Theodore and the Caps win 3-1 against the Devils

Jose Theodore played his best game in net as a Washington Capital, making 32 saves.  The game should have been a shutout for Theodore, but the Caps made a bad line change that resulted in a breakaway that led to Patrick Elias potting a goal without being touched.

The Caps look like they're getting their groove back from last season as they're on a five game winning streak.  It's nice to see them rolling even without Sergei Fedorov on the ice.  Shaone Morrison is out, too, but I don't view that as a bad thing since his play this year has been horrible.  Tyler Sloan has been a capable defenseman call up from Hershey and he seems to get more comfortable the more he plays with the team.

The highlights:

• Brooks Laich gets the hard hat and the important power play garbage goal off a redirect from Alex Ovechkin in the first period.
• Tomas Fleischmann scored in the 2nd period after being stonewalled by the Devils netminder Scott Clemmensen prior to that.  Fleischmann makes moves on the ice that look Semin-esque at times.  He's playing great hockey.
• Ovie banged in the empty netter goal in the 3rd to seal the 3-1 victory.  He had another 2 point night. 
• Viktor Kozlov gets props for scoring his 500th point last night on the Fleischmann goal.
• There were only 3 penalties last night and the game was pretty ho-hum as usually is the case when playing a trap team like New Jersey.  But, the crowd stayed into the game though and the atmosphere was good.  I enjoyed sitting in section 108 a lot.

The lowlights:

• Alexander Semin, the league's leading scorer, left with an injury.  It doesn't sound bad though, thankfully.

Coach Boudreau sat Michael Nylander last night and the trade talk went into overdrive on the message boards yesterday.  Nylander has only one point in his last seven games and most people believes that the coach sat him because of it.  Nylander is a good hockey play but I still don't see his style of play fitting in well with the North/South aggressive attacking style of the Caps team that went from last to first when Nylander was out last season.  He plays an East/West control the puck dipsy do kind of game and it drives me nuts at times.  He's scheduled to be back in the lineup tonight so we'll see how he does.

The Caps are in New Jersey for another game against the Devils before heading out West.

Let's go Caps!