A New Era Begins

I posed the question yesterday about the prevailing logic of giving Olaf the nod against the Leafs after such a strong showing from Toronto by the French Wall that is Cristobal . After sifting through the reams of responses that were posted.... (ahem.... crickets) I'VE looked into the crystal ball (crysto-ball?.. heh, heh, nevermind) and discerned Boudreau's thinking:

1. Don't disenfranchise the franchise man -- The message was "You're still important, Olie. We need you. You are our rock. We are nothing if you are not something." [sniff] I think I'm going to cry.


2. It's Toronto -- How many times have the Caps played the backup this year as the opposition sees the game as a chance to rest the #1? Did we take the Leafs too lightly? Does Semin take a hooking penalty every second time he makes a turnover?


3. Back-t0-back games -- A chance to rest after Friday's stellar performance and make Olie fight for playing time.

During last night's game, while the team lacked desperation for an appreciable amount of the game, Olie looked panicked throughout. On easy saves, he fumbled several into the air and would flail to knock them out of harm's way. If he was out of position, he was made frantic dives to get back into the net. At one point in the third after a puck had been deflected up and over his head, he threw his arms into the air while looking at a retreating defenseman as if to say:

"I don't know where it is."
"I'm not at fault here."
"You can't blame me if I get scored upon because you deflected it someplace I can't see it."

Olie made several key stops up close including a mini breakaway by Tucker and then an uptight stuff on Tlusty. However, when the Leafs scored some of the blame falls squarely on the goalie. The Antropov deflection was impossible to stop. The onus of deflections have to fall on the D for not clearing out. The second goal could have been stopped but wasn't. I'm not saying it was a soft goal, but Sundin's bullet was a rising shot over the glove hand and Olie was on his knees. The third goal was riddled with problems but the mishaps began with Olie shooting the puck hard into the boards. It ricocheted off Morrisonn into the slot. Green and Fedorov playing Keystone cops didn't help the recovery. I chalk 1.5 goals against to the D and 1. 5 to the goalie.

A more appropriate title to this post may be, "The End of an Era". Whatever the title, the message is the same: Olie is now the #2 in Washington. It's the coach's job to put the players on the ice that give his team the best chance to win the game. I just don't see Olie fitting the definition of "starting goaltender" any longer.