Capitals Talking Tough

The Washington Capitals are talking.

They didn’t like the hits they took in Monday night’s 4-3 loss to the Ottawa Senators, which narrowed their lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal to 2-1.

And they didn’t like the way referee Kerry Fraser called the game.

Want to know what to expect tonight in Game 4?

Listen.

“You can’t allow great hockey players to have room and time to move around with the puck and make easy decisions,” said Capital Coach Ron Wilson, who planned to do some line juggling to get his bruisers--Chris Simon, Dale Hunter and Craig Berube--more ice time. They played a total of 12 minutes in Game 3. “We’ve got to be in their face.”

“We’ve got to do the same to them, show them, ‘Hey, you guys can’t get away with the things you’re doing,’ ” Washington goalie Olaf Kolzig said. “If you want to give Adam Oates a whack, well, then maybe we’ll give [Alexei] Yashin a whack or [Daniel] Alfredsson a whack.”

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It didn’t take Bob Clarke 10 days to figure out what went wrong with the Philadelphia Flyers this season. It just took him that long to calm down.

The Flyer general manager on Tuesday held his first news conference since his team’s season ended May 1 in a first-round, five-game playoff loss to Buffalo. He said he was dealing with several emotions.

“On top of the disappointment, there’s a lot of anger,” Clarke said at the team’s practice rink in suburban Philadelphia. “I felt it was just better to let things cool off.”

Clarke acknowledged the changes he made after the Flyers were swept in four games by Detroit in last year’s Stanley Cup finals had a negative impact on the team.

“I screwed up more than anybody on this team,” he said. “A lot of it is my own fault.”