Frustrating night

So, I wasn't able to watch much of tonight's Caps game at all. My recording didn't happen, because my DVR wasn't getting 576 (Comcast Sports Net HD) for some reason. I was able to watch part of it by turning on the SD version, but when I tried to record that for the third period, it tried to record the HD version for some reason (which it still wasn't getting. But, of course, I didn't find out that there was nothing for the second recording until after the game was over.

So, in all, I got to watch a bit less than half of the second period. How was that? Well, the power play, once again, wasn't. But they weren't getting penned in the D-zone. And they were dumping and hitting on the O-zone entry, which looked pretty good. They were totally kicking butt on face-offs (and not just victimizing Malkin, which would be expected. Crosby was destroyed on the dot. Crosby also managed to take 40% of Pittsburgh's draws, which seems like an awful lot).

But, looking at the box score, they definitely weren't shooting enough. Which likely means they weren't spending enough time in the O-zone. They also definitely had too many giveaways. And, for the second game in a row, they allowed a defenseman making his first NHL start to get a point.

So there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of positive about the game. But, given expectations for the game, only losing 2-1 isn't too bad. I hope they do better next game (in fact, I'll be very upset if they're held under 20 shots again), but I'm actually not upset about the result. And there was at least a small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

I guess we'll see a bit more against Ottawa on Saturday. If the shots go up, and the giveaways go down, we'll know we're on the right course.