It’s true this blog is dedicated mostly issues of politics and national security. But the Washington Capitals will play a crucial game six this evening against the much-despised Philadelphia Flyers (i.e. Goldfarb’s team), and it’s just too important to let it pass without comment. The Flyers, like so many other Philly sports teams in recent years, are not very good. They nonetheless hold a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series and tonight’s game is in Philly. To make the playoffs, the Capitals reversed their early-season follies winning two of every three games since Thanksgiving and eleven of the final twelve. It was an historic run. But now they are on the verge of elimination. There is one reason: They’re not shooting the puck. In the event that Caps coach Bruce Boudreau is spending his afternoon reading TWS Blog, here’s what he should tell his team. Shoot, shoot, and shoot some more. In the Stanley Cup playoffs having more shots than your opponents almost always leads to wins — an odd bounce of the puck can be the difference between winning and losing. Take yesterday’s game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Nashville Predators. With time running down in the 2nd period and the game tied 0-0, the Predators were awarded a power play. After the puck dropped, Red Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom took the puck near his own blue line and, after pausing for a moment, threw it two-thirds of the way down the ice toward the Predators net. The puck dipped just before it reached the goal and bounced over the shoulder of the Predators goalie — giving the Red Wings the game-winning goal. The Caps should take a lesson from this. They’ve spent much of the first five games looking for the perfect pass, at times passing up wide open shots from inside the Flyers’ zone and even a few in front of the net. If they do the same tonight, they’ll lose. And that’ll be a shame. The Flyers aren’t that good.
