Caps Win, But Lose

It looks like this Ovie character might be kinda good.  He hasn't gotten much press, but the Caps appear to have found themselves a real gem. 

He scored two first-period goals in yesterday's 4-3 win over the Atlanta Thrashers.  It's the sixth time this season that this budding superstar has potted two in a game.  Amazingly, the Caps have played just 12.  At this pace, he'd score a million goals or something.  Math is hard.  And if he did that, you might finally start to hear something about this quiet, reserved potential superstar.

Although the goals were nice, and the end results -- two points -- is always welcome, it's another game with mixed results overall.

For the Caps, the regular season is just a warmup -- a practice session before the real season starts.  The results aren't as important as how they get there, and by that measure, yesterday was a loss.

The Caps went up 3-0, and then napped. The Thrashers dominated the third period, firing 20 shots at Varlamov. They closed it to 3-2 before an empty-net goal iced it -- sort of. Atlanta didn't give up the attack, and ripped one last goal, making it 4-3, a tick before the horn sounded.

Bruce Boudreau wasn't happy, says the Post. The Coach ripped the results, saying, "[w]e need to be able to finish teams off when we have the chance. We need that killer instinct and we haven't had that killer instinct. We let teams right back in the game."

Despite the goals, he says it's not Varly's fault: "I wasn't happy for Varly. He plays an outstanding game and ends up with three goals on him. Nothing he could do. He kept us in the game in the third period. It's ridiculous how we just let up and let the other teams back into the game. It's very frustrating."

Can he correct the mistakes?  Good thing the Caps have about five months to find out.