Caps Drop the Season Opener – Give Up Seven in Hotlanta.

The good news from the Capitals’ season-opener and tonight is that they have more than enough offense to come back from three goals down.

The bad news is that they couldn’t do it twice.

The Capitals, playing on the team’s 34th anniversary, fell behind to the Atlanta Thrashers 3-0 and 4-1 before tying it in the second period 4-4. Then they let the game get away late in the third as Atlanta scored three more goals to beat the Caps 7-4.

So, the Caps have plenty of offense, which we knew, but the defense, which I expected to be reasonably solid, wasn’t. And Jose Theodore gave up three early, two of them on lazy rebounds, and was yanked. I don’t expect him to win the Calder Trophy this year, but three goals before the game was ten minutes old isn’t going to cut it. He’s going to need to get a glove on the rebounds in order to be effective. And he can be very effective.

The game wasn’t especially physical, except for a couple scuffles at the end of the game. that surprised me. The Capitals that were ousted rudely from the playoffs last year was a hard-hitting crew. They crashed the goal with abandon and rattled opposing players off the boards like they were cartoon characters.

Alex O didn’t score tonight, but Mike Green had two and an assist and Alexander Semin had a goal and two assists, which is a very positive sign. Alex will get his over the course of the season but it’s very nice to see guys like Green and Semin heavily involved in the offense and putting the puck on goal.

I think I’m going to enjoy this season. If nothing else, the Caps will give you an exciting 60 minutes every game.

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Category: General