The most important game of the Caps season

And they get destroyed by Buffalo.  What a gutless effort for a team now outside the playoff picture.  I don't even get disappointed anymore because I expect to be disappointed.

The highlights:

• The awesome defensive pairing of Jeff Schultz with John Carlson helped to hand Buffalo an early 2-goal lead.  Carlson was minus-3, in 4-minutes of work, and Schultz was minus-2.
• Ovie lost the puck during the power play, which lead to a short-handed goal.  He was playing the point.
• AHL goalie, Braden Holtby, got pulled after letting in three goals.
• The Caps collectively took too many low percentage scoring shots that were never going to get past Ryan Miller.  Once again, they refuse to get dirty and go to the net.  How many times have I heard that and how many times have the Caps actually done it?  Too much talk, as usual.  How about a little more do and a little less talk, Caps.
• They racked up 14 giveaways as of the end of the 2nd period and 17 for the game.
• The once loud and proud phone booth had a lot Buffalo fans cheering for the opposing team tonight.  I remember those days pre-lockout.  Not fun.

Need I go on...

I've been watching this shit since 1974 and nothing ever changes.

At least, I got to watch the Minnesota Wild game live on Sunday.  I enjoyed that Caps game, which has been an all too rare occurrence.  

Let's go Caps!

Schultz has a 3 point night, seriously?

You know it's a weird night in Caps land when your scorers are not named Alex, but instead are named Jeff Schultz, Chris Clark, Eric Fehr, Alexandre Giroux (okay, one Alex) and Matt Bradley.   The Caps also got lucky which is in itself weird.  Luck usually runs against them, not for them, but when Jeff Schultz's 150 foot shot took a weird bounce on the soft ice and popped over the netminder's shoulder for a goal, that was lucky.

On the down side, they were lucky to win the game, at all.  Up 5-2 in the third period, the Caps let Atlanta get back into the game with goals from Maxim Afinogenov and Ilya Kovalchuk.  The Caps also went 0-7 on the power play which is just horrendous.  Contending teams don't play that sloppily and the Caps need to step it up.  Some will say it's only October, but I don't want to hear excuses, period.  

Other observations:

• I love Mike Knuble.  I can't believe he used to be a Flyer, but I love him anyway.  It's fun to watch him muck it up in front of the net and try to shove pucks through the goaltender multiple times.  Too bad he ended up kicking in that one puck.
• Eric Fehr's goal came on a beautiful outlet pass by Jeff Schultz (yes, I said Jeff Schultz and he played a great game last night and not just because of his scoring).  Fehr's goal was a beauty, streaking down the ice and shooting it over the left shoulder of the goaltender. I'm glad to see Fehr score.
• Alex Ovechkin spent his night tied up by Pavel Kubina.  He is human and there are some players who play him really well.   He did not have a great night and he also got fined for slew footing.  I just hope that doesn't add fuel to the fire that he's a dirty player because it didn't appear as if there were any intent to injure on that play. 

Caps visit the New York Islanders tonight.

Let's go Caps!