caps 4, ottawa 2 – read it and SWEEP!

you know, 38 seconds in the first period, after several senators collided with brent johnson and he went down hard for a long couple of minutes, i had a bad bad feeling about this game.

boy, was i wrong!

sure, there were some scary, scary moments – like the two consecutive goals scored by ottawa which seemed to signal a downhill slide. fortunately, semin beat that vibe back with a lovely, lovely goal – lots of fancy skating and topped with a peppy little upswing on his shot.

but aside from one or two points where i feared for my team, the caps did a great job tonight. they kept the penalties to a minimum (although the overlapping pettinger/steckel penalties did have me holding my breath.) they played strongly when they had the puck, and they pulled out all stops on the defense.

i want to particularly single out tomas fleischmann for praise. fleischmann is possibly my least favorite cap. i don’t think he’s contributed much to the team, especially in the hanlon days, but i have to commend him for his excellent play tonight. his tenacity is responsible for the second semin goal of the evening, because he just got the puck and would not give it up to ottawa. he also had a nice breakaway and shot sequence in the second period, even though it went nowhere.

and finally, brent johnson – thank you!

you know, when i look back on last year, when the caps managed to sweep the flyers, the worst team in the league, and compare it to this year, when they sweep the best team in the league, i am glowing with pride on behalf of my team. let’s see canada try to write off washington and its fans after these four games – the caps played well, and the fans responded.

woohoo! let’s go caps!

~ by malaiseybonbons on January 15, 2008.