Back-to-back games are never easy, even if they are meaningless. Injuries make them worse.
I warned everyone not to put Michael Grabner back in the line-up. There was no reason for it. He played at total of 4:35 before having the daylights knocked out of him again by Alex Ovechkin. He tried to stay on the bench. It seemed like he had packed both his nostrils to stop the bleeding before he left for the room.
I saw that one coming.
What I didn't see coming was Calvin deHaan being taken out by Wilson. There was no penalty on the hit, but deHaan fell awkwardly against the boards and struggled to get back in the play. He stayed on his knees waiting for a whistle, got hit with a puck and watched the Caps score into an empty net before he was able to get help off the ice.
Like I had said, Wilson took Patrick Elias out of the game the night before on a "clean" hit. He's just dangerous. But the Isles were up 3 - 1 midway through the second period and the Caps weren't playing a great game, so it looked like they could have taken two points on Fan Appreciation night.
Then the Caps realized they really needed to win the game and did so in the shoot out. I'm not sure how Frans Nielsen didn't score in the shoot-out. That just doesn't happen. But it did.
Johan Sundstrom and Scott Mayfield were recalled from Bridgeport on emergency basis. For Sundstrom, it was a quick turnaround. For Mayfield, it was his first trip to the dance.
The best anyone said about Mayfield was that he wasn't that noticable, and that was a good thing. That means no glaring errors for a kid on his first tour. He played 17:04. Probably more than Jack would have liked, but he really had no choice. Of his six D, half of them were rookies.
Columbus struck early, at 4:26 of the first. The Isles just never managed to catch up. The Cannon sounded twice in the first and twice in the second. Three of the Columbus goals were on the power play. The Isles couldn't stay out of the box and Carkner got tossed from the game. Anders Nilsson stopped 29 of 33 shots and it was just a miserable game.
John Tavares told his team they can't be fooled by the way they had been winning considering how they got there. They must have taken it to heart. It's a tough lesson to learn -- again.