Game 3 - Caps 5 Flyers 6 (OT)

Well, back to square one.

Though I guess there were a few things to be positive about, to me there was only one story and that was penalties. You just can't take a dozen minors and hope to win games against a team as good as the Flyers.

Most painful was that nearly all of the penalties were pointless. I can understand a guy taking a penalty because he has his hands full, or he's trying to defend the net, or maybe gets a little too aggressive, but tonight was an endless parade of ill-timed gaffes - I'm looking at you Green, Semin, and Steckel (in the offensive zone, with 5 minutes to go, and a one goal lead?).

I wouldn't expect this problem to get any better. BB has shown no willingness to hold players accountable for this nonsense in the past.

In other flashback to last season news, the PK pretty much sucked and there were too many defensive zone breakdowns.

On to other matters:

• The deliberate play of the first period surprised me - I was expecting something more like the Boston game in a charged-up Wachovia Cener.
• Although he scored two goals - OV generally appeared to be well blanketed - partly, no doubt, because the copious penalties kept him off the ice.
• Speaking of, Pronger definitely heard footsteps coming his way on OV's second goal and happy-handed the puck into a blue line turnover that ended up in his net in a hurry.
• Alex Semin reminded everyone that OV has only the second best pair of hands on the team when he undressed Coburn on his first goal.
• Not sure what the thinking was on pulling Varly - I didn't think he looked that bad so maybe it was to protect him as the the defense hit a rough patch. We'll see what BB has to say about it.
• Theo looked very solid in relief but I had a bad feeling about it when he couldn't find a place to unload that puck in OT - and sure enough - the winner came off the ensuing faceoff.
• I was a little surprised Matt Bradley didn't add to the penalty count - I thought he pretty much instigated his fight with Laperriere in retaliation for a clean hit on Green(?). There's supposed to be (another) crackdown on that this year.