Sunday Morning Thoughts

A big win such as last night always makes for a beautiful morning. Not even the overcast, wet weather can dampen the good feeling Capitals' fans will wake up with. But first, let us not forget to thank who made this all possible, the overconfident Carolina Hurricanes. They drove into Washington last night riding high off their dominating win in Raleigh on Friday and thought that they could just show up and win. The Caps knocked them back down to reality, taking advantage of three turnovers to score three unassisted goals and never looked back. It's time for another feel good addition of morning thoughts:

• With his goal last night, Ovechkin not only extended his point streak to 11 games, but also put him into a tie with Atlanta's Marian Hossa for the league lead in goals with 31.

• Alexander Semin moved himself into 7th place in the NHL in goals after he recorded his 5th multi-goal game of the month last night. With his 29 goals on the season he is only 2 behind Ovechkin.

• Coach Hanlon changed up the lines again and just might have found two pairings to use for the long run. Eric Fehr jumped right in on the right side of Brooks Laich and Alexander Semin for a potent second scoring line. Laich acquitted himself well in his opportunity to capture the ever revolving second line center position. The other line that showed lots of potential was the shut down checking line of Pettinger, Gordon, and Sutherby. While they did not reach the scoring sheet, they had more ice time than Ovechkin and Semin and proved that they can silence their opponent's top lines.

With the Capitals off tonight don't forget to catch the AHL All-Star Skills Competition free on b2networks live at 7:00 PM ET. And tomorrow night the AHL All-Star game will also be available for free on b2networks starting at the same time. If you want to wait and watch it on tv, the game can be seen Wednesday, January 31st at 12:00 PM ET on Comcast Sportsnet. Unlike the NHL All-Star game, this will be a highly competitive game as players try to impress the many scouts that will be on hand.

I'm off to the Capitals practice this morning. I'll have a recap this afternoon.