Flyers vs Capitals Recap

First thing I want to say...Stupid, stupid new digital cable box thing. The old TV was just fine, but the new digital boxes they made everyone get are so confusing. I couldn't watch the game tonight so I had to record it and was going to watch it when I got home. The thing is, when you record something, you always have to have the cable box set to the channel you want recorded, but the TV is set to either 2 or 4. I'm not sure what the difference between 2 and 4 is, but it was on 2 when I was scheduling the recording. I've recorded previously on 4 with no problems, but when I hit play on the DVD, all I got was static. So I couldn't watch the game. Stupid cable box.

I've watched the highlights and listened to what some people had to say about the game, so that's what I'm going to go by for tonight.

It seemed like it was hard fought battle between two very good teams. The Flyers fired 36 shots on Theodore, but he stood up to all but one, which was a fantastic play by Mike Richards. The Washington defense let Knuble sneak behind them and Richards found him on a fake slapshot pass for which Theodore could do nothing but kind of sprawl at. But unfortunately, that was the only goal the Flyers could muster.

The Caps started the scoring on the power play on a deflection goal by Brooks Laich. Nothing Biron could do about that, it was just a great play by the Capitals and an even better finish by Laich. He's an underrated player, in my opinion. On the gamewinning goal, Darroll Powe got caught behind the net with the puck when getting pressured by Ovechkin and he ended up rushing the play and slid the puck right onto the stick of Alexander Semin who was swooping behind the net and immediately fed it to Ovechkin who was camped out in front of the net and he put it over Biron's shoulder.

The Flyers and Capitals each had a goal disallowed, but since I didn't see either of them, I can't really comment on them.

Here are some important stats from the game:

The Flyers had 36 shots on net and "held" the Capitals to 30. Ovechkin had 8 of those shots, which seems to be about his average when he's playing the Flyers. So good job by the Flyers to get an above average amount of shots on goal for them in the game.

This stat surprised me the most: the Flyers won 32 faceoffs to the Capitals 16. That's as dominating as you'll find. Unfortunately, that did not translate into more scoring.

The Flyers gave the Capitals only 2 power plays in the game. For a team that struggles to stay out of the box at time, that's hugely important, especially against a team like Washington. Unfortunately, the Flyers did give up a power play goal. When you only give the other team two power play opportunities in a game, you want to kill both of them off.

From what I saw and heard, it looked like Marty Biron played a solid game. If your goalie only gives up two goals against a team like the Caps, I think you've typically got to be satisfied. And neither goal was his fault. He bailed out his team too. Claude Giroux's got really great talent, but he's got to learn very quickly that you can't try to stickhandle in front of your own net the way he did when he turned the puck over. So good job by Marty...he's still got the starting job in my book.

One play that really sticks out in my mind is the short handed breakaway opportunity for Simon Gagne in the third period. He looked like he was home free at the Capitals blue line, but Alexander Ovechkin did a tremendous job of backchecking on the play and caught up to Gagne and broke it up. I thought it was a little bit debatable on whether he did it legally or not, but both referees saw it to be clean, so that's what you've got to go with.

Although tonight was disappointing, you have to realize that the Capitals are a good team and they're always very ready and eager to play the Flyers. For as dominating as the Capitals have been this year against everyone in the league, you've got to be satisfied to take the season series 2-1-1. And sometimes you're going to lose games like the one tonight against good teams like the Caps. It seems as if the game could have gone either way, so as long as the Flyers give solid performances night in and night out, they'll be fine. Maybe they would have beat a lesser team tonight the way they played, but they've just got to do a little bit tweaking, and they should be fine for the stretch run.

On a side note, Danny Briere was able to play the full game, getting 12:20 of ice time. I'm sure that number will go up as he gets his legs back. And as his minutes go up, hopefully his effectiveness will follow. I'm not really concerned about him, though, he should be fine.

Now its time for look to Saturday for the Rangers. The Rangers have been struggling, but its a divisional game, and no matter what the records are, anything can happen. Hopefully the Flyers come out hard and play a full 60 minutes of good, solid hockey.