Rivalry Recap

I was going to wait until tomorrow to write this because I thought I would need a little more time to cool off after that tragic loss, especially because I am one who takes his sports way too seriously, but I felt like I should get all my thoughts and opinions out there while the taste is still bad in the mouth and the ideas still fresh in the head. Since Catie just wrote a lovely post recapping the game, I'll try and just do a opinionated version of what I thought about the game. So as I step back a bit, let me just throw out some brief thoughts before I get into the analysis...

Wow. What a hockey game. I mean, easily one of the best I've seen in a while, and that's hard for a guy like me to admit when my team was on the losing end. I do not have any huge hockey fans in my family (frankly I'm the only one) but my hatred for Pittsburgh is a long, deep one, especially because my number one team is still the Baltimore Ravens (sorry Cate), who clash at least twice a year with the boys in the black and gold during the long NFL season. In my eyes, Pittsburgh is the epitome of all evil. I still cannot fathom how people actually like teams from there, so you can see that although my cell phone was not being lit up like Cate's, I still felt that awful sinking feeling after Pascal Dupuis' shot beat Neuvy to win the game for the Pens.

With that being said, here are the key points I took away from the game.

1) To put some more emphasis on it, let me just say it again. What. A. Game. The thing that I enjoyed about it most were the hard hits that the two teams constantly exchanged throughout the entire game. It all started when Ovi absolutely destroyed fellow Russian Evgeni Malkin, and it continued throughout the entire duration of the contest. All the bruisers came to play tonight, and that's something you love to see in a rivalry game such as this. Personally, I love it when the players on rival teams hate each other and will do literally anything to prevent their enemies from winning, and this game definitely had that feel. I could feel the tension and electricity through the television set. I feel that as the years pass these type of classic rivalries have sort of diminished, but you can definitely tell that these guys really do not like each other, or at the very least do not want them to succeed on the ice.

2) Goaltending. Both goalies came to play tonight. I'll start with the man in the white sweater, number 29, Marc-Andre Fleury. Much to the Caps disdain, you could tell from the very beginning of the game that he was on point. Even Craig Laughlin, in my opinion one of the biggest "homers" in the sports broadcasting industry, could not help himself from complementing the opposing netminder. Fleury's glove was working all night, which makes me wonder why the Capitals kept trying to rifle glove-side shots at him in the shootout, but that's a topic I'll cover later. Not to be outdone, Michal Neuvirth also put up a goal tending clinic for most of the night. He saved 25 of 27 (Fleury was 32 of 34) including a beautiful save on Malkin when the big center got a chance on a penalty shot. In the end, Fleury played just a little bit better.

3) Special Teams. I talked about this after the Devils game so I will be brief, but the Caps have got to figure this out. Granted, they did score on one opportunity but last year's unit would have had at least one more goal given all the chances. I am not saying I know how to fix it, but it needs fixing. I put this as special teams and not just power play because I just want to touch briefly on the third period. There must have been early Christmas presents in the penalty box, because the Caps just couldn't stay out of it. You cannot give a good team that many chances, and although it did not cost us (we actually got a shorthanded goal out of one of the penalty kills) it will cost us if we keep playing sloppy like that.

4) Mike Green. Final stat line for the best player on the ice tonight: one goal on six shots and at least seven hits and five blocked shots in 34 minutes and 3 seconds of ice time. When Poti went out after some friendly fire by his blueline mate John Erskine, Green stepped up and started doing double duty on the ice. He got his first goal since November 14th on a blast that went top-shelf, and almost ended the game with a beautiful deke and shot that probably beat Fleury, but that the refs did not see. He was consistently involved in the play both offensively and defensively, and as one of his critics, I can say that I am more trusting of 52 then I was heading into the game. He stepped up and was the dominant force that he should be every time on the ice.

5) Controversy. I just have to talk about this because I noticed Cate did in her post. She's going to kill me for saying this, but the referees were right in not giving the goal to Green after the official review. You must understand this is a big step coming from a man who usually despises the zebras and disagrees with almost EVERY controversial call that they make. Their claim was there was no indisputable evidence to overturn the call, and they were right. The key there is overturn. I believe that if the refs called it a goal originally (based on the argument that Cate presented in her post that said you could see the black cross the line under Fleury's white glove) then it would have stayed a goal. It was just a tough break for the boys in the red, white, and blue.

6) The Shootout. I just have one question. Why in the world did the Caps keep trying to shoot past Fleury's glove, which was on point the whole night, instead of dekeing him out? Ovi, who is really not that great when it comes to shootouts, had an easy backhander off on the first shot. After that, only Semin, Green and Perreault made an effort to try and fake out the netminder after Ovi's score. I don't care how good Fleury was that night, it should not have taken seven Caps shooters to try and beat him.

With all of this said, if this game was any indication of how the annual outdoor game is going to be in a few days, then it will certainly live up to the title of Winter Classic.