Lots to talk about so let's get right to it.
* For all of the controversy surrounding Wayne Rooney earlier this season, he seems to have settled back into life at Carrington. He's been relatively out of the spotlight, with United piling on points and Berbatov and Chicharito handling the bulk of the goal scoring. And then he struck this masterpiece against City, giving United the badly-needeed three points. Beautiful.
* United and Chelsea were off from Champions League duty this week, but Arsenal and Tottenham represented England very well. I loved that Tottenham played their usual, aggressive, attacking style even though they were in the San Siro. They needed Gomes to make some big stops especially in the 2nd half, but were rewarded with Crouch's late winner from Aaron Lennon - that's two English players that bring home a 1-0 Tottenham win in Mlan.
* Given how well Barcelona has played this year, a 1-0 defeat for the Gunners would have been respectable. But full marks to Arsenal for bunking that logic and going for the draw, and then the win, in the final 12 minutes. Makes me wonder about Barcelona: La Liga has been almost too easy for them this year, with just a modest Real Madrid challenge to contend with; switching to the more intense Champions League is really difficult.
* This summer might be the end of the line for both Bruce Boudreau and George McPhee. It is clear that the Caps players are no longer responding to their coach: the power play continues to be dreadful, there are too many lifeless performances such as home against Los Angeles and San Jose, then in Phoenix. As of this morning, the Caps have lost four out of five and 14 out of 25. How long can we call this a "slump"?
* I question whethere McPhee has made the transition from "building for the future" to "time to win now". He might be saying the right things, but look at all of the trades that have been made in the past couple of weeks by other playoff teams: Tampa acquires Brewer for a marginal prospect and a 2nd round pick, Boston gets Kaberle for nothing, Philly gets Versteeg for nothing - even Nashville picked up Fisher for very little. It's not that we needed any of those guys (except Fisher); it's that trades seem to be happening at reasonable levels and yet McPhee can't get anything done.
* Which begs the question: do other NHL GMs really respect McPhee? This is a people business ultimately. All of McPhee's trades over the past few years have been with Columbus, Carolina, and one with Colorado. Is it possible that people aren't picking up the phone when McPhee calls because of something else he's done in his past?
* The fact is, the Caps' top six forwards are not playoff-worthy, much less Cup worthy. We have one great pairing (8 and 19), one fantastic but streaky commodity (28), a 40-year-old (22), and we're trying to fill in the remaining pieces with youngsters (85, 90, 26) or asking other veterans to play above and beyond their capabilities (21, 25, sometimes 10). The trigger has to be pulled for 1-2 more top-six forwards.
* I could buy that the D will be fine once Green and Poti are healthy. I'm ok with not getting a goaltender either, because (a) Neuvirth and Varlamov have played well this season and deserve the chance to play in the playoffs, and (b) look at the past few Cup winners / finalists: only one of them really is a top-five goaltender (Fleury) - and he developed into a top-five goaltender after winning the Cup. Niemi, Leighton, Khabibulin, Osgood, Ward, Giguere - no one that really sticks out as incredible. They all played well, but none were show-stopping.
Hopefully we'll see some changes on their way!
