Tonight's Lineup: Rangers at Caps (Updated)

I bet Brashear gets a good ovation.

Wait, I thought Erskine & Poti struggled and were not going to be played tonight. I am kind of glad Juice is not playing. He gets way too many penalties. I bet we win tonight. Usually a good thrashing wakes us up.

"Scratch: Nylander"

Surprise, surprise...

I think the idea is that Erskine and Poti, unlike peanut butter and chocolate, aren't two great tastes that go together. As a defensive duo, I mean. :)

Watched Brash the other night. Looked fairly good, really. Almost tripped over his own skates at one point, but still was effective in pressing the other team.

blackjack65: Thanks. This makes better sense. How funny. Like children that the parent separates because they are fighting or are a bad influence on each other.

Poti is not going to be scratched for having a bad game. He's been one of our most solid dmen for the last few years which isn't saying much but true.

Erskine in over Jurcina is a travesty!

Rangers get a full 30min pregame show, featuring an Ovie interview I might add.

Caps get a maximum of 10min on sportsnite...BUT AT LEAST TARIK WAS INTERVIEWED!!!

GOOD 2 SEE T.E.B!!!

WAKE UP COMCAST, THIS TEAM SHOULD HAVE A FULL PREGAME SHOW NOW!!!

GO CAPS!!!!!!!!!!

I won't be able to watch the game live tonight--just recorded. Before I leave the house for a meeting, I'd like someone to tell me which team will win tonight; how Theo will play; how many penalties we will get; who will score first and what the final score will be. I am sure someone out there knows the answers. Thanks in advance.

brash and his 4th line actually played a very solid game v Jersey. Pretty surprising but he skated well and was in someone's face on the forecheck on every shift. I hope he introduces Schultzie into the boards early, you know just to rattle him up a bit :)

I won't be able to watch the game live tonight--just recorded. Before I leave the house for a meeting, I'd like someone to tell me which team will win tonight; how Theo will play; how many penalties we will get; who will score first and what the final score will be. I am sure someone out there knows the answers. Thanks in advance.

Posted by: caraveli | October 8, 2009 6:49 PM

"I'm your Huckleberry"
1. C'mon C A P S CAPS CAPS CAPS!!!!!!!!
2. Theo will be decent, maybe let in 2, and thats all we will need.
3. 5 penalties
4. Knuble (or Lambo, he wants to join the party), but it will be a Cap
5. 4-2 CAPS!!!

Wow, I've never done that b4, this should be interesting.

im real glad we got rid of c. bourque to throw sloan out there,even though i like sloan but still...id rather have him on defense and its nice to have nylander to be a healthy scratch for every game this season also what is he like our 5 million dollar man who doesnt get on the ice, our 5 mil. cheerleader

WAKE UP COMCAST, THIS TEAM SHOULD HAVE A FULL PREGAME SHOW NOW!!!

Posted by: wtf_e_fehr | October 8, 2009 6:45 PM |

@wtf_e_fehr:

Well said, amigo! In fact, CSN needs to come clean about being the All-Redskins-All-The-Time Channel that they are all throughout the year, and establish a SEPARATE CAPS-CENTRIC CHANNEL!

Whats that game that they play at fairs/fundraisers/carnivals. Where the person you dont like sits above water, heckles you, while you try and hit a target to dump him in the water?

Can't we get Nyls to do that for home games? I mean should the team get something for its 5 mil?

I actually like Nyls, but his presense is hurting my team and I wish he would catch the next thing smokin' to the KHL or wherever to free up that CAP space.

wtf_e_fehr & Rhino40:
i believe the 'danny' is paying (much like infomercials do) for air time. i don't think ted wants to produce and pay to have caps shows aired

HOLY THEO IN THE EARLY GOIN!!

perhaps the first time I have ever wished Ovie would shoot and not pass...

Ok, so i was wrong...go caps!

That pass by Pothier was very Backstromesk!

HELLO SHULTZ GIVES THEM A SILLY PP!!!!!

why is their pk invincible all of a sudden...FRUSTRATING!!!

ITS LIKE THEY ARE MOCKING OUR PP...DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!

GLOVE SAVE THEO!!!!!

Two seconds more and Ovie score!

Green is such a lazy player.

Bad defense!

it seems to me like OV is having a bad period.

Holy Moly what a Goalie!

Kind of sloppy again tonight. Not much energy on the power play, either.

Could someone please wake the Caps up and tell them they have a 3rd period to play? Thanks.

I really don't think Pothier should be a healthy scratch again. He's very solid positionally and that pass to Semin was sick. He is a puck moving Dman and he is by far not one of the worst 2 Dmen on the team.

The Rangers 2nd goal was due to ShMo being out of position so you can't blame it on Green. Green had his guy along the boards.

Guarantee you BB is gonna say he split the PP unit up because they were being too cute again. Semin's pass way behind Ov that lead to the Rags 1st goal did not sit well with him.

BACKIE WITH THE FLUKE!!!!!

How did Lundquvist miss that one! Go Caps!

good puck possession by the 2nd line!

Ok, can we get ONE pp goal?

Ok, can we get ONE pp goal?

Posted by: wtf_e_fehr | October 8, 2009 9:08 PM | Report abuse

DONE :)

BACKS!!!!!!!!!!

ARE YOU EFFIN KIDDING ME???

Unreal! There's Theo putting the Rags back in the game. In Locker's words "There's one Theo would like to have back"! Nice.

im gonna be sick

The last thing we need right now is for Theo to turn back into his old self.

Do you mean his old Vezina trophy winning self?

bad bounce off the ref led to that 3rd goal for the Rags. ARGH!

gack!

We officially have a goaltending issue. Unreal.

looks like it's Threeormore again... :-/

Someone's been studying OVs moves...

I think most of us thought if Theo blew up then we have Varly and we'd be ok. Well that hasn't exactly worked out so well 4 games into the season. We're not gonna score 5 goals every night especially in the playoffs. That last goal was not a D problem, Poti was fine (maybe shouldn't have given so much room) but your goalie has to make a save every once in a while isn't he?

Maybe BB will stop this rotating 8 D nonsense now. Start the line up that wins, not the guys who need ice time.

tks for the brain cramp brash...now lets score

Maybe BB will stop this rotating 8 D nonsense now. Start the line up that wins, not the guys who need ice time.

Posted by: rovingbandit | October 8, 2009 9:20 PM | Report abuse

I think what he's basically doing right now is having try outs... i wouldnt be surprised if the line up becomes more consistent soon, or at least as consistent as BB usually is :)

Goalie situation still murky after this one, I guess. Also frustrating to see the carelessness in the defensive zone. Not sure why the Caps are so effectively forechecked night in and night out.

1-for-9 on the PP is pretty weak. Lots of misplayed pucks. And someone call me when Mike Green takes a shot and actually puts it on net.

Agreed, rovingbandit. Time to the play the best guys. No more rotation. Sit Schultz and maybe Sloan and roll with the other six guys.

Energy didn't seem great tonight, particularly on the PP. Gotta concentrate better.

It would be nice if we could find a goalie that can give up less than 3 goals a game.

3 of those goals went right through Theodore.

wow caps nice,... win??? everyone looked lazy

Gordon's had some incredibly untimely penalties two games in a row.

Can someone please tell this team that getting a one goal lead does not mean you have won the game. The past two games we have taken the lead and then given it right back in no time.

A big stinker..

This was on Jose. As long as he's the goalie we'll never win anything. We had the 3-2 lead and he gave up two of the softest goals ever. He's not very good and he's going to be very inconsistent this year. If we're elite we should not be losing to the low scoring rangers and giving up 4 or 6 goals every game. the goalie situation is a huge problem. Varly is not ready and Jose is just not very good anymore.

Laziness is right, wowkanut. This loss frustrates more than the Philly L.

I know it's still early in the season but I have seen absolutely NO IMPROVEMENT on defense. They have so shot of winning anything in the playoffs with this group of D-men. They have at best 4 reliable D-men and that's not enough. They certainly DO NOT have 8 good D-men, that's a JOKE.

Doesn't get any easier...They better wake up before Saturday!

Nicklas Backstrom is the best overall player on this team. He plays both ends of the ice and makes good decisions on a consistent basis.

gaborik seems to have our number

Ovie seemed off tonight as well...

theo has NO excuse for those two last goals by gaborik, they trickled through him. i'm not confident with either goalie. and Schultz belongs in the AHL.

Gordon's had some incredibly untimely penalties two games in a row.

Posted by: tmac2yao | October 8, 2009 9:33 PM | Report abuse

this is most likely his last season with the Caps anyway. So suffer thru the rest of the year watching him play and then he'll get replaced next season by someone like Beagle or Bruess. BG has outlived his usefulness as far as I'm concerned. I don't notice any dropoff in play when he's not in the lineup. Now that Steckel is firmly our 3rd line center, the only place for any of the Hershey kids to really crack our lineup is in the bottom 2 lines and there's not much room there.

hard not to blame this loss on theo...really hard

wow caps nice,... win??? everyone looked lazy

Posted by: wowkanut | October 8, 2009 9:32 PM | Report abuse

yeah it took em a whole 4 games this season to start looking lazy. Pretty pathetic. If you can't get psyched up to play hockey against a playoff contender in the 4th game of the season AT HOME, something's not right

Where the heck did Alan May come from?

Theo or Varly in goal on Saturday???

..man two 5on3's blown, with this offence...Knuble says "we kinda flaked out a little bit"...gotta agree

the defense is as bad as it was last year.

BB IS PISSED!!!!!!!

GOT GOALIE????

JCB9- doesn't matter, detriot will probably score 5 if we keep playing defense like this, and if our two goalies keep playing the way they are playing.

POST GAME THOUGHTS:
An awful loss - just awful. You get started well and then you go to sleep and get outhustled. There was no fight or intensity for a long time. They get up 3-2 and find a way to blow it.

Mike Green was just awful. He needs to get it together. No excuse for shot after shot hitting off the glass rather than being on net.

Theodore was solid for 40 minutes then those two are on him in the third. Albeit they came from a pure shooter in Gaborik but he shouldn't have that kind of skating room coming into the zone even on a PP. No excuse. NONE.

Hate to say it but still the same deficiencies somewhat on defense and in goal. I still think Theo is the go to guy as of right now. I still ride with those two for another couple of weeks but if they still continue to look shakey at times then it's time to bring up Neuvirth - after he heals up.

Ovie - shoot the damn puck on that pass in the 1st period. Stop trying to be the cutesy fake everybody with a pass. Not the time or place right now. You have to bury that especially with how hot he's been. AHHHHHH. I want to crap this game out of the system and get on with Detroit already.

Off to the Motor City....let's hope for a good one.

Ice Breakers Goal Shakers

CAPS GRADES GAME #4 HOME VS NY

OFFENSE - C minus. No, D plus. No sustained offensive effort. A few goals from individual effort.

DEFENSE - C. The D played well enough to win.

PK - B minus. See above.

PP - Grade = incomplete. Pathetic.

Goaltending - C minus. A few nice saves but two goals by Gaborik that were too easy.

Coaching. OK, criticize me, but the grade here is D. Sloan and BMo played well and got quality minutes, but the team failed to perform without Knuble on the ice, yet he wasn't given a chance to play and rectify that.

Where was Knuble?

BTW, Boyd Gordon is quickly playing himself off this team.

Brian Pothier is playing some good hockey and I'm not just saying that because of the great pass on Semin's goal. He's making good, quick decisions at both ends of the ice.

wouldn't matter if they had Jacques Plante in goal for them, he wouldn't be able to do much with this group...

Does anyone think Mike Green just ain't what everyone thought he was?

Lackadaisical almost all the time - gave away at least two passes in our own end, and isn't scoring or assisting.

And, f--k! Josey let in two soft ass goals, but stopped a ton of breakaways - like the general consensus. This defense is NOT better.

and one more thing: Didn't we get that stupid ex-flyer to bump and grind on the PP, and he's not even out there during the most of them???

WOW...The Attention Deficit Syndrome strikes again. Smitty better make sure these guys are taking their meds. They looked consistently, uniformly...awful tonight.

Let's not panic just yet. It is a long season and the team can't win them all. Even still, why does this team consistently slack off for a period each game and have so many defensive breakdowns? These are problems the coaching staff has acknowledged over the last year, yet there hasn't been any improvement.

Tom Poti with second awful game this season - GET HIM AND SHULTZ OUT OF THE TEAM!!!!

Just a quick questioned for our esteemed goalie "experts" panel who trashed Varlamov after his last two games. What is the book on Theodore? Shoot straight at him?

A couple more. That book on Varly of making him go laterally and shooting high seemed to work very well on Lundquist too (Semin's goal). Lastly, should Lundqvist be sent down to the AHL to work on fielding dump ins from center ice?

Can't wait for some answers.

the only problem I have with Green is his wild slapshots from the point... he should learn to keep those shots low and deflectable. he should watch the tapes of Larry Murphy who always kept those shots low and learn from the hall of famer.

OK, I'm outta here, vacation day tomorrow, off to the beach, biggest question:

WHERE WAS KNUBLE???????????????????

BB: Are you going to play him or does GMGM need to order you to get him on the ice?

Chris Clark: Both Ovie and Sloan gave you perfect set-ups...are you watching?

It's too early to get negative...except that in Montreal they act this way after the first practice.

Caps: Get it together or get killed in the Motor City.

Green. I'm really starting to think that he's indeed having issues with the sticks. One thing that was unbelievable about him last year and why he scored so much was his accuracy. He was consistently hitting top corners. This year everything is going over the cross bar and off the glass.

Overall though he played a good game. Green bashers seem to ignore all the great plays he makes and only notice when he doesn't do something well. He stopped Gaborik one on one numerous times and often cleaned up after other players' screw ups.

Once again, the 2 goals by Gaborik that tied and won the game were not the D's fault. Completely on Theo. I will stay take Varlamov over him any day even though he did have a good game up to that point. However, none of Varlamov's goals were as bad as these 2. Varly gets blamed when he makes a split save and someone scores on a rebound. The 2 goals were pure old Swiss cheese material that we saw from Theo all of last year.

@joek443

Like I just said Green scored on those all the time last year. They weren't wild at all. They were filling the top corners. This year they're going just over so far.

people who don't understand the game always focus on the star players whenever things go bad - the defense is bad so we must blame the best D-man we have, Green. the problem with this team is the drop-off from Green and Poti to the rest of the D-men. When a player who got waved by the islanders a couple years ago is your best physical D-man, you have a MAJOR problem.

I think we are all in agreement.

Boudreau, HOPEFULLY, is as smart as we all are!