Caps/Preds, 12/20/2011

The Washington Capitals all love Mike Knuble very much, clearly, since love and affection are measured by goals and winning hockey games, and everyone contributed tonight. He appreciates your efforts, team, and he appreciates the nice on-ice party that you threw for his 1000th game. 


What a game.

Goals from Ovechkin, Semin, Backstrom. Did you shake your head and wonder if you'd been time-warped back to 2009? YOU WERE NOT. This happened.


The first period is about the best first period we've seen the Caps play since Hunter took over. Caps set up shop around the Preds net and cannot be moved for hell or high water, you can see the Preds getting frantic, and it's hilarious. Ovechkin skates in there like a guy who the Florida Panthers repeatedly tried to draft in a year that was not his draft year. True story.


You know he's going to score tonight. He knows he's going to score tonight. He's destroying everything in his path for the purpose of getting to the puck. 

It happens.

You are watching the rebirth of the Alex Ovechkin highlight reel, it is building slowly but it can't be stopped. I personally guarantee a breakout month from Ovechkin, or your money back.

Backstrom, however, hasn't really gone anywhere. He's been here this whole season. Scorin' goals. Makin' unbelievable wraparound plays to poke the puck in despite 56 Predators trying to stop him doing so. He's a little stronger than he looks.

2-0, just like that. What with everyone assuming that we're mediocre lately, I wonder if it surprised them to remember that when this team is firing on all cylinders, our offense is terrifying. These people have not gone away. They were just temporarily taking a break or something. They have to do this sometimes, or other teams will be too afraid to even play them.

There's some kind of penalty against Semin (the more things change) but the Caps' PK has stopped 37 of 40 chances since Phoenix.

Bring it on.

In fact, penalty killing is so much fun and such good exercise that in the second period they decide to do it a few more times! Karl Alzner makes the only mistake of his entire career and deflects the puck out for delay of game. 

He had to do this because people were catching onto the fact that he is perfect at hockey. It's much more effective if they think he is not. 

Josi cheapshots Chimera--Chimera hunts him down and avenges this because he is a man, and that is what you do when people fuck with you. Maybe he avenges it a little too much. Penalty. 

Josi should know better than to mess with a man whose last name means "a fire-breathing monster having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail." It's not a good idea. 

Caps penalty killing units are chuckling to themselves at the idea that Nashville will actually score on this penalty. They appreciate the challenge, though. 

Sergei Kostitsyn has not caught onto the idea that the Caps are painting the town red tonight and rudely crashes the Knuble party. He is going to be so embarrassed when he finds out. What a faux pas. 

Anyway the press didn't take any pictures of this goal, so I have no choice but to declare it not real and move on. Here is a picture of Mike Knuble instead. 

There is some brief concern at the end of the second and the beginning of the third. Predators keep trying to score on Neuvirth. A lot. They are basically a teenager parked in a car with a girl that is out of his league. 

Sorry but you should readjust your goals, sometimes you just don't have a chance. 

Sasha is doing horribly silly things left and right, but Sasha also knows what to do to make me not care about those things in the slightest, and that is score a gorgeous goal. 

ALL YOUR TRESPASSES ARE FORGIVEN, MY SON. GO IN PEACE AND SIN NO MORE. 

So that makes it Ovechkin, Backstrom, Semin goals on the night, and that makes up a scoresheet so beautiful that I could kiss it on the mouth. 

Laurel: OUR SCORERS ARE SCORING. 

Yes they are, Laurel. Yes they are. 

St. Wideman of the Power Play revisits his worshipers in Capsland with a blazing shot from the point-- Brouwer is standing exactly in the right place to deflect it in because this was all part of the plan, of course, they run this play in practice. 

We are all healed by Wideman's holy touch and everything is perfect. The Predators don't have anything to say for themselves. They know where the door is. 

Win. 

Look at this shit. Nothing to worry about, remember? Not that I am saying that everything is fixed and all of our problems are solved forever, but I doubt this is the kind of team that's going to have too many losing streaks anymore. Losses, yes. Miserable downward spirals, no. 

Not if this guy has anything to say about it. 

Enjoy your Caps-victory intoxication. Dance on tables with a lampshade on your head. There is no better feeling anywhere, ever, in the history of the world. 

Devils Friday. We owe them one, too. Time to make the rounds and hand out some ass-kickings. 

Let's go Caps.