On Frozen Blog

The coverage theme for this blogger tonight is being in the building of a first-place club on a Friday night in February. Rarefied air, that’s called. And we have a columnist in the house to cover it: Thom Loverro of the Washington Times. Thom has covered the Caps as well as any columnist in this city the past 10 years, so I’m not surprised he’s here. Gonna try and chat him a up a bit during an intermission.

The mission tonight is plain: a little bit of separation.

From 275 feet above the ice it’s still quite easy to see that all classification of birds likely has nests in Mike Commodore’s ‘fro. There’s a new Will Ferrell flick coming out, “Semi-Pro,” featuring the hero as an owner-player-coach of an ABA team in an era of heavy, airplane-ensnaring hairdos, and Commodore could double for Farrell in the film’s poster art.

Jonathon Warner of 3WT was mentioning to me how the Caps were 13 points back of Carolina on November 23, the Caps of course last in the Southeast that day and Carolina in first, and how since then the Caps have accumulated 44 points to the Canes’ 29. Then Mike Vogel pointed out how the Caps had lost a week into the Boudreau tenure in Carolina, meaning that that ground actually started to be made up in earnest around December 1.

The Caps are 13-4-4 in one-goal games under Gabby.

Another mightily healthy home crowd on hand.

Seven seconds in, Scott Walker and Matt Bradley seemed to behave in a manner of some longstanding animosity between these clubs.

Just before the four-minute mark, Eric Cole goes shootout showoff on Brent Johnson, one-handing a dazzling deke by BJ to put the ‘Canes up 1-0. A stunner, and while Milan Jurcina may have looked radiation burned on the play, that outside speed by Cole is replicated by few in this league.

Not yet midway through the first, it’s abundantly clear that these ‘Canes brought their hard-hats for some heavy duty hitting. They are plastering the Caps’ puck possessors at almost every turn.

The Caps are about to go on almost consecutive power plays, but otherwise, it’s been Carolina’s period through the opening 12 minutes. This is the ‘Canes club I think many of us thought we’d see all winter — and haven’t.

Another strong effort at getting the puck to the Caps’ net results in it’s getting behind BJ again. Shots are 8-3 Caps, but where it counts, 2-0 ‘Canes. Carolina looks fresh and determined, and it’s perhaps worth nothing, they last played on Tuesday night, while for the Caps this is their third game in four nights.

Near the end of the first period, the Phone Booth is, save for the usual spottiness of the Club level, good and crammed full of hockey fans. If the team keeps winning, there will be nights I think when walkups are stunned to learn of there being no tickets available at the gate.

It’s ugly after one: 2-0 visitors.

More anon.

I had a terrific chat with Thom Loverro during the first intermission. I felt fortunate to get a few minutes of his time on a night like this because I was really curious to know if, as a veteran sports columnist in this town, he was seeing anything like a sea change in the way local media was reacting to the Caps’ turned-around fortunes. I asked him if he thought the pieces might be in place for the team to garner the kind of media coverage the region’s hockey fans have long craved.

“It’s a shame in a way, back in ‘98 when they made the Stanley Cup finals, they had built — they had some momentum. And that got squandered,” he told me.

“That was a missed opportunity, and I don’t think this ownership will miss this opportunity,” he added.

Who would have thought the home team would have been on the receiving end of three levels of loud boos tonight? Disjointed, bumbling 5-on-3 power plays will bring that out of the home faithful when their charges are in a 2-0 hole with first place on the line.

Even the Horn Guy is off tonight.

Energized by their penalty killing, the ‘Canes go on the forecheck attack. They smell blood in the Caps’ zone and are all over the Caps, who futilely attempt to clear the zone. Eventually, Shaone Morrisonn takes a penalty to stem the tilted ice.

The standout moment during the Caps’ successful penalty kill was, not surprisingly, Quintin Laing diving head-first to poke-check the puck out of the zone. He’s about the only guy in red tonight getting it done.

Even when the Caps do establish some presence in the Carolina zone the disciplined ‘Canes do a magnificent job of keeing the Caps’ attack out on the perimeter, and Cam Ward really rarely sees much threat.

Brash done Bad: two minutes for tripping and two minutes for holding on the same play. An uphill comeback challenge against a tough goalie and a veteran team just became for the Caps as hard as finding a coach for the Redskins.

One of the Caps’ more impressive PKs of the season keeps it 2-0. And the period ends that way. This game is all ‘Canes.

I asked Loverro whether a winning Caps’ club in a new winning era could bring more balanced sports media coverage in town.

“You’ll never see balanced coverage cause we’re like dogs, we sniff for whatever food’s available. And if hockey’s hot at the time, if they make the Stanley Cup playoffs, then they’ll get the coverage. We cover what we think makes the most people . . . what they got the most interest in. It’s not a democracy.”

“Fair enough,” I replied, “but for me, a critic of the media, there’s a bit of the chicken-or-the-egg quality to the issue. Sports editors say, well, there’s 11,000 at Verizon on Thursday for the Florida Panthers, therefore it’s C7 for the game file . . . or, could they make an investment with their coverage and amp up interest — you know, the Redskins didn’t start out in this town the favored son.”

“I understand where you’re coming from,” Loverro replied. “But most sports editors worth their salt, if they see people talking, if they see the team doing well, if they see the team make the playoffs, they’re gonna put a lot of resources into coverage. You’re right, it could be a chicken-or-the egg thing. But again, it’s not their job necessarily to achieve more balanced coverage, it’s their job to invest in what’s the most interesting thing.”

“I think if this team makes the playoffs, and starts making a playoff run, and they have the biggest star in hockey in Alex Ovechkin, I think they could make some real noise in this town and get a lot of attention.”

A Caps’ power play in the first five minutes of period three takes on a must-convert aura. But they don’t.

I’m seated next to Eric McErlain of Off Wing Opinion, and he points out to me that a conventional forecast many in hockey had about the Southeast heading into the season — that there was parity on top of parity, that all five teams could finish first or last — is actually playing itself out into this season’s final third. All five teams have 50-plus points and are a week’s worth of winning or losing from moving dramatically up or back within the pack.

If ever there should be an unassisted goal on a scoresheet, it’s Alexander Semin’s 9:44 into the third. He skated around and through all five defending Hurricanes, perhaps three times, then through all the ‘Canes on the bench, and those on IR, before tucking the puck past Ward.

“Unassisted!” indeed is the public address announcement.

The Caps follow Semin’s tally with confident and inspired play, creating a couple of near-miss opportunities in the Carolina zone. My good friend Dmitry Chesnokov comes by after Viktor Kozlov and Nicklas Backstrom nearly connect.

“It’s coming, have no fear,” he says with a broad smile.

A late power play for the home team arrives. Can they undo 40 minutes of under performing with two late strikes and steal a point? That’s a negative. Alexander Semin, a third period hero, undoes his excellence with a savage two-handed slash at the top of the crease. Off to the box, out with any momentum.

Canes move up atop the Southeast, 2-1. The storybook script HockeyWashington thought might be authored this weekend endured a rough revision thanks to a supremely gutsy and disciplined effort by the visitors.

Toward the end of my conversation with Thom Loverro back in the first intermission, I raised with him an argument I’d heard made by some Washington Post reporters about coverage priority: that the ascendancy of NASCAR was hurting the Caps.

“Should the Caps take a back seat to NASCAR in this town?” I asked.

“There’s no NASCAR track in this town!” Loverro countered. “No, you take care of your home base. You take care of the teams in your town. Those are the teams that people care the most about. There may be an overall interest in NASCAR regionally that may translate to something, but the fact remains, there’s no track within 100 miles of here.”

Loverro, shaking my hand, claimed to “know little” about hockey. “What I do know I learned from Dave Fay,” he told me. But he actually knows a great deal. Especially about covering the home team in town.