Caps thoughts

Last week, the Caps were looking pretty good.  They had won 5 of 6 capped off with a thrashing of division rivals Florida.  Things looked good.  They had climbed back into the playoff picture and things finally looked to be clicking for this team. 

Then comes this weekend and back to back games against the Islanders and Rangers.  I was thinking it'd be great to win both games but a split is fine.  They took the loss on Saturday against the Islanders which put some pressure to beat the Rangers on Sunday.  It was a nationally televised game and we were back at home so thought it was even more important to get the win.  The Caps started out good and scored within the first three minutes on Steve Oleksy's first career goal.  I like this guy Oleksy and was glad he got the goal. 

However, after about the first 10 minutes of the game, we were beaten.  Just a boring game.  Didn't see much life from the team and outside of a few chances late in the second period and a couple in the third, we were beaten and took the 4-1 loss. 

Frankly, we need to get Mike Green, John Erskine, and Brooks Laich back.  I like Tom Poti but he sucks.  Not a big fan of Jeff Schultz either.  Offensively, we need to get some type of production from Jason Chimera.  He needs to get a goal and get that monkey off his back.  Newcomer, Aaron Volpatti, is fine but we don't have enough scorers to make great use of that guy.  MoJo and Backstrom have got to get some goals as well.  I think Ovi is trying his best and most games he is playing really well but the Rangers game he seemed to be hot dogging it.  He did a fly by on a Ranger at center ice in the first period that resulted in a the Rangers first goal.  Just a bad play.  Not sure what he was thinking.  Then he took a couple of penalties that resulted in a NY PP goal.  The only guys on offense who I have been consistently happy with are Ribeiro and Brouwer as I see these two guys giving max effort night in/night out.  They are deserving of better play around them.

All that said, we have back to back games against division leaders Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday and Thursday this week.  The season hangs in the balance on these two games.  Two losses would make things very difficult in terms of winning the SE division but two wins and we are right back in the thick of the divisional race. 

If the Caps can't get up for these two games, they don't deserve the playoffs.  Hopefully they show something this week.