What, Me Worry?

Game two was tense at 4-1, but not worrisome. Its all about perspective, and if you needed to get at least four goals at that point in the game would you have picked any other team in the league other than the Caps to get it? They are still the best offense in the league, and just as a 2-0 lead should be safe for the Sabres with Ryan Miller, a 4-1 lead late in the second just isn't safe against the Caps. Unfortunately for the Sabres in their game 2, Miller did give that lead up letting in 5 in a loss. Maybe the Caps offense is a little more valuable then the best goaltender in the league, even in the playoffs. And maybe people should stop writing off the Caps as another great regular season team with a great offense that can't produce in the offseason. They came through after we spotted two goals before some people had taken their seats.

Speaking of which, someone should check and make sure Theodore doesn't have any outstanding gambling debts to any bookies that may have bet on that game. I know he took two good, hard shots, but they were open shots and in the playoffs those are the easy ones. The screened shots and the chip shots from the crease when the goalie is on his belly with 400 lbs of defenseman on top of him are the hard saves. Nonetheless I would start him in Montreal. There is no way he can possibly play worse, and Varly's 19 save performance wasn't illuminating. (Its kind of like Jeff Hostetler in Super Bowl 25. You could have had Phil Simms play instead, and it really would not have mattered with Scott Norwood on the other sideline.) I think the real goalie controversy may be Halak or Price. This is the best chance to go back to him, so give Theo another shot.

The Caps adjusted everything about their game since the first matchup. They started faking shots and making the Habs defenseman drop to defend them before passing or skating around them. They are varying dump and chase with carrying the puck across the blue line, and the rest of the series should be a poker game where the Candiens are guessing and not anticipating as they were in game 1. With the amount of talent the Caps have as shown through the number of offensive opportunities they have had compared to the Habs over the first two games, they can whittle down the Habs proverbial chip stack pretty quickly. On top of this, you could see the Habs physically wearing down over the course of the second period and on due to the Caps advantage in size and brawn. This should continue over the course of the playoffs unless we play the Devils who are our size, or the Pens, who are not allowed to be checked. The Caps will seem even faster in Game 4s compared to Game 1s.

You would think that after two consecutive overtime playoff games the Caps two biggest stars would be worn down a little, but instead of sitting comfortably on a couch while they waited for their press conferences, Backstrom and OV played basketball. Horribly. They should have been wearing Wizards uniforms. Backstrom has an excuse, but OV's mom won a gold medal in basketball. The point is if these guys still have energy after the game, especially all-around OV who had 7 hits just in the first period on his way to a goal and 3 assists, the Habs and the rest of the East should be scared. We are outhitting the Habs, but losing the war of attrition along the boards which leads to 3 goal deficits. Look for that to change as our undersized French-Canadian friends wear down and give up.

While OV adapted his game to assisting and throwing out checks at every opportunity, no one else in red really seemed to get mad and play full-throttle until the score was 4-1. While Backstrom's hat trick was great, clutch Carlson is the man, and the MVP played like one, the biggest Caps contributor on Saturday was big Tom Poti. Everything seemed uninspired until the Habs started to take cheap shots at the Great 8. Poti, who is by no means a fighter, politely asked Gomez to stop. Gomez declined, threw another cheap shot, and Poti pummeled him. Not only did he get one of the better Canadiens out of the game for five minutes, he got the sweater over the head and pounded him, igniting the fans and the Caps en route to one of the better victories in a season full of them at Verizon. Hopefully, he will start clearing the puck out of the defensive zone a little more effectively as well from now on.

(As a side note, the refs have been pretty fair across the board thus far into the playoffs. But in the Poti clip, look at the refs drag OV off the ice as if he was the child of Lucifer that the NHL PR department paints him to be. The Great 8 was the one who took the cheap-shot and is only trying to defend himself and his teammates. If the fight had turned into a brawl it would have been 5 on 4, possibly injuring a Cap for the rest of the run. This is the perfect example of the NHL front office's actions directly spilling out onto the ice.)

Its a five game series now, and the hometown heroes are still the favorites. When they get back to town Wednesday night, lets hope the magic number is down to lucky 13.