On Frozen Blog

Do not seem to be enjoying themselves.

Update from a press box stats flack: the Bruins actually allowed seven goals in a period on March 7, 1945.

Seconds after the Brashear beatdown of Shawn Thornton, the Verizon Center center ice scoreboard ran a high-def clip of an aged Bob Barker punching-bagging a Bs-sweatered Adam Sandler in ‘Happy Gilmore.’

Ovechkin’s four points on the evening thus far give him 89 on the season, moving him ahead of Evgeni Malkin’s 88.

I was all prepared to post that the Capitals’ seven goals had occurred on 21 shots, then they potted their eighth on their 25th. That Tim Thomas bad karma against D.C., it’s not so evident anymore.

I grabbed a second intermission hot dog and rode the elevator back up with Caps’ goaltending coach Dave Prior. He looked at me and said, “Got a tip for you — Olie is starting the third period.” Cristobal Huet apparently is hurt. “He’s experiencing some discomfort,” is how Prior put it to me.

The Caps’ Press Guide lists 12 goals scored against Quebec on February 6, 1990, as the most by the team in a game, and the lone instance of it, but actually they also scored 12 against Florida (one of Jagr’s few brilliant evenings in a Caps’ sweater) in a 12-2 mauling of the Cats on January 11, 2003.

Kolzig earned a secondary assist on Ovie’s fourth goal of the game; that’s a novel way to get into the lineup — by scoring.

There are some fortunate Bs’ fans in attendance who had the foresight (?) to wear either their Red Sox or Celtics’ garb tonight, rather than anything black and gold. From the press box you can hear some of them seated in the upper deck alluding to the city’s better achievers this evening.

Getting louder: the home crowd’s “T-H-O-M-A-S . . . T-H-O-M-A-S” chant. Soon thereafter, Claude Julien makes his third goalie change of the evening, returning Alex Auld to the carnage, and the home crowd begins a “We wants Thomas!” cry.

“We want 10!” came the next chant. At 18:15 of the third, on the power play, Matt Bradley delivers. A 10-2 crushing by the Caps.

Trending: the Caps have won three of their past four, and outscored their opponents 20-5 in those games.Matt Cooke in the room afterward: “Had [Vesa] Toskala not been so good (Saturday night), it could have been 6-0 after the first.”

More Matt: “There’s not one part of [Bruce Boudreau's] system here that was in Vancouver. That first game [Saturday] I wasn’t prepared.”

“The skill on this team is unbelievable.”

Christobal Huet suffered back spams in Monday night’s second period. After the game, he told me that he’d never suffered them before, and that these were “pretty light.”

Listening to Matt Cooke articulate his unease and unfamiliarity, in his initial hours in Washington, with Boudreau’s system after the game, I asked Huet if traded netminders have it a lot easier. After all, their job doesn’t change no matter what color uniform they wear — just stop the puck. He told me that really the only thing a goalie in his position can do in terms of transitioning to a new team is establish communication patterns/protocols with his new blueline corps. But it was interesting also to listen to him acknowledge that like Cooke he needed to learn and understand Boudreau’s system, even as a player never asked to contribute to it. He explained that he needed to understand his teammates’ responsibilities in all situations to prepare for the consequences of failed assignments. I’d never heard that before, and I found it fascinating.

Boudreau, on the creed that fed the Monday night mauling: “We wanted to make simple plays.” Isn’t it amazing how the execution of simple plays — particularly on the power play — aided of course by a couple of world-class, thread-the-needle passes from one young superstar to another, through the middle of the ice, can lead to a double-digit outburst?

League scoring update: Ovie now has 90 points to Malkin’s 88 (Ovie’s 4th goal of the evening was eventually awarded to Brooks Laich, but AO still earned an assist and his fifth point on the evening). Absent a scoring explosion by Lecavalier, Iginla, or Alfredsson, it’s a two-man chase for the scoring title this season. Lecavalier, who’s third in the league in scoring, now trails Malkin by eight points. When was the last time Russians finished 1-2 in the NHL in scoring?

Never.

Speaking of two-man races, the chase for the Calder — also because of Monday night at the Phone Booth — is likely down to just two: Patrick Kane of the Blackhawks and the Caps’ Nicklas Backstrom. Admittedly, if Jonahon Toews had another 10 games played this season, he’d have my vote; he has 43 points in 47 games, and he may eventually emerge as the most dominant performer in this rookie class. Backstrom’s four points on Monday moved him ahead of Kane and placed him at the very top of the league’s rookies in scoring.