I Wanna Be Sedated

I thought it would be best to keep with the Ramones theme after the Capital's win last night against the Rangers. Twenty, twenty, twenty four hours to go...

After the first 14 minutes of the first period last night, it looked like my pregame thoughts were right on. The Rangers "exploded" for two goals by Scott Gomez and Martin Straka. The Rangers had only scored five goals in their last four games and scored a total of four last night. Watching the game, it looked as if the Capitals were going to be in a lot of trouble. They were peppering Henrik Lundquist with shots (they out shot the Rangers 18-7 in the first period), but were quickly down two goals in a span of 1:48 playing time. I find it somewhat interesting that all the Ranger players mentioned in the pregame post figured in the scoring with the exception of Chris Drury. Even Jaromir "The Poison" Jagr had a point and was a plus one on the night.

There were a number of very encouraging things about last night's victory. The Capitals were once again able to earn a win after being scored on first, erased a two goal deficit and continued to battle back and counter punch every time the Rangers answered the bell. The third period and overtime was great to watch. Four goals were scored in the period and no lead lasted more than four minutes. It was one of those games that just hung in the balance with the scale ready to tip one way or the other at any point. The overtime period was much the same. After a prolonged time of puck possession for the Rangers in the Caps defensive zone, Tomas Fleischmann and Alex Ovechkin came down on a two on one. Clearly, Flash was out of gas and made a poor decision in not getting the puck over to Ovechkin. Shortly after that, Brendan Shanahan stumbled just over the blue line and Brooks Laich and Mike Green raced away on another two on one. Laich made a nice, soft pass over to Green. Green was able to catch it right in stride and buried the puck in the top right corner of the net for the win.

A three game winning streak sure feels nice. The Capitals seem to be gaining confidence and getting that attitude and swagger back that they had at the beginning of the year. They face the Buffalo Sabres on Friday night. The last time the Caps played the Sabres was game three of the Bruce Boudreau era. After winning the first two games after Boudreau took over behind the bench, the honeymoon ended with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the Sabres. Twenty, twenty, twenty four hours to go...

Hopefully, we will be able to continue with the Ramones theme and have a new post on Saturday morning entitled I Wanna Stiff Some Glue.