Vokoun And The Panthers Blank The Capitals 3-0

Added on Dec 10, 2010 by J Merrill in

NHL

Tomas Vokoun made 36 saves, including 18 in the first period, to give the Florida Panthers the 3-0 win over the Washington Capitals. The Panthers were able to send the Caps fans sell out crowd away disappointed, but it was the Capitals who won the last 6.

Vokoun said after the game “We got shelled a couple times from them last year so it was nice to get a win here. It is big for us. We hadn’t won three games in a row all year and we were in a hole coming back from California. We battle and now we just need to keep up the momentum.”

Washington Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau was besides himself after the game, as his entire team seems to be slumping all at one time, and the 0-8 power play performance let it show. Thats including two 5 on 3′s! The Capitals had 17 shots with at least one extra attacker, including 11 in the first period, but Vokoun was unbeatable. Boudreau said “It feels pretty bad. We had, I think, 20 minutes of power play and we didn’t play how we have to play. We played so casual, and you can see the results.”

He continued “Alex Ovechkin has two goals in 11 games, [Alexander] Semin hasn’t scored in seven or eight games. Mike Green hasn’t gotten a goal in I don’t know how many games. Same thing with Nick Backstrom; he scored in the St. Louis game which was five games ago, but that was it. You can go farther down with Brooks Laich and Mike Knuble.” Boudreau concluded “If your best players aren’t your best players, you’re not going to have success. You have to get production out of your best players, and it’s not happening for us right now. They’re not playing good enough right now to score goals.”

Boudreau said he could see the team fall to pieces, and he was surprised to see the attitude on the bench he saw. “I came in between periods, and everyone was hanging their heads,” Boudreau said. “We were down 1-0. My job at that time is to let them know that they’re good and don’t feel sorry for yourself. Once it was 2-0 you could see the shoulders sagging and everything on the bench and they didn’t believe they were going to come back.”

Caps Forward Mike Knuble agreed, he said “We’ve been doing teams a lot of favors lately, letting them pull out of slumps and letting teams feel good about themselves. It is getting, frankly, pretty tiring. We’re supposed to be a top team and we’re letting teams come in here and feel good about themselves when they leave.” Knuble also wanted to let people know they shouldn’t just put the blame on Ovechkin, he said “Nobody is more embarrassed than the players today. We’ve got some of our players that have flown under the radar with their play – myself included. I’m probably the No. 1 culprit. It’s not on Ovechkin. It’s not on Backstrom. It is not on our top guys all the time. Other guys need to help out. We’ve all got to better.”

Michael Folick, who got the scoring going for the Panthers feels they can compete with anyone, and they have now won three straight. “That means we can beat anybody in this league,” Frolik said. “I think that’s important for our confidence.”

The Florida Panthers (13-14-0, 26pts), who are now 4th in Southeast Division will face the Nashville Predators (13-8-6, 32pts) on Saturday in Nashville. The Washington Capitals (18-9-3, 39pts), who are 1st in Southeast Division, will face the Colorado Avalanche (13-10-4, 30pts.)