Caps Showing Some Wrinkles

This young Caps team is showing some wrinkles in this preseason, and I'm not referring to elder statesmen Federov and Nylander. Bruce Boudreau has been trotting out a decidedly different looking penalty kill these days. I had to do a double-take at the sight of Ovechkin and Alex Semin logging minutes on the PK. Initial impressions from my first two glances at this experiment ( home game against Carolina) weren't so positive as they both resulted in a Caps goalie fishing the puck out of the back of the net.

Seriously, wasn't there a time when Semin need to stop and ask directions to the defensive zone? And he's on the PK??!

Since then I've seen OV deposit a couple of shorties (the most demoralizing thing a team can do) and I've seen some gloriously entertaining puck "ragging" which relegated the other team's power play into spectators like me. So is this experiment a good idea or not?

Not.

All the conformation I needed for this was provided in the last preseason game when, in a panic-inducing moment, Alex Ovechkin went down after a Bruin's shot tattooed him. (Thankfully he bounced back up) It's a high risk position to put your best offensive players in. And while, if it were me, this experiment would not translate into the regular season- I totally love the stones that Boudreau has to try it.

And it sure makes things more interesting...