GAME DAY: Washington Capitals @ Ottawa Senators - 7:30pm EST - Mon. Nov. 23rd, 2009 PLUS post game thoughts

Leclaire may now have a broken jaw????

N4L wrote:

Flo The Action wrote:hole mole!

mike fisher is earning his millions this year! this is one of the best wins for me this year. coming back from a 2 goal deficite to win the game against the best team in the east is got to be a huge confidence boost for this team!
hell yeah!!!!!!!!!

Huge win.

Some of the unnoitced but important things.
Picard and Carkner, really good tonight!
Elliott, very, very solid. (as if he's the backup here).
Shannon played his best game of the year by a mile.
Phillips making a HUGE play taking AO off the puck in the OT.
Kuba only has 7 points in his last 2.
Michalek got in a lot of dirty area's and really was the reason they tied it up IMO.

We'll leave the negative alone but there is one guy really note worthy who is not carrying his weight at all. 2 points in his last 8... unacceptable.

two more positives:
Chris Neil's play, all night, culminating in the goal that would get us rolling.
CC doing whats right and keeping Cheechoo off the ice for the final 8 minutes.

Cheechoo is not having an easy time right now. CC has to do what he has to do. I love his effort and heart, but he just cant do it anymore.

Shannon always seems to play great with Fisher. That Foligno kid seems to as well. Have we ever tried putting them together on a line?

Is Leclaire really seriously injured?

Only player in The NHL who can get hurt on the bench. WTF is with that guys luck!?

Sens19 wrote:Is Leclaire really seriously injured?

Sportsnet said during the highlights that he may have broke his jaw when he got hit with the puck in the 2nd period. Hopefully thats not the case.

I can't tell whether to send condolences or crack jokes about his face.

I won't lie, I was leaning towards the latter. But if he broke his jaw, I'd feel guilty.

asq2 wrote:Shannon always seems to play great with Fisher. That Foligno kid seems to as well. Have we ever tried putting them together on a line?

But then what would we do with the Russian?

I wouldn't put any stock in what Sportsnet said. They said in their highlight package that it was a rumour. Great journalism there.

Great comeback/horrible meltdown by the Caps.

If Leclaire is hurt, Eklund will go bat-s#$% with Biron to the Sens (E4). Meanwhile, our sensible local reporters will say Malkin to the Kings.

Gohan wrote:

asq2 wrote:Shannon always seems to play great with Fisher. That Foligno kid seems to as well. Have we ever tried putting them together on a line?

But then what would we do with the Russian?

I think most of us thought the exact same thing - especially in the third period (that's the only period I actually saw). [i]

Hmmm...this Fisher - Shannon - Regin/Foligno line is killer, but...what do we do with Kovalev.

Gohan wrote:

asq2 wrote:Shannon always seems to play great with Fisher. That Foligno kid seems to as well. Have we ever tried putting them together on a line?

But then what would we do with the Russian?

Convert him to defence.

Yeah, the problem with putting the FFS line together was that my plan hinged on Cheechoo being an NHL top-6 calibre forward and Kovalev showing up for more than 20% of the games.

Otherwise, we could have gone:

Michalek - Spezza - Cheechoo
Kovalev - Regin - Alfredsson
Foligno - Fisher - Shannon

It'd be nice to get Foligno going, though. He was supposed to be a guy who was going to pot 25+ this season, but he's only on pace for 16.

I'm still in quasi-shock. I get home from work right in time for the 3rd, they play lights out from the drop of the puck, we cap it off with an OT winner by Fisher - unreal.

I got the feed working for a bit of the 2nd at work, then saw the third. There's a specific shift by Campoli and Lee that sums up what can go wrong with a defensive pairing. The shift where they had 3 seperate opportunities to clear the puck, didn't all 3 times, gave it right back to the caps. Finally, Fisher comes in, take the puck behind the net and draws a (lucky) penalty. Otherwise, that puck is in the back of the net and it's 4-3 Caps with 8 minutes to go or whatever it was.

I'm starting to think that the sooner we get Campoli out, the better - and I was a fan of his when we got him. We need to clear the roster spot for Volchenkov, we need to clear our system of him because it's clearly not working. Lee's no shining star, but I thought he's been playing really well for a while, but tonight he looked horrible and I think a fair bit of that falls on Campoli.

At any rate, split them up - please.

Great positives from this game as well. Great battle to get back into that game. 15 shots going into the third and I think we took 18 in the 3rd alone. That's way more like it. Why that didn't happen earlier, I'm not sure.

Carkner was really calm. Picard was great, I'm feeling that he's cutting down on his crappy games and his good games are worth it. I hope he's learning consistency, because when he plays like this, he's great.

Kuba's a rock star. What does he have, 10 points in 3 games? It's something like that. See what happens when you put the puck in the net?

Shannon, Regin and Fisher together was fun, Neil was fun, Ruutu was GREAT, Kelly was good.

Alfie and Spezza weren't their typical selves, they need to bounce back, but if you can turn the tables and come back on the Caps - who are missing Semin, but we're missing A-Train - you have some positives to take out for sure.

No Semin, Knuble and Poti (amongst others, but those are the important ones) for the Caps, no Volchenkov or Leclaire for Ottawa.

I'd call it about even. And that means it may be the first "top" team we've beaten while on an even keel injuries-wise (I don't think the win over Pittsburgh counts).

Fisher in OT again. He's clutch.

I know people will say that he's playing well defensively, but for $7 million, I need to see Spezza's name on the score sheet. Another game in the books and he hasn't gotten a point. This is starting to become a concern. Sure he may have become more defensively responsible to perhaps make the Olympic team, but he won't be there with no offensive output.

SpezDispenser wrote:Great positives from this game as well. Great battle to get back into that game. 15 shots going into the third and I think we took 18 in the 3rd alone. That's way more like it. Why that didn't happen earlier, I'm not sure.

Carkner was really calm. Picard was great, I'm feeling that he's cutting down on his crappy games and his good games are worth it. I hope he's learning consistency, because when he plays like this, he's great.

Kuba's a rock star. What does he have, 10 points in 3 games? It's something like that. See what happens when you put the puck in the net?

Shannon, Regin and Fisher together was fun, Neil was fun, Ruutu was GREAT, Kelly was good.

Alfie and Spezza weren't their typical selves, they need to bounce back, but if you can turn the tables and come back on the Caps - who are missing Semin, but we're missing A-Train - you have some positives to take out for sure.

Dont know about that... everything is becoming very typical for him. Really think we might see the end of Spezza if he doesnt pick things up.

N4L wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:Great positives from this game as well. Great battle to get back into that game. 15 shots going into the third and I think we took 18 in the 3rd alone. That's way more like it. Why that didn't happen earlier, I'm not sure.

Carkner was really calm. Picard was great, I'm feeling that he's cutting down on his crappy games and his good games are worth it. I hope he's learning consistency, because when he plays like this, he's great.

Kuba's a rock star. What does he have, 10 points in 3 games? It's something like that. See what happens when you put the puck in the net?

Shannon, Regin and Fisher together was fun, Neil was fun, Ruutu was GREAT, Kelly was good.

Alfie and Spezza weren't their typical selves, they need to bounce back, but if you can turn the tables and come back on the Caps - who are missing Semin, but we're missing A-Train - you have some positives to take out for sure.

Dont know about that... everything is becoming very typical for him. Really think we might see the end of Spezza if he doesnt pick things up.

Somehow I don't see Murray rushing to try and move a big ticket player with issues and a NTC. I don't see how he gets moved, or to whom, if he's got any say (which he most certainly does).