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I missed the Buffalo game because I was out for the holidays, so we'll skip over what was an excellent two points for Washington and move on to last night's 7-4 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Verizon Center.

Brent Johnson got the start in goal and I thought he was somewhat shaky, the defense more so. I hope we aren't going to get into a situation where the more of the "starting" defenders get healthy, the worse the defense gets. The possible return of John Erskine scares me to death, to be honest. If Green, Poti, Morrisonn, Schultz, and Jurcina are solid in the back six, do you really bring back Erskine into the starting six at the expense of Alzner?

The Caps have found a good pairing with Jurcina playing with Alzner. They support each other well and it seems Jurcina is the perfect style player to work with Alzner. We've seen Jurcina even become more aggressive offensively, looking for his shot more often. The fact of the matter is that Erskine is a stupid penalty waiting to happen, at least once a game. Usually because someone beats him with speed and he holds, hooks, grabs, trips, you name it to try and make up for being in bad position. With a penalty kill that has been looking up at the 80% barrier all season long, the Caps cannot afford to have this kind of player in the lineup.

It's nothing personal against Erskine, I'm sure he's a good fellow. But he's the 7th-best defender on the team right now and I hope that he isn't simply given a starting spot back simply because of contract or salary cap matters. 

An encouraging sign from the game was that the Capitals got 7 goals from 7 different players, with Chris Clark netting his first of the season, and Matt Bradley and Boyd Gordon taking advantage of absolute mental lapses by Tampa Bay goalie Mike Smith when he tried to play the puck. Martin Brodeur, he ain't. 

Ovechkin netted a goal and two assists, scoring on his trademark shot from the left wing where he cuts in on the defender and fires a rocket against a hapless goalie - and Smith played the role of hapless goalie quite well last night. 

Ovechkin was also involved in the hit that knocked out Tampa defender Jamie Heward (former Cap). From the times I've seen the hit (I didn't see it live - I wasn't at the game), I'm not sure if Ovie should be expected a late Christmas gift from Colin Campbell in the league office. Given what we have seen with officiating this year involving the Capitals, and how players have been allowed to run Ovechkin/Semin/goalies at will without penalty, I hope not. 

Double that with the league's "shut your **** about our star" conspiracy on the Crosby nut-punch a couple weeks back, and it will be interesting to see how the league handles this. No penalty was called on the play, but we've seen recently, especially in the NFL, that it doesn't really matter if a penalty was called on a particular play, the league will go ahead and assess fines and suspensions wherever they feel necessary, which I'm sure the officials on the field must just love. 

I don't think Ovie made a dirty hit there. Once Heward had his head down (and you never put your head down in that fashion along the boards), I don't know that Ovie could have stopped. I'm curious how the league will view it. Heward has a concussion but supposedly no other injuries. Which isn't to make light of a concussion, because we've seen what one can do in the case of Caps defenseman Brian Pothier. 

But based on past history, my guess is the NHL might not be done with their Christmas "giving."