This game was so late. Why are you awake. I burned the fuck out of my finger today and my brain is strudel so prepare for even more nonsense than usual.
Fucking San Jose.
Ovechkin with the first shot of the night. San Jose broadcast notes that he does not massage the puck at all before he shoots it. Of course he doesn't, what kind of establishment do you think we're running here.
There is some necessary discussion of how great Backstrom is. Understandably, many people wish that they had him on their hockey team. Is 3/4 of the Young Guns enough to win a hockey game? It has been before, but Backstrom being out is a pretty big deal to a team that is just barely finding their feet.
Brad Winchester crashes into Tomas Vokoun and it seems to be a case of him not knowing how to hell to skate on ice, but I am watching you, Brad Winchester. You only get one for free.
Ovechkin makes some more forays towards victory. The rest of the team apparently doesn't notice.
Murray goes insane and bulldozes Halpern for no reason. Chimera is quick to answer that the only way that a Jason Chimera can:
Clowe skates an extra ten years just to staple Hamrlik to the wall. Somehow it's not a penalty.
Please be more careful with our senior citizens. What kind of monster are you?
Former Hawk Brouwer gets tangled up with Vlasic for a few moments after a faceoff. If you have not noticed, Brouwer has a problem with the entire Western Conference. I love him for this, since the Caps have sometimes had some trouble having the proper amount of hate towards teams that we don't see often. Stay mad for as long as possible, 20. Impart your anger to the rest of the team.
Doug Murray quickly, so quickly becomes my least favorite Shark. A parent-teacher conference is needed. Mr. and Mrs. Murray need to know that their child is a hooligan.
Here's a picture of him trying to feel Joel Ward up.
Mike Green is all alone with tons of space in front of the net. Save from Niemi. That was not how I saw that going in my head.
More chances, but no goals. There is a lot of almost going on.
The Sharks take this as a cue to have some scoring chances of their own.
No way, San Jose.
We all know how endearingly awful the Caps' first period can be--this one actually wasn't so bad, and more importantly, the Sharks weren't able to score. Important to this once again: Vokoun.
He starts the second period the same way he ended the first--with a brilliant save. He's just waiting around for the team to start winning the game. Anytime now.
He holds it down for more than five minutes while the Caps try to collect their hockey game. The first goal is weird as hell--it goes into the net along with Handzus, off the boards, off people's legs, Wideman gets sticked in the face but the refs are wearing Sharks jerseys tonight. It's a completely useless goal, but they count those ones, too.
1-0.
Brad Winchester is not fucking listening to me, I fucking warned him about the goaltender interference and he goes and does the exact same thing again. This time he goes off for it.
St. Wideman of the power play is here to let the Sharks know that shit does not fly. He avenges Vokoun's honor with a beautiful goal. Tie game.
Vokoun does some avenging of his own. If the Sharks think they are going to score another flukey one, they are fucking mistaken. He's bailing the Caps out with aplomb, but in general I wish that they would get their asses in gear. There's some yelling at the TV to this effect.
Extremely timely time out from Hunter. He takes a moment to teach the Caps about hockey, and the meaning of life. Directly afterward, Pavelski and Thornton smash into each other at center ice. I imagine this is probably part of Hunter's plan somehow.
The game is getting crazy. Every single thing is potentially a goal. There's a great shift by the Caps that does a lot to bring me back towards sanity. Cycle city.
Wideman is VERY lucky that he's already scored tonight, because it's the worst possible moment to take a penalty. It becomes exponentially worse when Brent Burns scores on it.
FUCK YOU BRENT BURNS. YOUR SNAKES ARE ALL WHORES.
Bad news in the intermission. Mike Green hasn't taken a shift since the middle of the period. There was a hit. There was some whiplash. This is a nightmare.
Mike Green's life is a Greek tragedy and we are not amused. Young Guns count: 2/4.
But the game seems winnable. This is the curse that's hung over us for 19 years? These guys aren't all that scary.
Joel Ward makes his own argument against this by scoring 44 seconds into the period. Following his tying goal, there are exactly sixteen seconds of happiness.
Marleau scores. I don't want to talk about it.
Shortly afterward, there's a play where Hendricks thinks he's scored. I think so, too. It's a cruel, cruel world that takes a Matt Hendricks goal from us, but there's the reality.
Winchester, who's in a dead heat with Murray for my least favorite Shark right now, charges Semin. He gets away with this for about a split fucking second before Ovechkin obliterates him. It's a very captainy thing to do, and I am proud.
There's coincidental minors on the play and it goes to 4-on-4. Bad feeling creeping in. I need another goal.
WAIT I MEANT FROM THE CAPS.
It always helps to clarify. 4-2.
5-2 whatever. It's so late.
Loss. Ugh. How happy are you that we don't have to see these motherfuckers more than twice a season?
This game happened to make sure that you're properly appreciating Nicklas Backstrom. If you ever doubted his value to the Caps, you shouldn't be anymore. He is the heart and soul and the blonde flowing hair of this team. Without him, the rest of the Caps are mopey and despondent and spend most of their time on ice skating around listlessly wondering when Nicklas Backstrom will be back.
We did not love you enough, 19. We understand that now.
Please do not take this as a cue to start bitching. That is not what this is. Things will be fine, starting Monday.
Caps will never lose again.
No comments:
Post a Comment