Canes 3, Caps 1

It's hard to blame a loss on two people, but I am prepared to do that tonight by putting a good amount of the responsibility on two guys: Michael Leighton and Sami Lepisto. Leighton was nothing short of outstanding, stopping 38 of 39 shots. He stopped Ovie on a penalty shot and absolutely robbed him (and several other Caps) numerous times. Lepisto was statistically only bad in his plus/minues at -2, but he continues to be an absolute disaster behind the Caps net, and the go-ahead goal for Carolina was scored because he lost a key battle to Eric Staal and Sergei Samsanov.

My opinion? We need Mike Green and Alexander Semin now more than ever.

Some random thoughts:

• The Caps came out and played their hearts out the whole second period and most of the third period. They had allowed no shots by the halfway mark of the third and the two goals scored on Theo in the third period were shots 2 and 3 of the third frame (though the defense left him out to dry on all three goals).
• Ovechkin's pass to Backstrom was a thing of beauty. Backstrom's one-timer was as well.
• I can't remember the last time the Caps played a team's number one goalie at the start of the season besides last night in Toronto.
  
• Alzner, despite being minus 1, played a pretty solid game and made few mistakes. The same could be said for Collins.
• Ovechkin fired 11 shots on net. That's more than Carolina had in each period.
• I despise Eric Staal more with every additional game we play against him.
  
• The refs were on our side, for once, and the Caps got away with at least two calls that could have been easy penalties (especially on the 5 on 3).
  

So the boys get a bit of a break, two days off before facing the white-hot and Eastern Conference leading Bruins on Wednesday at Verizon. Please, please tell me that we get somebody back by then.

Here We Go...

The Caps made a handful of call ups from the Hershey Bears today, and, finally, Karl Alzner gets a shot at the dance. Along with Graham Mink, Sami Lepisto, and Chris Bourque, we'll see if some fresh faces can turn this three game losing streak around tonight in the phone booth against Kovalchuk and the Thrashers.

Also, Clark and Schultz were moved to the IR, and leads one to wonder if Clark's injury truly healed from last year or if he's just nursing something new. Whatever it is, his stats this year have been horrendous.