Game 2 Recap/Series Outlook

The Flyers simply outplayed the Caps as a team on Sunday. The Caps did not falter from a lack of effort but had way too many individual efforts and not nearly enough team efforts. It can be a fine line but they were mostly out of sync on Sunday.

The Flyers have done a great job of putting people in front of the net and bumping/interfering with Cristobal Huet in both games. They have been penalized for some of this activity but I believe the Caps must respond to this strategy at both ends of the ice. The defense needs to do a better job of clearing the net and, if need be, literally clobbering someone even if it leads to a penalty. Additionally, the Caps need to get more traffic in front of Martin Biron. They need to bump him and potentially knock him over a few times even if it leads to a penalty. They need to especially do this on the power play. In fact, I will suggest that they need to consider putting Donald Brashear on one of the units to wreak havoc in front.

The Caps will also need better puck support in all phases of the game. The individual efforts will not get the job done alone in the playoffs. The Caps will need to at least match the intensity level of the Flyers on Sunday to continue to compete in this series. Tonight’s game may prove to be the deciding factor in this series. Huet will need to play better in net and the Caps will need to play a more consistent, intense game throughout the series for the Caps to have a chance to move on to the second round.