That was one of the very few highlights to take away from this one.

The Isles came off a small break off-kilter and slow-footed in the first period versus the Capitols last night. It showed as they got outshot 17 to 8, with the Caps scoring two on the powerplay taking advantage of Isles penalties. Mark Streit had the lone goal of that period for the Isles on the powerplay, making it at least a tad close at 2-1.

The 2nd period was another story, as the Isles took control, scoring the tying goal on a Sutton feed to a lone Trent Hunter who scored his 11th goal on the season.

The 3rd is where the Isles, who were well-rested, and with far less injuries to a blueline, failed to take advantage. Instead, the Caps took over, with Donald Brashear scoring his first goal of the season to break the tie. Then it was 4-2 as Washington took advantage of another powerplay. Backstrom scored an empty-netter as MacDonald was pulled.

"There's no excuse for tonight. We should play with a lot more energy. We cut too many corners. Washington came out hungry off a tough loss. We didn't compete at the same level."
- Scott Gordon



Observations:

Mark Streit, the Isles 2nd MVP, led the team with 5 shots, just over 25 minutes of icetime, and had a goal.

Doug Weight had another assist making him only 8 pts away from 1000 pts.

Mike Sillinger returned with 14:20 of playing time, 2 shots and won 11 of 19 faceoffs

Tim Jackman seemed to really take it to Ovechkin, showing that he can be more than just a sparkplug, but also agitate.

Conversely, Mitch Fritz logged a measly 1:26 and managed to also take a hooking penalty.


Martinek Out 2-4 Weeks

Really not much else to say about this. Radek for all his laurels is extremely injury-prone, having re-injured his shoulder by running into Sutton in practice.

They have the depth currently to offset this. With him and Gervais seemingly out for a stretch, the Isles can ill-afford another to go down. Due to Martinek's injury, Thomas Pock who was originally set to be sent down, remained with the team and logged just over 10 minutes last night.


Next up for the Isles, the Atlanta Thrashers on Saturday, Dec 6th.


- BD

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