You wanted preseason hockey? You got it. That was the perfect demonstration of a preseason hockey game – sloppy, overly cutesy and filled with little kinks that need to be smoothed out before opening night.

It’s fine, though. If there was any time to be sloppy, overly cutesy and full of kinks, it’s now…

- At a few different times the in-house cameras caught either Ovechkin or Semin grinning and laughing with assorted teammates over a missed chance or blown pass or some other play. I have a feeling this game just didn’t really matter to either one (or to many of their teammates) which…it really didn’t, let’s be honest. Come opening night those guys’ll be ready, and that’s all that matters.

- Mike Green had a bit of a scary night, including some bad coverage on that second goal and a particularly rough shift or two in the middle frame that had me hiding my eyes in fear. Jeff Schultz, on the other hand, had a pretty great night overall and along with Erskine was probably one of the best defensemen out there. Four hits, kids – FOUR. And they were real, I saw ‘em!

- Of course that didn’t stop the moron in my section from leaping down Schultz’s throat every time he failed to do…whatever the moron thought he should be doing but wasn’t. Looked good from where I was sitting, though, and we all know that’s what really matters.

- Alexandre Giroux, Chris Bourque, Karl Alzner…thanks for playing our little game. Have fun in Hershey.

- Keith Aucoin…maybe stick around for a little longer.

- Jose Theodore was in fine form tonight and looked very positionally sound; the two goals in 11 seconds were not even close to being his fault, and that’s a good thing for Caps fans right now. It’s also kind of surreal to think that in three games, with three different goaltenders, the Caps have gotten three individually great performances in net. You know, if surreal means TOTALLY FREAKING AWESOME. Ahem.

- Semin, like the rest of the “stars” out there, had a pretty sloppy evening but it was fun to watch him try and curl and drag around 7 different guys in one shift. The scary part is that he usually almost succeeded and even at half speed, with turnovers and missed shots galore, you could see the raw talent. Is it weird to say he looked good but had a horrible game?

- Speaking of Semin, he trailed only Steckel among forwards in penalty killing time and did some really nice stuff out there shorthanded. I really do love him on the penalty kill, and there’s always that sense that he could be roaring down the ice on a shorthanded breakaway at any minute.

- Eventually some of those shots that Knuble deflected over the net or into the goalie’s stomach, pads or stick are going to go in. It’s pretty impressive how quickly he gets to the front of the net and just how good he is at mucking it up in the crease. This could be a fun year.

- The power play. Eep. It might need a little work, although getting Giroux off said power play and putting someone with…what’s the word? Talent? Skill? Hockey sense? All of the above? Yeah, that might make a bit of a difference. So will remembering that shots on goal are occasionally good things and 583498 passes aren’t needed just to get a scoring chance. Baby steps, kids. Baby steps.

- Musical chairs played with inflatable chairs at center ice during intermission. What is, ’something CC never needs to see again’, Alex?

So for the guys that already have their roster spots, it was an “eh” kind of night – some good mixed with bad, with the good basically coming from the fact that most of them have more skill in their pinky than some teams do on their entire roster. The Ovechkin-Backstrom-Knuble line showed flashes of brilliance, Schultz had a bit of a statement game, Green…needed to sit down, whoa.

But for the guys who aren’t on the team just yet, did tonight make a difference? Probably not, at least not in a positive way. Beagle and Gordon brought energy and some intensity to a game lacking much of either, and Carlson was as advertised – calm and collected. Beyond that, it’s hard to see any of the current guys on the roster being unseated based on what we saw tonight.

At least not yet.