RED ALERT: Caps take a breather, put losing streak in the past

Mark ButerbaughOct 19, 2009

By PennSkinsFan | October 19, 2009

The Alexander Ovechkin defeated the Nashville Predators on Saturday 23-2 in a shoot out, courtesy of 2 goals from Ovechkin and a shoot out netter from Great 8. It was young goalie Semyon Varlamov's first taste of a shootout and his first shoot out win under his belt It felt good. Varly pumped his fist int he net when he realized he stopped the Predators final shoot out shot. It also got the Capitals back on a winning streak, winners of 2 straight and improving their record to 4-2-2.

The Caps now get a nice breather, not facing off again until Thursday in Atlanta, their first Southeast division game this season.

It never gets old sitting in the Acela Club sipping a beer and looking out over the Verizon Center, awaiting face off. Saturday was no different. Verizon Center certainly wasn't full, but it also wasn't that bad either. The crowd was lively and into it. You could tell. Throwing hats on a non-hat trick shows how bad the fans wanted an Ovechkin three goal game. Ovechkin twice in the first period, but that was it offensively for the Caps. The Caps offense simply went cold. Give a little credit to Nashville goalie Dan Ellis who recovered from Ovie's first two netters to make some nice stops, especially a steal on what looked like a Matt Bradley goal in the third period.

I thought the defense was pretty weak after a strong showing against San Jose. How many breakaways did Nashville have, 4 or 5? Pretty poor defense. Varly was left on his own a few times because of bad defensive mistakes. One game after praising Jeff Schultz, I will go back to my criticism. Shultz reverted back to his soft play.

Nice to see Varlamov get the win at Verizon Center. Varly stopped 22 of 24 shots and stopped all 3 shootout attempts to keep his record perfect at 3-0. Suddenly, concerns in the net are becoming the strong point for this team with some great goal tending by Jose Theodore and Varlamov getting back to where he left off last season, after a few minor struggles this season.