On Frozen Blog

It was a victory that was “a lot more difficult than it had to be,” Comcast’s Joe Beninati noted at the close of Thursday night’s broadcast. Ain’t that the truth. The cardiac Caps, they ought to be called. And that’s not flattery.

You could say this was a night for secondary scoring, or tertiary scoring, or maybe . . . even . . .  bloggers would have scored were they in Caps’ sweaters last night. After Jeff Schultz’s third point the Phillips Arena sound system should have played the theme from ‘The Twilight Zone.’

• Could Matt Bradley actually score 15 goals this season?

• Washington early in this new season has developed a nasty habit of getting big or at least healthy leads in the first two periods and then seriously faltering . . . wilting . . . coming unglued in the third. It is no longer a mere annoyance any more, but a bona fide trend, and it may come back to be the Caps undoing if it persists beyond autumn, past winter, and into spring.

• Bruce Boudreau wasn’t pleased in the least with his team’s power play Thursday night (0-for-7 and another thoroughly uninspired 5-on-3), matter of factly terming it the “worst night in the three years I’ve been here” with the man advantage.  The Capitals’ extra-man attack obviously missed Alexander Semin, but early on Thursday it looked as if the Caps were willing “to go ugly” and do the dirty work in tight in 5-on-4 situations. They got away from that quickly, obviously.

• Why is Semin so valuable on the power play, aside from his world-class shot? Semin is a sublime puck possessor, and when the puck arrives on his tape along the side boards he needs little time or space to get the offensive zone equilibrium established, maintaining possession even under duress, allowing his teammates to maneuver into their assigned positions for the attack. Without him, the character of the Capitals’ extra-man attack changes. It can of course still be effective — what power play wouldn’t want Ovechkin and Green? — but a different mindset or ethos is needed.

• Eric Fehr has required of Capitals’ fans notable patience in his development, but he sure offered us an eye-widening reminder of his special hands on that opening strike, and he’s put together now a modest string of consecutive impressive performances. It’s tantalizing to wonder if this could be his breakout year and what that would mean for the Capitals’ attack from the right side.

• That first Thrashers’ power play strike took all of three seconds and featured a highly unusual double whammy of failed assignments by two of the Capitals’ most reliable defensive forwards. Dave Steckel got beaten badly on the draw, and Quintin Laing simultaneously lost containment on Maxim Afinogenov in the slot, allowing the one-time sniper wing to score easily on Varlamov.

• While OrderedChaos pointed out after the game that every win is a good win, and every road win better, and every road win within the division even better than that, Washington will not go far this year if they can’t finish off opponents while they have them on life support. Even though Atlanta has been playing good hockey, and even though the Thrashers are notably improved over a  season ago, better teams are going to put that tying goal into the net in the final seconds, given the chances the Capitals seem habitually to surrender.

• The Capitals for much of last season received enormously reliable fill-in efforts from the farm, particularly on the blueline, and last night Keith Aucoin and Alexandre Giroux made their 5 minutes of ice time most productive. Tehirs wasn’t the game-winning goal, but it certainly was an important one. These two turned it on in the AHL playoffs last year and on Thursday night it looked as if they could transfer that scoring to the big leagues. Both played well for the Caps during the regular season last year, and they definitely brought a lot of energy to the team last night.

• Coach Boudreau complained about the ice sheet at Phillips Arena in the postgame. Really, does any member of the Capitals’ organization have latitude to complain about ice quality in another building?