[CaptainCrunch]

I liked the effort and determination last night. It was the small mental mistakes that lead to a Capitals team that can capitalize coming back.

Forgetting about a guy leaving a penalty box. bad penalties. But the good news is that those things are fixable. I would be more worried if the team came out without a lot of energy and just felt like they were the Oilers and it was ok to futz around and lose.

I really liked Monahan's game last night. It was his first NHL game, he had his dad in the audience and he played a very simple detailed game. Yeah it wasn't sexy, but he did good things. I also heard that he was shaken up which limited his ice time.

Bart I thought was good, and he had a good effort level.

Backland was a beast last night, and he's really grown his game. I think the lockout year really accelerated his confidence.

David Jones looked great and getting that first goal is going to go miles for him.

I also thought that Stajan did a decent job.

Yes our blue line looked undersized, but I think except for his bad habit of dropping his knee Russell looked pretty good and Brodie looked really good to me. But we do need a mobile axe murderer back there and O'Brien ain't it. But at this phase of the rebuild we can homegrow one or two of those instead of trading or signing one.

Ramo looked fairly sharp, there was maybe one goal that he would want back. But he needs coaching on the shootout, its not dissimilar to Kipper who took a few years to figure that out when he added the fast poke check to his inventory.


For game one of probably 246 of a three year rebuild, I was pleased with what I saw with some individuals.

Its a game that we shouldn't have lost, but these are lessons learned if they care to learn them. And at this point we're ahead of the so called awesome Oilers and the Canucks. So that's the best birthday gift for me.