well Brian McNally with baseball season literally right around the corner and the

World Series champs getting back to work to defend their title I use this analogy in

our pregame live show coming off the Pittsburgh win and heading into Buffalo but get

right week against three bad teams Buffalo Buffalo, Detroit, and then Chicago.

And I said, you're only as good as your next day's starter.

So as good as they were against Pittsburgh, if the next guy comes out and gets shelled in an inning and a third, it all goes away.

And this was losing in a shootout and only getting one point, which you had to really steal

by only playing one good period, this was your third pitcher, your third starter, getting

shelled to start a homestand.

Now all the good feelings of the Pittsburgh loss feels like it's gone.

It does. And that was the whole point. I mean, we said that Saturday after the game. We said, look, great win, awesome. Have to bring the same kind of effort two days from now. And they really didn't. I mean, there were times they look good. Certainly in a third period. They ramped it up. They're just waiting too long. I mean, you can't wait until the third period when you're down to nothing, and Buffalo is just trying to just hold on for a win. That's a desperate team, just hoping to get something in a lost season out of it. And, you know, you go to a shootout, you go to overtime, you go to a shootout, anything can happen at that point and the caps got burned and lose a point they may need at the end of the year if they want to win the Metro Division. The positives are, the flip side to that is they earned a point that they maybe wouldn't have gotten, if not for a good 20 minutes. true that gets them back in first place at least for the time being over philadelphia whose next game is against the Bruins on nbc sports network so

that's not going to be back in first place, at least for the time being, over Philadelphia, whose next game is against the Bruins on NBC Sports Network.

So that's not going to be easy.

Their schedule down the stretch is just brutal, but that's a them problem, not a wee problem.

But the only other positive to me is Ovechkin scored his 48th, and he's now two away from tying Mike Gartner for 7th all time.

There are some positives to take out of this, just not as many as there should have been.

I'm Rob Carlin.

The Capitals Talk podcast starts now.

His story!

His spectacular history making continues.

It's not a great. It's not a desperate barrage. It's Lord Stanley. It's not a three.

It's not a desert barrage.

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