On Frozen Blog

With a few days of rest and a few rookies with lighter wallets, the Caps take the ice for the first time since the 7-1 raking of the Leafs.

• The Rags are a low-scoring, scare-free squad, and far from the shoe-in for the Stanley Cup finals many in the MSM forecasted in the preseason. Heard that in-season diagnosis before? Us too. Nonetheless, Henrik Lundquist is a game-changing, game-stealing talent. He loves playing against the Caps. And these Rangers love playing the Caps on Broadway.
• Scary moment in the first with the Rags crashing the net. The immediate worry was that Kolzig tweaked the knee again. That kind of knee-jerk we don’t need. But the big guy seems none the worse for wear.
• Jurcina can be counted upon to deliver a flattening check along the boards virtually every night. The Caps need more of those.
• Interesting: Brashear with some PP time. Who wouldn’t love to see him with an extra-man tally?
• Broken record dept.: AO with a bruising shoulder check knocking an opponent on his keister.
• You can’t go two men down while trailing 0-1 in the third on the road and expect to win many games.
• The Caps were handed a 4-minute PP with still plenty of time left to rally in the third, down 2-0, and while they generated eight shots on it, none really qualified as a superb quality opportunity. And that was the story of the Caps’ night.
• It certainly wasn’t a bad effort, but it also wasn’t the inspired effort we saw Monday in Toronto.

In the pipeline, October roundup: 2004 draftee Travis Morin is second in scoring in the East Coast Hockey League with 6 goals and 5 assists in eight games for South Carolina. He had a hat trick Halloween night in the Stingrays’ 6-5 loss to Columbia. Patrick McNeill is also skating in South Carolina, and he’s got 3 goals and 5 assists in eight games. Five Stingrays rank in the E’s top 10 scorers. Josh Godfrey ranks in the top 10 of defensemen scorers in the OHL ofr Sault St. Marie: he has 15 points in 16 games (8 and 7). Mathieu Perreault is again lodged in the QMJHL’s top 5 scorers, with 9 goals and 16 assists in 15 Titan games. He’s also a +11 for Acadie Bathurst. The Caps’ other Q dynamo, Francois Bouchard, too is garnering heavy opponent checking; his numbers are down slightly from a year ago: 7 goals and 14 assists for 21 pts. in 16 Drakkar games.

Five Caps’ prospects will take part in the ADT Canada-Russia Challenge Series this month. Simeon Varlamov will start in net for Russia. Perreault and Bouchard will represent Team Quebec. Josh Godfrey will patrol the blueline for the OHL entry in the Challenge. And Karl Alner will skate for one of two WHL squads.