During the Capitals 2-0 loss to the Flyers is became pretty readily apparent that they need to make some changes to their gameplan if they hope to succeed in picking the win in at least one of the two games they have this week in Philadelphia. The changes that need to made include:

(1) Scratch John Erskine. This isn’t number one necessarily because I think it’s the most important one, but I do think it’s the most obvious. Erskine can hit pretty well and he can fight, but that’s about all he has going for him; for Erskine a successful game is one where he doesn’t give up a scoring chance because of his suspect skating ability or take an unnecessary penalty. I like Erskine as a reserve defenseman but why he’s playing while Steve Eminger, who’s quicker, more agile and has more offensive upside, sits in the press box is a mystery to me.

(2) Improve play in front of the nets. It didn’t come back to bite the Caps in Game 2 but they were still letting the Flyers have far too easy a time setting up in front of Cristobal Huet, and that’s something the Capitals aren’t going to be able to get away with for an entire series. At the other end Caps players are going to the net but they’re doing so only to look for rebounds and as a result aren’t creating near enough havoc in front of the Philadelphia net in terms of screens, potential deflections and drawing penalties.

(3) Simplify. In the neutral zone this means looking for a pass, only carrying the puck when there’s space and dumping it when necessary (I’m lookin’ at you, Ovechkin, Green and Semin). In the offensive zone this means getting pucks to the net, getting traffic in front of the net and battling in the slot for rebounds rather than endlessly passing the puck while looking for a perfect chance. Last game the Capitals passed up more good scoring chances that I could count.

None of these changes are particularly complex, but I’d expect each of them to pay dividends.