All He Does Is Score Goals: Part II

Wow.

(I had a really long, obscenely insightful recap written. And then my computer ate it. The one you see here will not be quite as mind-blowing. Sorry.)

What a game. Seriously? That was one of the best hockey games I've seen in a long time. So I'm having a hard time getting upset about this loss. (Especially when compared to my level of upset-ness at my computer right now.) Great chances each way, fantastic flow and it really could have gone either way. But it didn't. It went the Senators way. Which, at this point in the season, is a very bad thing.

Alex Ovechkin was flying all over the ice as well as I've ever seen him. Alex Semin was damn near untouchable stickhandling all over the place. It seemed like every time the puck entered Martin Gerber's crease, the Caps were getting two, three, even four quality whacks at it. Yet somehow they failed to score. Time after time the puck bounced over someone's stick or went wide or ended up right in Gerber's belly. Frustrating? A little bit, yeah.

This is not to take anything away from Ottawa's play tonight. This is what quality teams do. They take games that they don't deserve to win, and through a combination of lucky bounces and timely goaltending they turn them into two points in the standings. There's no ignoring the fact that Gerber had 35 saves on 37 shots for a .946 save percentage (Olie was .921), and Dany Heatley's goal was a thing of beauty (who knew non-European players could use their feet like that?). In fact, I have a strong feeling that Heatley was probably robbed of what should have been a second goal, not that I'm going to complain about that particular call.

When you get down to it, though, it all comes down to the Caps' inability to convert on their scoring chances. Given the way they were playing in the last two periods, I found myself thinking "They have to tie the game up soon. There's no way it won't happen. Right? Right?!?" (as the minutes ticked down, the ratio of exclamation marks to question marks got exponentially higher). I think this may end up being something of a microcosm for the Caps' whole season; coming tantalizingly close only to come up just short on opportunity after opportunity. If anything, the Caps loss tonight is probably further proof that they are still a year away from seriously contending for aplayoff spot. However, if they can play all of the games between here and April the way they played tonight, I will be okay with that.

(P.S. - I obviously can't go an entire recap without mentioning Donald Brashear's second goal of the season (as alluded to in the entry title), can I? Congratulations to everybody's favorite #87.)

Recaps From People That Matter:
-A View From the Cheap Seats
-Bleatings From a Caps Nut
-Capital Fanatic
-Capitals Corner (f.k.a. Capital Punishment)
-Japers' Rink
-The Peerless Prognosticator