Wild Night at Verizon Center

If Alex Ovechkin got a two-game suspension for his (not-so-blatant) hit on Tim Gleason, what do you think Mike Duco will get for his uber-cheap shot of Alexandre Giroux during last night's 6-2 Caps destruction of the Florida Panthers?

In the third period, with the Caps already up 4-0, Giroux legally checked Dmitry Kulikov into the boards near the Florida next. Within seconds, Duco raced off the bench and targeted Giroux. He not only sent Giroux to the ice but kept punching him after he fell down. That got all players involved, including an extremely-irate Chris Clark.

Duco got 27 penalty minutes on the play, including a game-misconduct. It should yield a five-game suspension at the least, since his intentions seemed malicous and was not part of the normal course of play.

Meanwhile, the Caps built that lead with two solid periods of dominating play -- including one of the best games of Alex Semin's career. It was the kind of game the Caps needed and showed that the rest of the Southeast Division has a long way to go to catch the Caps -- who, with 40 points and a 17-5-6 record, are ahead of last year's franchise record 50 wins and 108 points.