Post-Game: Capitals vs Senators

Injuries? What injuries? Brent Johnson was fine. Alex Semin was fine. Mike Green? He looked okay... Sergei Fedorov? Looked like Sergei Fedorov.

Of course these are all small understatements. Johnny made 32 saves and was less than three minutes away from his first shutout of the season. Of course I was praying to see Stretch enter the game, but it just wasn't meant to be.

Good things happen when Semin, Alex Ovechkin, and Nicklas Backstrom are on the ice at the same time. They connected for one heck of a goal early in the first. It was Semin's first marker since November 12th. The Caps never looked back from there, and contiuned their dominance over the other nation's capital, 5-1.

• Brett Leonhardt stayed on the bench until about the 7:40 mark, when Simeon Varlamov emerged from the locker room. Varlamov will make his first start of his career tonight against the Habs, brodcasted on Hockey Night in Canada.
  
• Brooks Laich must have heard all this talk about him not producing as much as last year...Laich tallied his sixth goal of the year (reached six goals on December 14th last year, in the Capitals 32nd game), and is now on track for 16 goals this season. Matt Bradley recorded his 100th career point on his assist to Laich's goal.
  
• Both Laich's and Ovechkin's 2nd period goals were scored from long range with little traffic in front... I had to double check that Martin Gerber wasn't in net.
• Washington had the 3-0 lead going into the third, and are now 12-1-1 when leading after the 2nd period.
• The "Green Machine" (Steve Kolbe) had three points on the night, and a third period power play goal. Seven of Green's eight goals have been scored with the extra man, and he has four goals in his last six games...Green has 10 points in that stretch, and the Capitals are 9-1-2 in the last 12 games that Greener has played in.
• Fedorov picked up three assists in his first game back from injury. Feds hasn't had a three point game since playing for Columbus against the Red Wings in 2006.
  
• This is the seventh time this year Washington has scored five plus goals.
• Last year the Capitals averaged 5.5 goals-per-game against Ottawa, winning all four meetings.
• Gerber + Vermette + Phillips + mustache = stupid.

There's going to be no Pre-Game today for the Montreal game... Econ, Calc, and three other exams are just around the corner...But there will be Post-Game for the Habs game on Sunday morning, and of course the NHL Image of the Night every night.