Despite the great storyline of Brian Pothier returning to the lineup for the first time in 14 months, the rest of his teammates pretty much went missing as the Caps' five-game road winning streak ended with a thud in Atlanta with a 5-1 loss to the Thrashers.
Starting off a six-game road trip with a flat effort, as while the team peppered Kari Lethonen with 50 shots, only Eric Fehr's goal with 1:15 left in regulation broke his shutout bid. At the other end, Jose Theodore was pulled after allowing four goals in 40 minutes on just 21 shots, and certainly had a night to forget.
Colby Armstrong put the Thrashers on top 10:13 into the contest, and then Pothier sitting out for a hooking call, Vyacheslav Kozlov then made it 2-0 with a goal just 5:30 later.
Despite being outshot 16-9 in the second, it was the Thrashers who made the Capitals pay for some bad penalties with a pair of power-play goals to put the game out of reach. Anssi Salmela scored his first NHL goal with John Erskine in the box, then Tobias Enstrom scored while Alexander Semin in the box.
A pair of Erics got their names on the scoresheet late in the third, as Atlanta's Perrin made it 5-0 with 4:22 left, while Fehr got the Caps' only goal with 75 ticks left in the game.
There won't be much time to dwell on the defeat, as the Capitals head down to Sunrise tomorrow to face the Panthers at BankAtlantic Center, with Florida having slipped into ninth in the Eastern Conference. The last time the Caps were in south Florida, Alex Ovechkin scored a hat trick, and now he will be looking for his 50th goal of the season.
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