By now you realize that the Caps secured their 70th point last night, equaling their totals for last two seasons, with still 15 games remaining. The rebuild is indeed over.
This morning the Caps’ communications staff sent out its customary morning-after notes and story links, and in it observed that the team’s last three wins have been achieved comfortably (20-5 is the goals tally in the past four games): “Not sweating out every win has been a nice luxury for the team as it chases its first playoff berth since 2003, and could be a sign that it has developed a killer instinct,” the email noted.
I extolled the virtues of the NHL Network when I first encountered it on my cable system last autumn. There is there now a slate of new promotional commercials every bit as endearing as the ones we reveled in last month. Anyway, very late Monday night and early into Tuesday, with so few league games scheduled last night, the network was a bathhouse of schadenfreude for Capitals’ fans as goal after Capital goal was replayed and richly remarked upon by the network’s studio personalities. I lost a good bit of sleep so schadenfreuding, and I was left with the impression that over the next 10 years we in D.C. could see a whole lot more of such nights on that outlet.
I spent more than 15 minutes talking to Matt Cooke after the game Monday night — everyone else media was hording around Ovechkin, understandably. This is a guy who’s spent the entirety of his not-so-short NHL career in a very winning NHL organization. He’s been here in D.C. about 90 hours. He was Monday night — in no uncertain terms — effusive in his praises for the talent level and human being quality of NHL players newly surrounding him.
I won’t put words in his mouth, but he all but forecasted more beatdowns, this season, of Monday night’s variety. It was Cooke who told me, “Had Toskala not been so good (Saturday), it could have been 6-0 in the first then.” He also told me this: “There’s not one part of [Boudreau's] system here that was in Vancouver. Not one.” I’m telling you, I’ve talked to a lot of NHLers the past two years, and I’ve never heard a guy with this credibility so dispassionately stake so stark a forecast. He’s still somewhat a Capitals’ outsider, but he’s been inside long enough to see what he’s surrounded by. And it impresses him mightily.
If Alexander Ovechkin earns a Hart Trophy this year, we’ll be able to point to some ungodly and perhaps vote-swaying performances by him against some of the league’s flagship franchises: versus Montreal on January 31, which featured the Ovechkin hat trick, and Monday night’s 5-point performance against another Original Six squad, on national television. The Caps travel to Chicago on March 19, where there’s a serious revival taking place, and where there’s an excellent chance of another set of 21,000-plus sets of eyes on him. The Hawks have had like six crowds of over 21,000 in their rink this season. The larger the challenge, the larger Ovechkin seems to perform, and sharing a sheet of ice that night with the revitalized Hawks and their young guns Kane and Toews ought to get his Russian Machine oil pumping.
I’m now of the opinion that when hockey greatness transpires at Verizon Center the two newspapers in town — all other things sports news otherwise being normal — will splash the news in impressive technicolor photojournalism, as we see this morning. That’s a marvelous media maturation directed at what was, say just three months ago, the afterthought sport in town.
And we know who’s leading the Revolution.
16 Comments
Former Cap Matt Pettinger roughed up Toews on Sunday.
http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/hockey/blackhawks/cs-080303-chicago-blackhawks-crawford-goalie,1,1625621.story
Tough Toews
Rookie Jonathan Toews arrived at Monday’s practice following a trip to the dentist in time to watch his teammates complete their preparation for Tuesday’s game against the Wild in St. Paul.
Toews said he will play against the Wild despite receiving 40 stitches in his mouth and chipping a tooth when he was checked by Vancouver’s Matt Pettinger, who got his stick up during the play and upset the Hawks.
“Maybe it was a little late,” Toews said of the hit. “It might have been my own stick when I got it up to protect myself. I need to keep my head up a little bit and maybe see it coming. Be smarter and be ready for that sort of thing.”
Toews will wear a full-caged mask to protect himself against the Wild. He said it was the first time he’s lost a tooth playing hockey.
“I’ve been pretty lucky so far. I guess it’s part of the game.”
Given the precipitous drop in goal scoring in the past decade, Ovechkin’s 50 goals is all the more impressive.
“Ovechkin became just the second player to reach 50 goals in fewer than 70 games in the eight seasons since Gretzky retired.”
For more at the National Post:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/postedsports/archive/2008/03/03/nhl-ovechkin-s-magnificent-milestone.aspx
Guess I’ll be trying out some of Austin Grill’s Wings tonight…
Their wings are pretty good — just get there early, or place your order by phone in advance. Last time I went to the one in Bethesda after a 6-goal game I got one of the last orders — they’d gone through over 300 pounds of Wings and were almost out.
Good to know, thx. I’ll call the Alexandria one this afternoon.
Does anyone have a spare ticket stub?
I donated last night’s tickets for the Wilson High School Hockey fundraiser/auction.
I picked a hella game to skip.
Ya gotta love the first few grafs of the Boston Globe’s gamer:
Bruins taken to the beltway
Rolling team hits the skids in ugly Washington pileup
By Fluto Shinzawa, Globe Staff | March 4, 2008
WASHINGTON - Before last night’s 10-2 bloodbath, Bruins coach Claude Julien came up with a twist.
Julien, concerned with the Bruins’ wretched record in home games that directly followed road matches (0-4-1), decided to have his players fly home immediately after last night’s meeting with Washington and stay at a downtown Boston hotel prior to tonight’s showdown with Florida at TD Banknorth Garden.
Rumor has it, however, that the Bruins headed straight to Mass. General for ice packs, IVs, and transfusions to rid their bodies of last night’s ill affair.
“Everything went wrong today,” said Marco Sturm.
Washington is notorious for the stink of partisan politics. But last night, there was a particularly foul odor emanating from all things black and gold at the Verizon Center, the stage for a hockey game that turned into an embarrassment. The Capitals scored six first-period goals - the second-most a Bruins team ever has allowed in one period (Boston gave up seven to Detroit March 4, 1945).
“Unfortunately we weren’t ready for it,” said Julien. “When you’re not ready for it, you can’t just turn on a switch and adjust. The damage was done in the first eight minutes.”…
Greetings All,
We’ve got Owner Ted on the show tonight at 5pm. Hoping to devote an entire segment (about 10 minutes) to emails from the informed.
Tarik El-Bashir and Mike Wise from The Post will also be on the show.
Looking forward to all your input.
WPL
Actually, Alexandria Austin Grill ran out of wings by lunch time the first time we got 6 . ..Last night I had visions of some corporate guy going “where do we find 10,000 lbs of wings by tomorrow?”
Just remember that if you do go and get the wings, be a decent person about it. I had a server complain because people would show up, get the free wings and water, and not leave a tip (under the premise that since it was free, there’s nothing to tip for).
Order other food and, please, tip your server generously (provided that the service was good).
Just had my lunchtime wings at Bethesda’s location. I finished 9 of 10. Quick math tells me that’s a better wing-completion ratio than Kolzig’s save percentage on the season.
WPL folks:
Ask Tarik what he meant in his blog post when he wrote:
“Ovechkin also mentioned something interesting: he said that during his slump, he was helped by his personal trainer. Not the team trainer, a trainer he flew in from Russia late last month.”
Exactly what did this “trainer” do to help?
JJ -
I met the trainer in question during his visit, and with Dmitry Chesnokov’s help, interviewed him. He helped Semin with his badly injured ankle. Many of the Russians in the NHL hire trainers from home (with whom they work in the offseason) to travel here in mid-season and give them a good working over. On its face it appears an indictment of North American hockey trainers, but it isn’t. It’s just that the training regimens vary greatly — both obviously produce great results, and the Russians like theirs.
pucks,
I would like to add if you don’t mind, that the training techniques offered by the Russian trainer in question have produced great results for Ovechkin, Malkin, Radulov, Kozlov and others. Nikolishin, for example, is lighting fires all over the place in the Russian Superleague. And he is not a young kid.
An interview with the trainer will be available soon.
Ah, OK, gotcha. I guess I’ve been reading too many Bonds/Clemens stories. Sorry. Gotta stop that habit.
Austin Grill in Alexandria hadn’t run outta wings when I got there. Yummy!
Post a Comment