Your post-game analysis that barely scrapes the surface:

First of all, this was a tremendous win, setting the tone for the tough road ahead.  It was inspiring.

The power play was obviously on track last night, but it didn’t quite play out as I so incorrectly predicted, as Brooks Laich was on for only the third of the three PP goals scored (he wasn’t on unit one for the first PP, and skated an even-strength shift between power plays one and two).  Why the power play explosion, finally, after so much practice?  Per Tarik’s game file:

“It was good,” [Tomas] Fleischmann said of the power play. “We didn’t pass too much. We shot the puck. We went to the net and looked for some rebounds. It worked.”

Got it.  Said by another top-of-the-crease agitator who stepped up, and went to that net to bother Jonas Hiller:  Flash deflected in Green’s slapper for the first goal.  I think we can all safely say that Flash is having that “breakthrough” year we were all promised.  I’ve been skeptical for a long time, but I’m elated to be wrong on this one.  Seven goals in 18 games.  That’s a 32 goal a season pace.

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Christian Petersen/Getty Images

Go on and celebrate Flash, you deserve it.

Some D notes:

If you hadn’t heard on the Capitals Report yesterday, it’s official:  Tyler Sloan has now played in ten NHL games.  Which means that he now needs to clear waivers to be sent down.  Who would have thought that to be a serious concern in November?  Well, with Green and Morrisonn both out for now, and Tom Poti and John Erskine already missing games this season on the blue line, it may be.

Losing Sloan would mean losing that reliable, salary-cap friendly fill-in.  He skated TWENTY minutes last night, and finished +1.  Confident of anyone else from Hershey skating 20 minutes in a game if necessary?

His pair-mate, Poti, played almost 30 minutes, both high totals obviously necessitated by Green’s early absence from the game.  I wish Poti hadn’t pinched so deep and gotten caught, which I thought led to that second Ducks goal that could have jeopardized the outcome.

Milan Jurcina needs to shoot the puck more.  Haven’t we all said and heard that before?  His shot from the point in the second kept up the O-zone pressure and led to the penalty called on Ducks’ D Brett Festerling.

Speaking of injuries and jeopardy, Uncle Ted wrote a quite moving, late last night post about what all has to come together to result in a championship.  I couldn’t help but read it the way I’m viewing this season:  so much has come together and playing out as rehearsed, except that the injury bug is biting hard, and early, and threatening everything that the organization has patiently worked so hard to accomplish:  the aforementioned Morrisonn and Green, the latter for perhaps a few games, Semin, and Fedorov.  And it’s only November.  What’s the health of this team going to look like in March?

Maybe I’m overreacting.  But one never knows in this new NHL era of zero injury disclosure.

And speaking of that salary cap, you may have been following the cresting wave of rumors of Michael Nylander being dealt to Chicago here and here (thanks to Gustafsson at OFB for the latter link).  I wrote over the summer that Nylander still has an important role on this team that is admittedly very deep at center.  But his play this season has not inspired the confidence the organization needs in him, given the remaining length of his contract (through 2010-11) and the effect that contract has on the team’s cap number.

Last night, Nyls skated 12:32 on the fourth line.  He registered 2 assists (both on the highly-effective power play, it’s worth highlighting), a -1, and a penalty, a hooking call to truncate a third consecutive Capitals power play.  He lost 6 of 8 draws.

Without #92, we still have at our disposal Bäckström, Fedorov, Laich, Steckel, and Boyd Gordon.  And maybe throw in Mathieu Perreault, a phone call away in Hershey.  Having witnessed the last recent impressive stretch from these Caps, one in which Nyls was benched and during which he has otherwise struggled mightily, I’m beginning to think that the C contingent may be good enough to seriously contend for the Cup without Nylander.

Finally, a kid named Bobby Ryan would sell much better in Carolina, don’t ya think?  I keep thinkng NASCAR driver.  But I wouldn’t want a rookie with that kind of offensive skill in our division, for sure.