Enkel hoe doen zij het? The answer may reside in ordinary dimensions made most un-ordinary by the chemical composition of these Capitals. The square footage of their locker room and players bench is identical to that of 29 other clubs, but what’s transpiring within them isn’t. The answer just may be in the alchemy of these Cardiac Caps.

Weeks back regular readers here first began noticing and commenting on an exuberance they witnessed associated with big-goal scoring and victory with this Caps’ club — one that they’d never seen before. It eminates from Ovie and permeates through to the owner’s box. A theory about its genesis:

The necessary and correct coach arrived late in 2007, and his charges answered change’s call in its immediacy; a starkly different new system required patience and growing pains; most importantly, when newness transitioned to normalcy and the adjusted chemicals were placed on the burner of urgency, early in spring a victor’s will was also instilled. Not just any victor, either: he of championship pedigree.

A swagger seems to have settled in on this team — not quite cocky but rather an overwhelming unity, an unyielding spirit — and that’s hockey’s most potent weapon. With that in your room and on your bench, it matters little whether you’re at home or on the road.

Jeff Halpern told the Washington Post on Wednesday, “I don’t see many teams better than [the Caps] in the East. It’s just a matter of making the playoffs.” This morning it sure looks like Halpern’s right, but will the Caps’ fanbase survive the stress-attacks of this month to see any postseason games?

Speaking of the Halpern family, Jeff’s father Mel, a Caps’ season ticket holder since the early 1980s, traveled to Tampa for last night’s game to see his son play. I wondered a bit about dad’s allegiance last night. Obviously, he wanted his son to tally a hat trick, and surely play the finest game of his career, but did he also want to see his home team lose? Might he not also have wanted the Caps to score 4? There was, truly, that much at stake last night — just as there has been with every game the Caps have played in what we should now call our Month of Follicle Greying and Recession.

Blog democracy at its finest — a keeper comment left for us here last night:

“After watching the Tuesday game against Carolina, I realized I needed a haircut. Eighteen dollars and No. 2 clippers later, I was able to watch [last night's] game without being able to grab any hair and pull it out, no matter how hard the Caps made me try!”

It’s a conspiracy, I tell you, by the head coach to get all in the fanbase shiny on top.

Near 10:15 last night I adopted the view that March 2008 has to rank among the most dramatic of months in Washington Capitals’ history. Also, one of the best.

It’s a Friday for a sun-splashed spring cruise on an open highway, listening to a soundtrack selected for euphoria. Don’t worry about the destination. Savor the journey and the beautiful views along the way.

Ventura Highway in the sunshine

Where the days are longer the nights are stronger than moonshine

You’re gonna go I know

‘Cause the free wind is blowin through your hair

Filed in Bruce Boudreau, Eastern Conference, Morning cup-a-joe, Music, Shootouts, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Tomas Fleischmann, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (9)

10/5/07: Embracing Insomnia

By pucksandbooks
Friday, October 5, 2007

Cup'pa JoeI awoke at 4:30 this morning, two hours earlier than my alarm. I’m awake at the same time as Elliot Segal, and like Elliot today, my head is crammed full of thoughts about a new hockey season in Washington.

I’m thinking about the visitors’ locker at Philips Arena just now, how in darkness just like my bedroom’s those snazzy looking new Caps’ threads — admittedly poorly engineered, and likely to be the death of about 70 NHLers this season — were already hanging in place, set out by the dutiful Capitals’ equipment staff. I thought about how different the Washington players might feel as they first entered the room early this evening and seized upon the new uniform systems. I do think it likely they’ll feel more attachment to them tonight than they did while wearing them during the exhibition season (if for no other reason than a fair number of players had the fight ’til Sunday night to win them). In no small way they’re emblematic of a changed hockey culture in Washington this season.

I’m thinking about those 22 points the boys more or less need to make up to vie for the eighth spot in the East this season. It’s a tall peak to surmount, but I think it likely. For one thing, I don’t see those points in terms of 11 additional regulation-time victories. Last season the Caps authored what will stand the passage of time as the worst set of shootout performances in hockey. In hockey history. If they’d altered nothing about their shootout lineup this summer they couldn’t have gone one-for-eleven again. (Could they?) But GMGM brought in two of the league’s best shootout marksmen (Nylander and Kozlov). It isn’t irrational to imagine the team meeting something like .500 in shootouts this season, and if they do, that 22-point challenge has been reduced to about 17. I’m almost looking forward to shootouts this season. Almost.

It’s very quiet in suburban Maryland at 4:50 in the morning, but it won’t be inside Verizon Center during hockey games this season, thanks to a $25 million investment hanging high at center ice and encircling the lower rings of the seating tier. We’ll be exposed to an atmosphere, I wager, the likes of which we in D.C. never have before, and how fitting that it debuts alongside a buzz-generating hockey team. You’ll agree with me, I think, that Ivan Majesky in enlarged hi-def is still Ivan the Terrible. This morning in my dark quiet I’m thinking about a winter Friday or Saturday night with a marquee visitor in town, the Caps on a three- or four-game win-streak, the house full or close to it, the Alexes scoring on binges, and all that noise.

Still before 7:00 and still dark, I learn I’m not alone in my puck thoughts: I receive an instant message from the Caps’ Spike Parker. He’s working already and I’m blogging: it’s just like we’re back in Moscow together again, except the women in my neighborhood don’t look quite as fit and alluring. We wish each other a Happy Opening Day.

I’m thinking about the novelty all of the media on the Caps I’ve consumed this week. We may look back on this week as perhaps the most significant for media for this team in its history, when a perfect storm of blogging, new and renewed print and broadcast zeal, and some re-engineering by old media combined to deliver a feast for hockey fans in this region. Somebody tell Tony and Mike.

I’m thinking about the bloggers’ season kickoff soirée scheduled for this evening downtown at the Grand Hyatt, and how eager I am to reconnect with so many friends I made last season and didn’t get to see over the summer. (Vogs, I’ll have one for you.)

Hockey’s here again, in my hometown. Even in the dark, I can look out and see the correct alignment of the planets.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, George McPhee, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Shootouts, Spike Parker, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (8)

On Taking in Caps’ Shootouts with Eyes Wide Open

By pucksandbooks
Friday, September 21, 2007

Cup'pa JoeAfter practice Wednesday Glen Hanlon addressed the impact he believes his new high-priced free agent forwards will have on his team’s shootout prospects this season. On paper, it would appear to be a dramatic one. When you visit NHL.com’s stats page for shootouts from last season, you notice both Michael Nylander and Viktor Kozlov’s names on the first page of success. Through two seasons of shootout tally stats, that’s not a perch in which you’ve commonly found Caps.

It’s hard to imagine a team being worse in the shootout than the Caps were last season — they took 40 shootout shots and converted a grand total of 5 of them (that’s 12.5 percent) — but there actually was one, Carolina. The Hurricanes, however, only took 17 extra-extra session shots in 2006-07 (scoring on just one! Ouch!!). 

In shootouts, the Caps aren’t even Shaq at the free throw line.

Here’s how bad things shootout got for Glen Hanlon last season: on March 1, in a 10-rounder against Tampa at Verizon Center, the coach even had Ben Clymer, Matt Bradley, and Donald Brashear rush in from the red line. (All three missed of course. All 10 Caps’ shooters missed that night, if memory serves.) I was inside Verizon Center that night, and I left thinking I’d have to return with my gear bag when covering future games in case Hanlon wanted to summon me for shootout duty.

Whatever your views on the appropriateness of the shootout as a game-settler, they’re here to stay for the foreseeable future, and for most teams they determine an important number of standings points over the course of the season. It’s hard to fathom the Caps remaining grotesque in them this season and qualifying for the postseason.

The addition of a single quality shooter in the shootout lineup can make a world of difference, but it would appear that Hanlon will be adding two this season. Both Nylander and Kozlov converted just under 40 percent in the shootout a season ago. On a team of 10-percenters (and often worse), that’s a revolutionary success rate. In his remarks Wednesday, Hanlon indicated that for now, both newcomers would be penciled in for shootouts at season’s start. 

Which sets up an intriguing bit of personnel exclusion: in such a rotation one of the Alexanders necessarily would be excluded. Or . . . would both? Neither player — especially Ovechkin all last season long — looked particularly comfortable during shootouts, and after his dynamic success in them in the opening weeks of his NHL career in 2005-06, Ovechkin has been snakebit, stymied, and stoned, stoned, stoned ever since by all caliber of NHL netminder.

Hanlon on Wednesday actually acknowledged the novelty of sitting his magic-hands set of Russians during the team’s shootouts.

“Can you imagine if we had 15,000 in the seats and I sat those guys?”

He then suggested something about his fate involving a noose or a burning at a stake, I think. Even more interesting, according to the coach, is that apparently one of his most impressive performers in shootout-like drills in practice is defenseman Jeff Schultz. I don’t think we’re going to see him in the coach’s top 3 very often early on this season.

But if the shootout struggles continue, you never know.      

Filed in 2 Points, Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Glen Hanlon, Michael Nylander, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Overtime, Shootouts, Training Camp, Viktor Kozlov, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (7)

Here’s Another Pretty Picture — Our Under-18ers Eliminating Canada Today

By pucksandbooks
Friday, April 20, 2007

USA Hockey’s website has the delightful details.

“For the second time in five days, the 2007 U.S. National Under-18 Team and Canada needed a shootout to determine a winner. Today, Team USA topped its rival to advance to the 2007 IIHF World Under-18 Championship. James vanRiemsdyk was credited with the shootout game-winner, and Team USA will play for gold (Sunday at 11 a.m. EDT) for the third time in three years.”

U.S National Under-18 Team
Filed in American Hockey, IIHF, Shootouts, USA Hockey| Permalink| Comments (1)

Knee-jerks: Practice, 3/20/07

By Gustafsson
Tuesday, March 20, 2007

With an alternate work schedule today, I was able to attend my first Caps practice since training camp and first visit to Kettler Capitals Iceplex since the ribbon cutting press conference. I took a few notes and will present them in typical OFB Knee-Jerk style.

  • I’d estimate the attendance at about 50-75 fans. A practice at high-noon can’t hurt and it makes me wish I worked closer to Ballston. It’s probably just as well because an “extended lunch” would probably become a bad habit.
  • Attendance from the MSM included Lindsay Czarniak. Here’s hoping her non-game day visit means improved quantity and quality of Caps’ coverage on News4.
  • Team mood seemed to be quite good. Amazing what winning — and winning big — can do.
  • Through most of the practice, the top two stars of Sunday’s game were skating on the same line. Semin on the right wing and Fleishmann on the left. Beech centered them.
  • Ovechkin was sporting a fish tank off his helmet, courtesy of Dan Boyle.
  • With the hand injury, Pettinger was still practicing, albeit he was the lone man wearing red.
  • At some point during drills, both Ovechkin and Semin each tried to complete a “Wheeler goal.”
  • The last 5 minutes of the “official” practice icluded a shootout competition. Chris Clark’s team, clad in black, pitted against the Russians & Co., donning white. The cheers grew louder with each goal scored by the Men in Black. I soon found out the reason for the commotion. The losing team in white, upon their loss, took to the ice, laid down on their backs, and began a series of crunches. I didn’t notice if Brent Johnson had to endure the punishment of loss.
  • An impromptu unofficial drill took place after practice with Brent Johnson in net surrounded by Brashear, Clark, Laich, Eminger and others as a shot was taken from the top of the circle. BJ would leave a rebound for one of the masses to pick up the sluff and try to score. I did not keep track.
  • I was able to thank Lindsay for dramatic reduction of News4 sports replays that include slowed down action and cheesy sound effects. The SportsMachine style of replay, mercifully, seems to be headed to pasture with its trainer.
  • When asked if WRC had named a replacement for the top sports anchor, Lindsay told me that she and Dan Hellie will split those duties. Congrats to both. With split responsibilities, all sports not owned by Dan Snyder should get increased coverage.
Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Brent Johnson, Brooks Laich, Chris Clark, Donald Brashear, Knee-Jerk, Lindsay Czarniak, Shootouts, Steve Eminger, WRC, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (1)

Morning cup-a-joe (1/13/07)

By pucksandbooks
Saturday, January 13, 2007

cupajoe.jpegA WCHA showdown between two promising Caps’ prospects last night went the way of Travis Morin and Minnesota State, who in shocking fashion on the road scored 5 goals in the game’s final 15 minutes to upend Andrew Gordon and his 4th-ranked St. Cloud St. Huskies 6-4. Gordon scored a goal for the Huskies, but Morin went 1 and 2 for the Mavericks. A rematch at Minnesota State takes place tonight.

Even more shocking was the sub-.500 Wisconsin Badgers taking out no. 1 ranked Minnesota 2-1. Caps’ prospect Andrew Joudrey had the primary assist on the game-winner. Minnesota’s last loss? Twenty four games earlier, on opening night, October 6, against Maine. The victory was the 1,000th in Wisconsin Badgers’ hockey history. Not a bad way to earn no. 1,000, upsetting no. 1.

Senior Joudrey leads the Badgers in scoring, with 4 goals and 15 assists in 23 games, but Mike Eaves’ club is pretty anemic in the offensive end. Still, Joudrey is a likely Caps’ training camp attendee this September, and he may get a good look as a defensive forward in Hershey. He wears the ‘C’ for Wisconsin.

Caps’ collegiate netminder prospect Justin Mrazek stopped all 24 shots he faced in Union’s 5-0 win over Rensselear last night. While the Engineers are seriously struggling this season, they did enjoy 10 power play chances against Union.

Speaking of Hershey, they were led by a gladiator last night . . . Maximus Daigneault, who stopped all 30 Binghamton shots he faced plus four more in a shootout. The Bears prevailed 1-0 on the road, overcoming an 0-for-9 performance on the power play, ending a three-game losing streak, and remaining tied with Norfolk for first place with 59 points. The baby Sens’ netminder acquitted himself in fine fashion as well: Kelly Guard stopped all 40 Bears’ shots he faced in regulation and overtime. Winning in shootouts isn’t something we’ve seen Hershey do a lot of the past two seasons.

Two shutouts by two goaltending prospects on the same night — you don’t see that very often.

Happy Hockey Day in Canada, everyone.

Filed in American Hockey League, College Hockey, Hershey Bears, Morning cup-a-joe, Prospects, Shootouts, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (2)

Morning cup-a-joe (1/5/07)

By pucksandbooks
Friday, January 5, 2007

cupajoe.jpegThis is my morning allegation: Boyd Gordon, the quarterback of last night’s second-period, two-on-one that led to Alexander Semin’s first goal, giving the Caps a 4-1 lead and sending the Hab’s Christobal Huet to an early shower, intentionally banked a soft ’shot’ off of him knowing that its rebound would be easily potted by his sniper teammate flanked on his left. It’s a play I’ve only seen in pickup and college hockey. Never seen it in a Caps’ game, ever. It’s a bold and startling allegation — Gordon was in tight, in prime scoring position — but based exclusively on the footage we saw from the play, I’d challenge my readers today, after considering the evidence I put forth, to point out the fallacy of my thesis.

My evidence: Gordon was altogether unchallenged on his approach to Huet’s cage, the lone Habs’ defender clearly cheating to Semin’s side, knowing where the danger odds were positioned and poised. And confronted with that two-on-one personnel, who wouldn’t have made the identical decision? As such, Gordon didn’t have to unleash a rushed or contested shot. He was so much in the clear that, inventorying his surroundings, he slowed up and transferred his weight into a shooter’s perfectly cocked stance.

He clearly didn’t fan on the shot, either. But for a big-league forward in so prime and unchallenged a position, and with no apparent physical error on his part, he sure didn’t place much velocity on his shot.

I next noticed the shot’s placement: on the ice, five-hole. That close to the cage, the ’shot’ could either beat Huet between his pads (unlikely) or deflect low off his stick, almost certainly out front, to Gordon’s waiting and undefended teammate. Had Gordon chosen to shoot high, Huet could have gloved it or blocked it over and behind the cage, or far off to one corner far away from Semin, and thereby purchased precious time for his teammates to recover from the Caps’ odd-man advantage.

This morning I can’t recall ever seeing so soft a shot from a big-leaguer in tight in completely uncontested circumstances that didn’t involve some manner of physical error. And if Gordon had shot high and had Huet gloved it or deflected it out of harm’s way, what manner of rebuke might you imagine he’d have received back on the bench, reminded that accompanying him horizontal on the rush was one of the planet’s finest set of hands?

Is what I’m positing positively preposterous? And if in this particular instance you find my argument unpersuasive, as a general strategy under such circumstances, do you find it plausible to any degree?

Semin’s second goal is also worthy of some reflection. Recall that he sliced in from the left boards of the Habs’ zone and allegedly — for my eyes, nor the television camera’s, couldn’t pick it up — picked the far right top corner while moving laterally across the slot. I only noticed that he scored after the puck had rocketed out of the cage and back out to the blueline. A stunning bit of sniping.

But then I immediately thought about the increasing tendency we’ve seen by shooters this season during shootouts of swerving out wide and approaching the cage laterally, rather than challenging goalies in straight-on fashion. This affords the shooter the advantage of opening the goalie’s pads. And I thought of the struggles we’ve see so often this season in the shootouts from both of our Russian snipers, who’ve yet to make the kind of move Semin was fairly forced to by last night’s third-period rush. Admittedly the shootout circumstances are plainly different from Semin’s play last night, but going forward, I wonder if we’ll see them consider this alternative approach in shootouts?

Filed in Alexander Semin, Montreal Canadiens, Morning cup-a-joe, Shootouts, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (4)

THN: There’s a Science to Shootouts

By pucksandbooks
Friday, November 24, 2006

In the cover story of the Nov. 21 THN, Ken Campbell examines the dos and don’ts of shootouts. THN analyzed 230 attempts in 28 shootouts from the season’s start through November 6. The piece’s most startling observation arrives early and is telling: “Few teams do anything more than pay cursory attention to the shootout.”

Only eight or ten New York Rangers, Campbell claims, typically linger after practice formally ends and join a shootout contest, in which the stakes are supremely high: bottles of orange juice. Campbell observes:

Don’t these people realize each team averaged 10 games that went to a shootout last season? Do your homework, study the competition, be completely prepared to win the extra point and you might win 7 of those 10 games. Fly by the seat of your pants, go with a hunch and see what happens and you win 3 of those 10 shootouts.

And what would those extra shoout wins do for the team that did yeoman’s research? Well, if you’re the Maple Leafs, Atlanta Thrashers or Vancouver Canucks last year, that would’ve been enough to just get you into the playoffs. And just getting into the playoffs last year for the Edmonton Oilers translated into 11 extra home games.”

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Filed in Media, Print, Shootouts, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (2)

The Psychology of Shootout Success . . . and Suckitude

By pucksandbooks
Thursday, November 16, 2006

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?

rages-olie.jpg

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Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Ottawa Senators, Shootouts, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (2)