The two main problems that caused the loss yesterday were the penalties and the top line. Neuvirth didn’t have a solid game, but despite that watching the game you could see the Capitals could’ve beat the Panthers if the Caps best players were actually their best players.

Heart wins hockey games, and if you look at yesterdays game and watched players like Laich, Ward, Knuble, Chimera you could see how hard they worked and how they were rewarded. And if you looked at the other end, the one player that stood out for a lack of heart and second effort was Captain Ovechkin.

I’ve never said anything negative about Ovechkin, he was one of the Russian born players to play with more heart than any other I’ve ever seen, until lately. He got stripped of the puck so many times, and then just stopped skating, it was embarrassing to watch.

Another couple things that bothered me in yesterday’s game were Alzner’s hit from behind, it was ridiculous, specially since he had a clean view of the puck, instead of trying to hit the guy, he could’ve easily taken the puck away, and Erskine, I mean it’s good to stand up for your teammate, but one the hit was clean, and two try and get the guy to fight with you instead of jumping him and taking a stupid penalty.

Anyways, despite losing, there was still a lot of positive yesterday, but unfortunately a lot of negative also. Hopefully Semin and Green will return to the line up soon, and maybe someone can find the switch to Ovie’s heart to get him going. I don’t really mind his stats going down, but his plus/minus can’t be at -2 when 3 of the oppponents 5 goals were on the PP.

Watch some of the highlights:

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Tags: Florida Panthers, Loss, Mike Green Injured, Washington Capitals