Caps & Varlamov Get It Done 4-0

Wow.  Simeon Varlamov.  Wow.  What else can I say.  The 20-year old net minder has been nothing but impressive.  A save he made with about 3 minutes left, a diving split, was a thing of beauty.  Deservedly, he got the first star of the game.  

I've seen this before with other young NHL goalies.  They burn out (see Cam Ward's sophomore slump) or they become inconsistent (see Carey Price).   

Observations:

• John Erskine played one of his best games that I've ever seen.  He pestered Sean Avery, got under his skin and forced him to take a couple of penalties.  That was fun to watch.
• We should be celebrating Alexander Semin's hat trick, but we'll settle for his two goals in the first period.  Semin played an excellent game but he blew his first two scoring chances and he should have had them.
• Nicklas Backstrom is one helluva a hockey player.  This young pivot is very difficult to move off the puck and he's winning the battles along the boards and he's quarterbacking plays..
• Alex Ovechkin made some wonderful defensive plays tonight, in addition, to his 2 assists.  One of his sliding on the ice poke the puck off the defense man's stick was pretty (to be fair, he corrected his mistake of giving away the puck). His presence was felt.
• Brian Pothier is sharp in his return from his long-term injury.  He's providing the Caps with a steadiness and level of the experience on the blue line that they need.  Their blue line is better with Pothier in it over Jeff Schultz.
• The penalty kill performed killing off 7 of 7.

I was scared to watch this game. 

 Thanks Caps.

Let's go Caps!