two players meant to give the Caps a better presence in front of the net. The pair of them contributed 2 goals each. Even if you do everything to keep Alex Ovechkin off the score sheet, it is the grinders that add the offensive spark the Caps needed.

Knuble has been hot, scoring 18 points in his last 15 games (11g, 7a). He would score two in this game, his 24th and 25th of the season. Eric Fehr scored his 16th of the season, a shot that fooled Mike Smith and hit top corner.

The Caps got into some penalty trouble late in the second period giving the Lightning a prolonged 4 on 3 power play. It would be the shot blocking heroics by Nick Backstrom who was with out a stick to stall the Bolts advantage. He blocked two big point shots and when Semyon Varlamov covered the puck, Backstrom got a pretty loud ovation for his efforts from the hometown faithful.

But give the Lightning credit, they didn't sit back. Vincent Lacavlier seemed to get the big goals when the Bolts needed most. The Caps, maybe a bit road wary, seemed to let up in the third. A few defensive miss reads kept the game interesting before Walker sealed the deal for the Caps. But we will get into the newcomers in a bit.

Varlamov was good in places. It was mostly a let down by his defensive squad and he had little chance of making the save. He did get some help at the beginning from his defensive squad, but the goals the Bolts were able to score Varly was left high and dry.

Newbie Capital Walker may have come to this team with only 3 goals this season, but he scored two big goals and shook off his offensive drought he had in Carolina. It made Eric Belanger and Joe Corvo's arrival seem less enthusiastic. But, overall, the new guys did well for the Caps.

The newcomers were learning on the fly, so I expected not to see too much from them. They didn't have a practice with the full team, only a morning skate. Walker seemed to fit right into the Caps aggressive forecheck and he quickly found a home in front of the net to gobble up rebounds and send them past the Lightning goaltender.

Belanger looks like he needs more adjustment time, but he showed some promise. He played on a line with Eric Fehr and Tomas Fleischmann. It was a quick line, showing a lot of spark for a third line. Belanger would finish with a plus 1 and a few really sneaky shots that just missed the net.

Corvo did not overly stand out, but that might have been a good thing. He was on the ice for two of the Lightning goals, one on the penalty kill and the other was the tying goal by Steven Stamkos. He saw some power play time too. He looked okay to me, was solid defensively.

Milan Jurcina was the only "newcomer" not on the ice. He was a scratch, but I suppose we will see him in the lineup shortly.

With a day off, it will be interesting to see if the new players find new spots in the lines as Bruce Boudreau has time to teach their system and the boys work out the kinks.

The Caps jump out to a 14 point lead in the east over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Pens are looking to chase down the Caps with their improvements at the trade deadline. The two teams meet up later this month.

GM Adds Plenty Of Depth

George McPhee had a plan going into this year's trade deadline. Add some depth to get through the playoffs. Injuries played a bit role in the past two post seasons for the Capitals. Forcing younger players to mature much faster than planned.

"I like what we did," McPhee told reports as the dust settled on trade deadline day. "We got better, and deeper, and we didn't give up our future to do it, and we didn't take on any bad contracts to do it, so I was really pleased with the way it went."

What they got were a pair of forwards and a pair of defensemen for a development player, a defenseman and two second rounders, a sixth rounder and a seventh rounder.

The Capitals bolstered their blue line with the return of Milan Jurcina come back from Columbus and big guy Joe Corvo from Carolina. McPhee felt that getting Juice back puts his best shut down pair of Poti and Jurcina back together. Jurcina played solid enough to get a start every night for the Blue Jackets earning him a roster spot on the Slovakian national team at the Olympics in Vancouver.

Joe Corvo will bring a heavy shot to the point and some solid veteran defensive skills back there too. TSN.ca analyst Micheal Peca broke down Corvo's role with the Capitals: "I think Mike Green's going to need some support. You get into the playoffs, as an opposing team you identify certain players that you're going to target and try to affect physically, and I think if Washington has the ability to reduce Green's minutes early on in the playoffs, it'll benefit the team in the long run. I think Corvo's the guy."

With the pair of defensemen, McPhee took on some more grit and veterans up front. Eric Belanger and Scott Walker add some muscle and some set up ability for the Capitals up front.

"Belanger brings us some speed and experience at center ice," Mcphee said of his new centerman. "[It's] the sort of thing we were looking for, and he's also real good on faceoffs."

"We like his experience and his ability to shut people down, he's on pace for probably 18 goals this year, which is fine; he'll help us on our penalty killing. We just got another player who is a hard guy to play against."

"I like Walker because Ovechkin and Semin are going to face a lot of physical attention, come playoff time," Peca said on TSN. "Walker is a great equalizer. He's a guy who will identify the other team's best player and you don't know what's coming."

The Capitals did lose Brian Potheir and development player Oskar Osala. But for the most part, McPhee was able to keep his core of youth together while getting the players he wanted. "We had an untouchable list and we didn't give away any of those players," McPhee explained.

Overall, I give the Caps and GMGM a B. He was successful in adding the depth he needed, but the market wasn't there for better players. He didn't give up anything he couldn't live without and in the end that is probably the most important fact on day's end.

Fitting the new players in will take some time for everyone. But they won't have too much time to think about it since they play a pair of back to back games, then play a game every other night through March. A busy schedule will force the coaching staff to figure it out on the fly.