Chin up, Caps fanbase. It was just one loss. We haven't had any real losing streaks under the new Dale Hunter regime, and I doubt the Capitals plan to start now. There are obstacles to winning this next game, of course, such as both Backstrom and Green most likely not playing--but there were always going to be obstacles.
No time to dwell on any of that, because the hockey season is moving along. No defeat without the next game right around the corner. The hunger returns, and that's never about just one player.
Wandering dangerously close to 24/7 narration here so I'm going to get right to the preview, but the gist is: things to do. Kings to obliterate. We're moving on.
APPROPRIATELY NAMED PERSON AWARD
Jonathan Quick is a revelation. Somehow, on a team that's having a season that rivals the Caps for sheer potential for disaster, this guy has managed to hold down a .934 SV%, a 1.93 GAA, and is leading the league with six shutouts.
Eek.
Here's hoping that the Caps brought their magic sticks on the road (maybe they just didn't use them Saturday night)--or alternately, that the Kings play their backup against us, because we like it when that happens.
SUPERSTAR AWARD
The Kings are so glad they caved on Drew Doughty's contract, because they wouldn't have wanted to miss out on his minus-two, 3-goal season.
Good thing they've got that locked down for seven years. That was a close one.
SUTTER VS HUNTER
I think we all know who would win in a cage match, but unfortunately the league does not allow hockey games to be determined by coach-vs-coach cage matches at this time.
Sutter is an even newer coach than Hunter is. Not really an accomplishment--with the turnover rate this season, there's probably more job stability burger flipping at McDonalds. Sutter's Kings are 5-1-3 so far, which isn't bad, but they also lost their last game 1-0 to the Columbus Blue Jackets, who've been functioning as less of a hockey team this season than a punchline.
In the words of ESPN's Kings blog, "That was the kind of performance that got the last coach fired."
I am thinking the Caps need to win this one for the sole reason of making us happy. I know they take these things into consideration.
Lots of hockey this week, and that makes it a good week no matter what happens. The Kings are a good warm-up for the Pens, and we still need the points, so I hope they make this one count.
Oh, and in case you didn't notice, the "reactions" down at the bottom of posts are gone now, because I realized that I actually don't need that much validation in my life. You now only have one option, and that's "go Caps."
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.
Too many days between hockey games. How did you survive? There were hockey things going on in between, but since they weren't Caps hockey, they barely existed.
In a lot of ways it was good, since it gave a few people a chance to heal up, but the Caps haven't been great after too much time off, so here's hoping rust isn't a factor on Saturday. This game is the exact halfway point for the league's whole season, so now is better than any time for the Caps to start to get nasty.
1993
There's the big number hanging over the team's head--the last time the Caps won in this venue, it was 1993. Please note, as pictured above, that the 90s were a terrible time, but despite that, the 90s Caps were able to win over the Sharks 4-2, and then--never again since. Yep.
Any arena that projects sharks swimming on the ice during player introductions and has their team skate out of a giant shark's mouth is probably going to be a little tough to play in. May I remind you once again that sharks are not a danger to anything that lives on land, however, such as a capital city, so suck it, Sharks.
OPPORTUNITY FOR OPPORTUNISM
San Jose's penalty kill is sitting at 28th out of 30 in the league right now--Caps PP is at 11th, so there's a good opportunity here to keep it hot. I wouldn't say no to another Ovechkin PP snipe--he's got a streak of his own to keep rolling, looking to turn a seven-game point streak into eight.
If you're wondering why the Sharks' penalty kill is struggling, though, this video might help clear it up:
WOUNDED WARRIOR AWARD
Apparently both Backstrom and Semin will be in the lineup tomorrow night--everyone around Backstrom is reporting that he doesn't appear to be concussed, so you can stop sacrificing goats to the hockey gods now, your prayers have been answered. Well done.
Who wasn't sacrificing enough goats? I want to know whose fault this is.
Backstrom's out for tonight.
Dammit.
For a player who's always been incredibly durable for the Caps, this news is a little scary. The last thing we want to see is Backstrom start down that alarming, muddy path of head injuries that so many NHLers are on these days, but we have faith in the strength of his cranium and we hope that things will work out all right.
Better safe than sorry. You just don't take risks with a player of his sheer excellence, but I feel confident that we will see him again soon. Get well, 19.
Nineteen years is a long fucking time, but the longer a streak goes on, the more likely it is to be broken. Nobody's going to talk about 1993 anymore if the Caps win tomorrow, so that's the goal. Five games in a row. Eight game point streak for number 8.
I know the USA's World Juniors run didn't end so well, but if you're a Caps fan, things weren't all bad at the tournament this year.
Reason? Evgeny Kuznetsov making everyone looking like an idiot again. A 19-year-old this year at an under-20 tournament, Kuzya was clearly a man among boys. Some people--notably, the country of Canada--are mad about it. I don't really blame them. If Kuznetsov wasn't in the future for my country or my team, I'd be mad about it too. Here's the best of people being pissed off about everything that he's accomplished for his country in the WJC this year:
In case you're having trouble deciphering that tag, it's "Mr. I Can Eat An Apple Through A Picket Fence." Oh, burn.
It makes sense that the captain and the top scorer should be the lightning rod for Canada's (understandable) frustration. What I don't think most of us anticipated was Kuzya's knack for the incredibly infuriating quote--if you didn't catch it last night, here's a good one via the Toronto Sun: "I’m exhausted of all emotions after this win. I don’t think Canada is good enough to score so many goals as we allowed."
Caps have been lacking a good pest for awhile, and Kuzya looks to be shaping up into an Ovechkin figure at the very least--exasperating because he can back it up, and because he's not shy about it. Despite the sour-grapes trashing you'll read from some news sources of a certain nationality this morning, those who follow Kuznetsov know that he's a great teammate, self-effacing, impatient with being given too much credit--but he's not afraid to tell you when his team is good, that's for sure.
Caps fans will ring in the new year with visions of a Kuznetsov-Ovechkin line dancing in their head. See you in October, kiddo.
Tonight was the night that Mike Green took the ice again, finally, while a choir of angels sung from the heavens and a beam of sunlight illuminated him everywhere he skated. If you did not see this, you weren't watching closely enough. It happened.
Even better: he didn't immediately reinjure himself. Not even a little! Not even a papercut, or a painful hangnail. We remain undefeated with Green in the lineup, but this is not because he is our lucky charm. This is because he is our All-Star puck-moving defensemen who can skate with the best when he's healthy--and he's healthy now. That sound you heard was terror sweeping throughout the league.
The Flames take a penalty within the first minute of play, which is my new favorite thing. How can we encourage every team ever do this in every game against us from now on?
Our power play contains Ovechkin. I am not sure if there should be a Surgeon General's warning about that or something, because he is damn near lethal lately. He shoots.
The shot lights the air on fire; Kipper wisely gets out of the way. 1-0.
Breaking news: Ovechkin is playing pretty well right now. I don't know if you've heard. I know there's been some doubt and difficulty over this past year re: our glorious captain, but let's be serious, Caps fans. It's Alex Ovechkin. And he's our favorite.
Mike Green touches the puck for the first time, and the Verizon Center expresses their love for him. We appreciate your very existence, Mike Green, but we appreciate it the most when you are on the ice. So nice to see you.
via @recordsANDradio
Ovechkin steps on a puck and wipes out with extreme style and grace. The puck is in love with him and can't keep away from him tonight. It just wants to express this and be close to him, but now is not the time, puck. Troy Brouwer is laughing his head off so clearly this is nothing all that serious, and the refs don't call it as too many men, probably because they are laughing too.
Everything is funny when we're winning.
Knuble is on the second line tonight! PROGRESS. He is grinding his way back up the lines the way he does everything else--determinedly, quietly relentlessly, and with Semin out this game, he is just the guy to fill in anywhere, anytime, for anything you can think of. He could probably fix your plumbing if you were in a tight spot. If you called Mike Knuble for a ride he would be there in an instant.
Please observe his apparent war cry in the picture above. What a guy.
Locker declares that Kiprusoff is Gumby.
I believe him because, why not.
Caps win 72% of the faceoffs in the first period. I am curious if the Flames need some instruction on what they are supposed to be doing here.
In the beginning of the second, Green is incorrectly called for holding when it was clearly just a hug. He is just really happy to be back. Refs don't understand this, into the box he goes.
It's a nice time to appreciate how great our penalty kill is right now. The Flames for some reason think that they are going to score on this. It's like they don't know us at all.
Important to this endeavor: Vokoun. Jokinen tries to score but there's no way it's happening, and fuck no again to Bourque in the next minute on a breakaway. Vokoun's on just as much of a hot streak as anyone on this team and has affected the lives of many. Most Important Man award.
The Flames have a bit more fight in the second period. The plot is thickening.
There's a hold against Ward, a Flame goes to the box. Fire up the Power Play Destructionator 3000.
Brouwer crashes the net, Knuble-style.
It's super effective! 2-0, and an opportunity to use that "Brouwerplay" pun that we all like. This is much appreciated.
Locker: "Might be wise not to take any more penalties, Calgary."
Tell me about it--and an assist by Ovechkin, too, which makes this his FOURTH straight multi-point game. Here's a song about the week Ovechkin is having:
Flames get mad about their lives and their playing careers for a moment and furiously attempt to ruin Vokoun's shutout. There's some stand-in goalie work from Orlov to stop Iginla scoring. What a disrespectful rookie!
Glencross scores. This is because I typed the above sentence containing the S word before the second period was even halfway over. I apologize sincerely for this. It won't happen again.
2-1.
Not acceptable.
Backstrom plays well with others. He got a gold star and a smiley face in this in school. He passes beautifully to Wideman, and Wideman makes use of what he's given.
3-1.
It's Backstrom's THIRD assist of the game. Flames killahhh.
Dmitry Orlov just takes the puck right on into the offensive zone and skates around with it for awhile like it's his lady and no one else can touch it. This ends a little disastrously but it's cool while it happens.
In the first moments of the third period, the ding of the post chills your soul. Close one.
There are attempts by the Flames but they aren't really accomplishing much. This is not news, but the team is clearly in need of something. Perhaps a spine. CSN broadcasters are bored so they show Scott Hannan on the screen.
Hi, Scott Hannan. We're still not clear on whether you count as a Caps alum or not. It doesn't seem important, which probably answers the question.
Caps are lollygagging a bit, but Vokoun is a whole new man lately, or maybe not a mortal man at all. Is it the bacon pads? Definitely.
He stuffs the puck back down Stepmniak's throat. That's what you get for trying to score, asshole.
Bourque elbows Backstrom in the head. This makes me cringe, because elbows + heads is not a good formula lately, and on a replay, it looks super intentional.
Rage. I hope that Shanahan buries him.
Knuble briefly tests my patience by getting called for a slash. Luckily, my patience for Mike Knuble is nearly infinite. Luckily, our penalty kill. Luckily, Vokoun.
Joe B is skeptical of the PP's "lack of penetration". That'll do it.
Green goes to the box with just over four minutes left in play. The Caps are determined to give the Flames a fighting chance in this game, because that is the type of noble men they are.
There are not enough praises in the world for the penalty kill right now. We're now 31 of the last 31 killed at home, and that is fucking ridiculous. The most important thing that happens during this penalty kill, in fact, is not even in the game--Evgeny Kuznetsov scores the first goal in the CAN-RUS game. Go Kuzya.
MORE UNNECESSARY GENEROSITY. Flames pull their goalie, Knuble goes to the box, and we're 6-on-4 for the last forty seconds of the game. Don't panic.
WIN ANYWAY. Sorry you couldn't get back in the game, Flames, they really did try their best to help.
WIN NUMBER FOUR.
People can try to devalue this win all they want, and it's true that the Flames are not exactly tough competition. But no. It's true that doing this against another opponent in different circumstances might have been more difficult, but the Caps have had to fight for every two points they've earned this season. They earned these ones, too. It is momentum.
It was beautiful.
Caps are now solidly in playoff contention, Ovechkin's in the top 20 scoring, Backstrom is in top 10 in points overall. I hope you are breathing a little easier these days. This season has been exciting to say the least, but when push comes to shove, we will put our faith in the boys every time.
There is not enough hockey this week, and I'm mad about it. Additionally, Tuesday and Friday are a weird two days to choose, if there are only going to be two days of hockey.
The Caps can make it up to me by winning both games. Dare we hope for a four-game winning streak? Yes, we dare, because we are bold and confident hockey fans. Plenty of time for craven backtracking later if we are wrong.
JAROME IGINLA, THE END
Come on, admit it, I said "Flames" and you thought "oh, Jarome Iginla." The Flames are that possessive girlfriend that refuses to let go of Iginla and rebuild like they need to, but hey, can you blame them? Jarome Iginla is great. I can't even hate him right now as I am writing this. I hope none of the Caps get distracted from hitting him by thinking about what a damn nice guy he is, that would be unfortunate.
He's going for his 500th goal tonight, and as a rule, I like for no one to steal the spotlight from the Capitals, so let's try to prevent that happening. Be on the lookout for his dangerous signature move, "setting up the play".
Any opportunity to use this video, really.
ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE
Flames have lost their last three games straight, most recently to terrifying offensive powerhouses Nashville Predators. If our top line keeps up the way they've been going, no problem, right?
By which I mean I probably just jinxed it.
GO OVECHKIN GO
There are so many reasons to want Ovechkin's hot streak to keep up the way it has--because of the difference it makes to the Caps overall, because scoring goals wins games, because we need Ovechkin to be the center of our team--but mostly you want Ovechkin to keep scoring so that you can shove it in people's faces.
TELEPHONE GAME AWARD**
There were all kinds of conflicting reports yesterday about whether or not Alex Semin had a "deep cut" on his arm--he missed practice yesterday for a maintenance day, which was where all of that started, but we're really not sure what the deal is there. I don't really think Eakin would have been reassigned to Hershey if that was the case, but that is why I write a blog on the internet and the people who are in charge of this shit are in charge of this shit. We'll probably have to wait to find out what's going on here.
For the record, I am crossing my fingers for no scary injuries. No reason to derail the Sasha Train right as it was getting back on track.
In more thrilling news--who wants to bet if Mike Green will be back for the game tonight or not? Most fun bet there is, if only because we've finally arrived at a place where this could be a real possibility. We miss him like a flower misses sunlight. Be fixed please, 52, and stay fixed forever. We are hoping that he took his time off to go get a controversial secret military procedure done that means he is now indestructible. That would be convenient.
** UPDATE: GREEN IN, SEMIN OUT. NO CONFIRMATION ON SECRET MILITARY PROCEDURES.
Let's start 2012 out right. The Flames are no big deal--especially not for a Caps team that's playing like they should be. We're still all about points. Let's put together some wins.
