The Washington Capitals continued their offensive success against a shaken and broken Flyers team.
Mike Green had a four point night in front of Team Canada’s executive director, Steve Yzerman, helping plead his case for a slot on the Olympic roster. This may prove to have been a big night for Green whose dream it is to make the team as he is sitting in a “buffer” position behind such defensemen as Chris Pronger and Jay Bouwmeester. And let’s face it, that was a beautiful wrister last night.
Nicholas Backstrom had a strong night as well as he picked up five points in last night’s game and Tomas Fleischmann netted a pair of goals that started the Capitals offensive surge. Jose Theodore allowed only two goals on the Flyers’ 36 shots.
Perhaps the most notable incident of the night was Daniel Carcillo’s penalities that awarded the Washington Capitals a whopping 9 minutes of powerplay time. I can honestly say that I have never seen such an event and probably never will. (In all honesty, I hope I never see such uninspired, hopeless play in the NHL again.)Today there is still discussion reverberating from both sides regarding the penalties and the lack of penalty on Washington’s Matt Bradley.
After numerous reviews of the play it certainly looked to me as though Bradley was tossing his gloves to the ice when Carcillo hit him, but that is not what the referees saw. And in the end, the referees are what matter. In all honesty Carcillo moved so quickly that I have no doubt that the referees never saw Bradley in the incident until he dropped to the ice.
The Washington Capitals did a tremendous job at exploiting the depleted and unconfident Flyers team that played their first game under Laviolette. In the end, the Capitals were able to keep the Flyers from regrouping as they won 8-2.
Personally I wouldn’t consider this a normal game, but a win is still a win. The Capitals have to remember though that they embarrassed a depleted and frustrated hockey club that won’t forget the whipping in the next meeting. And that, ladies and gentlemen, may prove to be the most heated matchup between these two clubs yet.
(Sorry for the delay in posting this article...it appeared on www.crashthecrease.com shortly after the game.)
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