Maybe I shouldn't have asked

I missed last night's game, so I asked the Deuce for his thoughts.

"What is there to say? They had ONE shot on goal in the first period (a goal by the Russian Machine, off of a sweet move and slick pass by One Shot, One Kill Semin). Other than that, they were pretty thoroughly outplayed. Once again, Semin and Ovechkin seemed to be the only players who could keep up with the pace.

Here's a perfect example of what's wrong with this team:
Brooks Frikkin' Laich (who I like, and is a hard worker, etc. etc.), steals the puck at center ice. He turns around and starts pumping his legs but going nowhere. In the top corner of the screen, I see Chris Clark blazing (okay, maybe blazing is an exaggeration, but anyway..) down the right wing. He's already past both Carolina D, who were caught in transition. Brooks himself even had a step on one of them. So what does Brooks do? Does he hit Clark with a pass my 16 month old could have made easily? No. Does he even SEE Clark on the wing? No. He DUMPS THE PUCK into the corner and goes off for a line change. And that, my friends, is the problem. Nice guy. Great team player. Okay skill. No vision. No anticipation. No "hockey sense." And he's our second line center right now (either him or Kris Beech, who has no speed, no skating ability, no anticipation, no desire to play physical hockey, and decent vision).

SO our wingers are forced to create their own opportunities, i.e., Semin to Ovechkin, or, in the second period, Giroux to Ovechkin with a sweet behind the net backhand pass which OV prompty deposits under the water bottle from about a foot away from the goalie.

And then of course there's Semin blasting a shot off a stick on the ice and in that Clark somehow gets credit for. And THAT'S it, ladies and gentlemen. That is the sum of the Caps' offense for the game. Here is a list of players who added absolutely nothing to the offense yesterday:
Beech, Laich, Gordon, Brashear, Fleischman, Novotny, anybody playing D. In fact, I started not only fast forwarding through our power plays, I fast forwarded through any shift where Semin or Ovechkin wasn't on the ice. And you know what? I didn't miss A THING. And that's all I have to say about that."

Well then... there it is.