Caps Downed by Canucks; Refs

Canucks 3, Capitals 2

The Caps slipped below .500 last night with their 3-2 loss to Vancouver, getting goals from Nylander and Ovechkin. The Caps lost Chris Clark to a head injury late in the third after being struck by an Ovechkin slapshot up high.

I've got a busy weekend so I just have a few notes on the game:

• The refereeing was terrible. The first 4-on-4 in the second shouldn't have happened; Semin's penalty wasn't even visible on the replay; they called Brash for a ticky-tack hook and they blew a call where Semin was interfered with several times while trying to play a loose puck. The worst part was Clark's injury - it shouldn't have happened because the refs should have seen the blatant high stick Clark took behind the Vancouver net seconds before and called it. If the refs catch that play stops and Clark doesn't take the shot off the head.
• The penalty Clark took to open the game, which lead to Vancouver's first goal on the PP, was bad. There's no way refs aren't going to catch a moving pick in the NHL these days. Clark needs to be smarter than that.
  
• The first two goals the Capitals allowed were on bad plays where they couldn't get the puck out of their zone. Kolzig isn't what he was in his heyday, but he's still pretty good and there's not much he can do when his defense hangs him out to dry.
• The Capitals first goal was a thing of beauty - getting the shot to the front, getting traffic and burying the chance when it came on the player's (Nylander) stick.
• It was nice to see Mike Green step up to Matt Cooke when Cooke crashed the net a little too hard.
• Ovechkin had several great hits.
• The Caps were dominant in the faceoff circle, winning 65% of the draws, including 71% taken by Dave Steckel and 72% from Boyd Gordon. No wonder Hanlon's been putting them out at times in order to just take the draw and get off.
  

-DMG