The Psychology of Shootout Success . . . and Suckitude
When Matt Pettinger bears down on a goalie in breakaway fashion, quite often he's money. But this season, like all of Caps' his teammates, he fires blanks in shootouts.
With Alexander Ovechkin, forget about breakaways -- when he's on his patented bullrush on the wing, even with an able defender between him and the goalie, you can almost see the netminder's white knuckles through his glove. And yet we've fairly reached the point of expecting his failure in shootouts.
This hockey team, which positively feasted on the shootout a year ago, has been mystifyingly stymied by them in '06-'07. In four shootouts thus far, they haven't potted a single tally. It's reached the point where Joe Reekie might be recruited out of the broadcast booth for the next OT-ender.
All the odder in light of the personnel picking up the puck at center ice this season: wheareas last year Coach Hanlon relied on AO and then shooter by committee (Brooks Laich, Brian Willsie, Matt Pettinger, Dainius Zubrus), this season he seemingly has a sturdy set of snipers in AO, Alex Semin, and Pettinger. So what gives?
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