Thaler and OFB's resident beauty queen, Tara Wheeler, on the Comcast set

As summer comes to a close we learn of another important and impassioned media voice for hockey leaving Washington for an exciting career opportunity. Comcast Sportsnet’s Russ Thaler begins the on-air portion of a new chapter in his broadcast career with NBC Sports next week, having worked as an original talent at Sportsnet Mid-Atlantic since its inception more than 10 years ago. His departure is bittersweet for the region’s hockey fans; from my vantage there was no local television sports anchor who brought as much heart-felt passion for pucks to his broadcasts as Thaler.

I never asked Thaler about the genesis of his love for hockey, and I’m not sure I needed to. With his Caps’ coverage he saw the same caliber of human being that characterizes the athletes in our sport that we all quickly come to cherish, and I’m sure he was drawn to the sport to some degree by that. But at home Thaler has a full forward line of young Red Rockers — the perpetually red-clad, oh-so photogenic  Thaler boys, very much a Facebook testament I think to a lot of families in these parts who’ve fallen hard for our guys in red in recent years. And Thaler, for me, represented something especially important: a mainstream media personality who personally led a charge to incorporate a fan’s passion into contemporary sports media coverage. Bloggers initially were criticized for their fan-passion; as time has passed we’ve pushed that passion, crusade-like, into coloring traditional media coverage. And it’s all for the better.

This blog, and especially this blogger, got beyond lucky in befriending Thaler. When Russ hosted ‘Washington Post Live’ for Sportsnet — and it has to be said, the highpoint of that program came with Thaler as host — he took it as his mission to expand hockey’s coverage by incorporating blogging voices in the live program. No one else in town was doing anything like that. Looking back, it was fairly adventurous on his part. Perhaps that’s a part of the reason he’s now taking off for cutting edge national television. I like to think we bloggers delivered what Thaler sought with those segments. I just know we all had a blast doing them.

There are two other qualities I would have you know about Thaler as I got to know him. One, there is no more modest, less ‘TV-pretentious’ personality among broadcasters in this town than Thaler. He loved and valued the panorama of blogs covering hockey here, and he regarded many of us as full-fledged contributors not only to quality coverage but to nurturing this region’s love affair with the game he, too, had fallen hard for.

This is so Thaler: he invited me to his going away party in Bethesda earlier this week, a spacious and stylish party spot clogged with leading sports media luminaries. I felt more than a little out of place as a lone blogger among all these TV stars and big dot com columnists. (But the beer was free, so I quickly got over that.) He made a point of introducing me to a number of his big-name broadcast peers, and heaping warm words for my work in our conversations with them. On his night, he was helping me out.

So he’s a terrific talent in his profession and a first-rate human being, but I also adore him because he knows how to rock. The Hershey Bears helped me score some prime seats to a Rush concert at Giant Center back in April, and Thaler was part of our Caravan to the Friday night show. On the ride up we sipped beers and swapped stories that can never see publication and then lost ourselves in rockers’ delirium for three hours. I think we royally pissed off JoeB — another Rushie whose schedule precluded his own middle-aged, in-arena air drumming — with our reckoning of that first-rate show at the next Capitals’ home game.

Not looking back but taking time to look around . . .

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OFB: Your one-hour, nightly gig on NBC Sports — what’s the scope, and how prominently would you like hockey to be featured in it?

Thaler: I would think that hockey and specifically the NHL will be featured often and enthusiastically on NBC SportsTalk.  The host, I hear, is quite a fan of the game!  Also, on nights when Versus/NBC Sports Network is carrying a game, most of the second half of the show will be devoted to the NHL.  I can tell you that I’ve already lined up two prominent young NHL stars for significant interviews. Neither of them Caps, mind you, but that’s all I can say at the moment.

OFB: For years Caps’ fans benefited from your coverage both in studio and from remotes at the rink. Will your new gig afford you a similar variety of vantages, or is this a high-profile studio slot exclusively?

Thaler: My responsibilities will begin with the nightly show.  NBC SportsTalk will be, and needs to be, my focus. I absolutely loved the pre- and postgame shows I did with Alan May, Al Koken, Joe. B. and Locker, and my experiences doing the rinkside work were some of my favorites (the multiple OT comeback win at MSG last season is a career highlight), but for the time being I am the host of a nightly show and that is fine with me!  Whatever comes out of that I will embrace with all my might.

OFB:  Take a look back over the last 5 years in D.C., and specifically where the Caps and hockey were around 2006 and where they are today as an event and galvanizing civic force. Anything comparable within the Washington sports scene, as long as you covered sports here?

Thaler:  I am a proud member of the family of Caps’ supporters and reporters who covered the team before they became the CAPS as we know them today. I remember one night early in the final days of of the Glen Hanlon era, before the season got underway, producing a “Post Script” imploring the sports fans of the DC area to embrace what I thought was a budding franchise.  Of course it wouldn’t be until after Bruce Boudreau took over on Thanksgiving 2007 that things started to look up, but there was just too much good in that group to ignore.

I haven’t seen anything like it in my 10 years in DC.  Perhaps at the height of Gilbert Arenas’ powers you could say the same things about the Wizards. From a personal perspective, I’ve become a hockey dad because of the Caps. I know that I am not alone in that. My family has taken to this team in the same way Redskins fans were brought up through generations of winning football. So much credit has to go to the organization itself for the way it has embraced its new fans while respecting the ones who came before. I have spent many days at Caps Kid Skates at Kettler with Slapshot and my family. My wife and sons have waited patiently for the players to emerge from the building in to the parking lot. These are memories we will take with us on our new adventure, and when the Caps win the Cup there is a promised trip back to DC for the victory parade. Can’t wait!

OFB:  True story, right — Mrs. Thaler agreed to attend a Rush concert with you — and kept dating you afterward? Do you ever air guitar in front of her?

Thaler:  How do you know when she’s a “keeper”?  When your first real “date” is in Cleveland, Ohio, for a night with the greatest band in the world on the “Counterparts” tour.  Brooke, ever the trooper, was more than game on that night.  Does she share in my devotion to the holy triumverate? No. But that’s okay. She knows what brings me true joy, and once (or twice) a summer I get my Rush fix. Plus, she never makes me turn the channel when “Spirit of Radio” comes on in the car. And if “Time Stand Still” happens to pop up she’ll even sing along. What’s not to love?

P.S.   I have learned a great deal from you about hockey. I’m not talking about x’s and o’s stuff. I’m talking about the culture, the soul, the traditions and idiosyncrasies that weren’t part of my makeup to begin with. Your writing has allowed me to break the surface of the frozen pond.  Thank you for that.

And when he does, you ought to nod your head in acknowledgment and then tell him the story of April 23, 2011. Tell your antagonist that with about six minutes to go in the first period of game 5 against the New York Rangers then, with the Capitals clinging to a 1-0 lead in an elimination game, Mike Green, the claimant to two significant head injuries in the season’s second half, ones that robbed him of duty for 26 of the Capitals’ final 28 regular season games, instinctively slid down on the ice in the slot in front of his goaltender to block a Matt Gilroy slapshot.

With his skull.

What followed were moments of nauseating uncertainty, and the afternoon’s singular silence among the 18,000 in Verizon Center was testament to it. The NBC telecast was able to pinpoint multiple screws being dislodged from Green’s helmet as he lay stricken on the ice. Fortunately, he was up and off the ice on his own in reasonably short order, and ultimately returned to his teammates on the bench, though not for additional playing time. Bruce Boudreau noted in the postgame that had his team lost more rearguards or had circumstances otherwise dictated, he could and would have used Green. Still, Boudreau said in a much needed moment of light-heartedness, “I wish he’d get the magnets out of his helmet.”

The most predictable news in the postgame of yesterday’s 3-1 series-ending triumph over the Rangers was word of Mike Green being awarded the hardhat for his stunningly selfless commitment. The Stanley Cup playoffs boast a rich legacy of moments of harrowing sacrifice like Greener’s yesterday. Sports’ ultimate prize requires it. In a few weeks’ time we may look back on Saturday and identify it as a turning moment in the underwhelming legacy of this franchise in spring.

For Capitals’ fans, Green’s unfathomable courage ought to go a long way to absolving both this individual player’s perceived springtime shortcomings but also those of his team as well. Yesterday afternoon a very special new chapter in the Capitals’ playoff legacy was written, and it truly ought to recast the overall narrative. Tell your antagonists when next they vex you with past scoreboard failings of spring that this color and crest you support is distinctive, and eminently worthy of ardent patronage. Mike Green made it so yesterday.

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Yesterday represented a landmark moment for the core who wear this crest. For the first time in the Era of Ovechkin, a Capitals’ team won a playoff series in fewer than seven games. As a franchise the Caps hadn’t won a playoff series in fewer than seven games in the 21st century — you have to go all the way back to the great run of ’98 to find one.

It’s almost an imperative for a team with Glory aspirations to make reasonably efficient work of their first-round opponent. The rigor of the NHL postseason exacts too much a toll to make seven-game stops a habit series after series. In addition to Green’s scare yesterday the Capitals briefly lost the services of Jason Arnott. During the second intermission media voice after media shared with me the conviction that the ensuing 20 minutes needed to be the series’ last. Almost certainly we know only a fraction of the Capitals’ full tally of significant physical ailments this spring. The Philadelphia Flyers later today may begin wondering what a healthy Chris Pronger might have meant in their series with the Sabres. Anyway, both psychologically and physically this pause in play is of paramount importance to this hockey club.

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Rather regularly OFB readers share with us poignant reflection. “Now have a positive playoff memory on the Saturday before Easter. (I remember when history was made),” one noted in comment last night.

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Yesterday’s outcome was every bit as important for Washington’s hockey fans as it was for Capitals’ players. It was important for our town. To state the obvious, this hockey club is the only winning game in town. The Era of Ovechkin was moving along and progressing largely as it was forecast to when it hit a devastating speedbump last April. That failure last spring ushered in an identity crisis on the ice but it also — and this has been little remarked upon I think — eroded a bit of the optimism that fans new and old here had harbored with Ovi’s arrival. I really believe that that masterful March trade deadline work by George McPhee impacted the fanbase as much as his team.

Another indelible image from Saturday: with about 3 minutes remaining and the outcome certain, in-house cameras panned in on owner Leonsis in his box standing beside his son Zach, both outfitted in red Capitals’ sweaters. The owner recognized the moment and blew a kiss out to the madly devoted, who responded with fresh frenzy. To state the obvious, you won’t find that happening any time soon out at FedEx Field.

Comcast Sportsnet’s Jill Sorenson last night told me that on her route into Chinatown yesterday she found herself in a caravan of cacophonous support for the Caps. Car horns, she reported, were made into a melodic symphony of ‘C-A-P-S Caps!Caps!Caps!,’ with drivers with rolled down windows shouting the chant as accompaniment. We are louder also on our streetways, you see.

I began sensing something special enveloping our community with this team even before Jason Chimera took Manhattan on Wednesday night. The front pages of our newspapers were profiling hockey and chronicling it with uplifting photojournalism. Radio programs in their two- or three-hour entirety are being devoted to the Caps this spring (thank you, Danny Rouhier and 106.7). I’ve even shared my sense that by virtue of the breadth and passion of enlarged media here there is a swelling of civic pride for our Caps that outpaces — out-shrieks in its car horn frenzy — the great run of ’98.

“Washington is a hockey town,” Sorenson told me last night. She’s right, and we deserve a celebration of it with hockey in May.

Orlov, 19, collected two assists in his first two games with the Hershey Bears (AHL) this season after signing an amateur tryout contract with Hershey on February 20. Prior to his stint in Hershey, Orlov appeared in 45 games with the Novokuznetsk Metallurg (KHL) this season, registering 12 points (two goals, 10 assists) and 43 penalty minutes.

Orlov, a 5’11, 202-pound defenseman, was Washington’s second-round selection, 55th overall in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft. He helped lead Team Russia to a gold medal at the 2011 World Junior Championships in Buffalo, recording nine points (one goal, eight assists) in seven games and was named to the tournament All-Star team.

With Kugryshev’s help, we asked Orlov about the adjustment he’s confronting coming over to North America well into the hockey season. And he answered us directly about his thoughts on how the AHL stacks up against the KHL. Kugryshev played his junior hockey in Quebec, and so his transition to North America was perhaps a bit less formidable. The two young Russians are living together in Hershey, which helps, and are voracious consumers of the NHL Network. And we also asked Kugryshev to own up to a moment of conspicuous bravado on Facebook in the immediate aftermath of the Russian World Junior team’s gold medal triumph over Canada back in January.

Eric McErlain and Jonathon Warner during a commercial break this past Saturday night

Some topical highlights:

• The Capitals’ youth-laden roster this season is increasingly the focus of, in some corners, scapegoating scrutiny for the team’s struggles. Not so with our Saturday night panel; it has been the precocious performances of the likes of both young goalies, John Carlson and Karl Alzner, and even recent callups from Hershey that have served as steadying, reliable service all season long. Indeed, the kids have been a highlight in a season of precious few of them.

• Alexander Semin and his looming unrestricted free agency represent George McPhee’s greatest personnel challenge as a manager in his near decade-and-a-half tenure in D.C.

• On these Caps being “just a few points” behind the pace of last season’s President’s Trophy winners: It’s a false source of comfort. It was right about this time last season that the Caps ripped off a franchise-record 14 wins in a row. Who thinks this incarnation of Caps is poised to replicate that? The points-achieving discrepancy between the clubs, not quite readily apparent now, will be in the weeks ahead.

• The captain:  Where is his speed — his breakaway dynamism? (How many breakaways has he had this season?) There appears to be a lack of burst in his stride.

• Most distressing about this season to date: The team’s failure to skate with fire and grit and heart in more than a handful of games.

• The Winter Classic and HBO’s ’24/7′ treatment were bitchin’ good fun.

Incredibly, the Rangers had merely 20 shots on Semyon Varlamov on the night, and put seven past him. The Blueshirts took just two shots on the Capitals’ cage in the final 20 minutes; both shots lit the lamp.

What was so disconcerting about last night’s Massacre in Madison Square Garden was that it came hard on the heels of what most believed was a turn-the-corner performance Saturday versus the Avalanche, when the Capitals brought great work ethic to their effort. Sunday night? Not so much.

Behold, and weep from, the vulgarity of column four:

I can’t add up all those minuses.

It’s now up to six consecutive losses for the Caps, the most consecutive losses in the Bruce Boudreau era, during which time they’ve scored a grand total of 8 goals while surrendering 22. In their past 13 games the Caps have been shut out an astounding four times.

Injuries are playing a part; so too is illness. But the Caps are hardly the most beleaguered club in the league — it’s not like they don’t have big guns in the lineup. They have three of the best players in the world dressing, in fact. Moreover, they have workhorses in the lineup, and when guys like Matt Hendricks time and time again selflessly sacrifice injury by dropping gloves to try and ignite a spark in his teammates, time and time again there is no following ignition.

There has been, from the vantage of this blogger, a palpable unease largely a consistent undercurrent to the season. Comfortable wins are hard to come by. Leads are difficult to protect. There’s been a penchant for falling behind. Ovechkin just doesn’t look himself. Ditto Nick Backstrom. Everyone in opposing sweater brings their best shot to an encounter with Washington, and most nights the Caps aren’t mentally up to the challenge.

It’s under such circumstances that typically you begin to hear whispers about players and their coach in some manner of disconnect. And so it was interesting for me to hear Al Koken take to the Comcast Sportsnet postgame last night and raise the spectre of a coaching change. He didn’t advocate it; he merely articulated it. Telling. Bruce Boudreau’s standing rested somewhat uneasy after last April — the owner had to come out and clear that air. For Gabby the context for this malicious malaise, to some extent, has to be a trend of coming up short when the stakes are highest.

It’s one thing to lose, and lose in prolonged fashion. It’s quite another to get consistently outworked, by opponents mediocre and worse. From some sectors of observers I’m hearing talk of Don’t worry; it’s only December. But there is no lightswitch flipping in hockey, and work ethic knows no calendar.

If you are gravely concerned, you are not alone.

The winter sports mayor of D.C.

In the spirit of the season, I offer a list of 10 things I’m thankful for while commissioned in the Red Army this fall.

(10) The Moxie of Matt Hendricks. The longshot training camp candidate won a checking line center’s job with solid play and especially an ethos of holding Caps’ opponents accountable for their misdeeds directed at his teammates. Late in preseason Boston’s Greg Campbell took some end-boards liberties with the Capitals’ captain in a game, and in a rematch the next night in Beantown Hendricks signaled that the 2010-11 Caps would skate with a little more snarl and swagger: at the opening draw Hendricks dropped ‘em with Campbell, exacting some much-needed frontier justice for his club.

“He didn’t need to be told,” Bruce Boudreau said of Hendricks’ actions that night. “He just watched the game [Tuesday] night and knew what he had to do. I thought, ‘What a team thing [to do].’ It was great.”

(9) A third-pairing profile of effort and courage: John Erskine. Erskine’s career in D.C. has been inconsistent — there have been indications that he’s improved from journeyman status, and rightfully and reliably earned a regular spot on the team’s third-pairing blueline unit, but also fits where his lack of footspeed and limited skillset have been emblematic of a rearguard corps that lacks depth. This season, however, Erskine’s been relatively consistent, effectively physical, and even authored a pair of highlight-reel scores from the point. And for good measure he’s dropped ‘em when his team has needed him to, and he brought a fanbase to its collective feet with this stunning slow-dance with Atlanta’s Eric Boulton on November 14:

(8) An Opening Night of Old Time Hockey. The Caps had 20 fighting majors in 2009-10. In the third period of their home opener October 9 — a 7-2 trouncing of New Jersey — they met 20 percent of that tally. And even without D.J. King in the lineup much the Caps have shown more than a willingness to play it rough and tumble.

(7) The continued candor of Bruce Boudreau. In the postgame of the Caps’ 4-2 victory over Buffalo on November 17, in which his team held a commanding 3-0 lead and could have potentially built on it with some obvious power play opportunities the officials ignored, Bruce Boudreau told media that the evening’s referees “reffed the score.” In an era of scripted soundbite and formulaic drivel from athletes and coaches alike, Gabby nightly holds court  after games and thoughtfully analyzes the evening’s action. He’s unvarnished. He’s a delight.  And, he also makes some endearing Mercedes Benz commercials.

(6) The no. 2 netminder: an actual no. 1? His play has cooled off a bit from a torrid October, but Michal Neuvirth, pressed into duty by a lingering leg injury to Semyon Varlamov, is by many estimates a co-MVP through the first quarter of the season along with Alexander Semin. He was named October’s Rookie of the Month. When both young goalies are healthy the Caps ought to be the benfeciaries of a spirited competiton for no. 1 come spring.

(5) That ‘other Alex’ is our best Alex this season — where would the Caps be sans Semin? To re-sign or not to re-sign? The first-quarter play of Alexander Semin (14 goals, 12 assists in 22 games) is making it exceedingly difficult for Caps’ fans to imagine a Cup-contending team without him. He’s been a fixture in the top 5 of league scoring since late October, and nine of his 14 goals have come at even strength. Additionally, we’ve seen maturation from him in his own end. Comcast Sportsnet hockey analyst Alan May this fall called Semin the team’s best defensive player.

His presence allows Bruce Boudreau to form a dream line of high octane production for a Caps’ team that finds itself trailing late in games, a factor Semin critics ought to consider as his free agency looms. Inexplicably, and indefensibly, Semin was left off the NHL’s All-Star ballot for fans. There is however a write-in campaign for him on Twitter (#WriteInSemin).

(4) The Hockey Hall of Fame welcomes the original and iconic voice of Capitals hockey, Ron Weber. It’s always great seeing a member of the Capitals’ family enshrined in the Hall, but there was something distinctly uplifting about Weber’s honor. This is what I wrote about the moment: “His calls were iconoclastic in their detail, illuminated by his trademark fluency with all manner of statistical analysis. He voice also bore a familial warmth; indeed, it wasn’t unusual, Weber told us, among the thousands of appreciative letters he received over the course of his career to read of a displaced Washingtonian detailing a night in which clear skies brought his Caps’ calls far up the Eastern seaboard on WTOP’s powerful signal.”

(3) Must-See holiday season TV: HBO’s chronicles the Caps and Pens in the leadup to the 2011 Winter Classic. It was an otherwise non-descript day at Captials’ training camp in September when all media present at Kettler were summoned to a surprise briefing, one announcing the Capitals’ participation in the HBO series ’24/7.’ The Caps — our Caps — a storyline for a highly regarded documentary? Yep. ’24/7′ made a portly New York Jets football coach a household name (except in my household). George McPhee apparently became a big fan of that series and this cable outlet’s craftsmanship with sports documentaries. He pledged “unfettered access” to HBO cameras. Wow. The inaugural episode airs December 15, and the four-part documentary will culminate in early January with an insider’s account of the Winter Classic itself.

(2) Quality depth in net. The Caps have used all three prized young goaltenders early on in 2010-11, and all three have offered evidence backing management’s optimism about them. In the offseason, some in media suggested that the Caps would do well to shop for a pricey veteran backstopper, but relative to other needs (a reliable second line center; a physical, shutdown blueliner), that’s well down the list of priorities, thanks to the play of the kids in pads.

(1) Having a hockey-lover own all of Washington’s winter sports empire. Changes in both the appearance and function of Verizon Center have been swift since Ted Leonsis assumed ownership of the building and its pro sports tenants in the offseason. Foremost among them: it actually feels like a hockey game in there now, even in early autumn. It’s cold! But the formation of Monumental Sports & Entertainment hasn’t altered the owner’s accessibility with fans one bit. I can attest; I’ve heard from him (spiritedly!) with most of constructive criticisms of the team I’ve authored this fall.

As impassioned hockey fans following an 82-game regular season through fall, winter, and spring, we understand that our guys are gonna have a bad day or three at the office. A few of them, in fact, even if they rank among the cream of the NHL crop.

But games like last Friday night’s in Atlanta and last night’s, just three nights later in New Jersey, represent I think something more than just egregiously bad days at the office for the Capitals. Comcast Sportsnet’s Joe Beninati, in a moment of commendable candor during last night’s second period, summed up the wreckage thusly: “If you’re just joining us, run! Before it’s too late. Don’t look back!” On Twitter last night our friend Peerless pointed out that Capitals’ head coach Bruce Boudreau, speaking of Friday night’s calamity in Atlanta, called it “as bad a defeat I think I have had since I’ve been here,” then asked his Twitter followers, ‘What does Bruce call this one?’

Of course, the NHL rink is no ordinary office. We labor in somewhat solitary fashion in our cubicles and offices, most of us largely in control of our own fate. NHLers face determined adversaries every night. And NHL referees.

And to play Devil’s Advocate for just a brief moment: This November’s slate is clogged with games and travel and precious little practice time. The Caps today will practice in Raleigh, and it will represent their second such session of the month, which is already 23 days old. Go back and look at the gaps between games in October. Even in December you can see regular two-day-off breaks with which to recover and practice a bit. The Caps of late have surely looked like a team that could benefit from some rigorous practice time, but that’s no excuse for what we’ve seen in two of the last three games.

Since time immemorial hockey clubs far more beleaguered than the Caps in terms of injury or locker room strife have acquitted themselves with far greater professionalism than have our guys over the past five days. We understand that bounces go bad, that goalies get hot, that zebras stink up the joint. What we don’t understand, however, is mere minutes into a second stanza after you’ve hung your wet-behind-the-ears goalie out to dry to the tune of 3-0 — to one of the NHL’s worst clubs — how defensemen can futilely stick-check a bull-rushing checking forward barreling down the middle of your zone. Those weren’t prideful NHL rearguards wearing our city’s crest last night; they were matadors. Were Braden Holtby just a wee bit younger Child Protective Services would have have forcibly removed him from the Capitals’ custody during last night’s second intermission.

Perhaps the greatest indictment of the Capitals last night was their uniform indifference to Matt Hendricks’ dropping ‘em in the early going to try and shake his mates out of their conspicuous lethargy. When one of your own places his face before the fists of a foe and you effectively yawn at the courage, something toxic has taken hold of the evening. Again.

And what is with the parade of players into the room in-game for equipment woes all season long? Did our gang gear up at a garage sale of hand-me-downs in the offseason?

A dread that began lodging itself in my breast last spring is this autumn returning with vigor: as constructed this hockey club is capable of wild extremes — looking outlandishly brilliant in 10- and 30-minute stretches of games but also, inexplicably, mailing it in against even the dregs of the league. I’m not talking about the proverbial “playing down to the competition,” as the Caps have been labeled of doing in seasons past. I’m talking about not showing up at all. It invites scrutiny of the outfit’s leadership.

And speaking of the leader . . . what gives? Ten days ago he seemed merely productive and decent if underwhelming relative to his best-in-the-world bona fides. At this pace, though, not only won’t he be captain-picking his teammates at the Raleigh All-Star game, he won’t be picked early by the game’s captains himself.

On Twitter last night I directed this question to Comcast Sportsnet’s Alan May, who is fast becoming one of my favorite analysts in all of hockey: Does it bother you that two of these “performances” have occurred well within a week of one another? In reply he reminded me of hockey’s unavoidable momentum swings, and how at present the Caps are in the downward arc of one. This morning over a cup of joe in his studio I would follow up with this question: Momentum swings aside, what about playing with pride?

Capitals Postgame Chat with Liz Chang