On Frozen Blog » Joe Beninati

Late-Night Gamewatch Duty Falls Upon the Young

The OFB Team — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:29:45 +0000

One of the virtues of having undergraduate associates is that they can be assigned to monitor West Coast games while we old geezers hit the hay around period two for work in the morning. Take it away, night owls:

1st Period

Andrew’s take:

It is hard to make a definitive decision for or against the Av’s third jersey in this corner. It looks as if it harkens back to a more classic era but the strange color scheme makes it look like a bad Arena Football League or IHL sweater. Pucksandbooks astutely pointed out (before he went to bed) that there is a very Atlanta Thrashers look to them, which begs the question: why would you want to look anything like a largely unsuccessful franchise?
The Caps continued their first period dominance with two unanswered goals in the first frame. They have now outscored their opponents 43-17 in the first 20 minutes.
Both callups continued the trend of making an immediate impact as soon as they hit the ice. Birthday boy Kyle Wilson had an assist on his first shift and almost had a goal on his second. Later he added another assist. He looked most comfortable in his NHL debut. Meanwhile, Karl Alzner authored quick and accurate tape-to-tape passes and played super solid positionally. We shouldn’t be surprised by this any more, though, as Quintin Laing, Matthieu Perreault, Keith Aucoin, and Jay Beagle all were called up and had reliable if not strong stints with the team. Moreover, callups from Hershey never seem out of place, or uncertain of their assignments, in Bruce Boudreau’s system, precisely because it’s one that’s instituted organization-wide. Even the parent and affiliate practice sessions mirror one another down to the drill and minute.

Alex’s take:

When Alex Ovechkin isn’t shooting, his passing game is *ON*. He set up Knuble’s goal completely unselfishly on a play he’d normally shoot on, just as he set up Backstrom’s two-goal game against Toronto. Looks like Crosby’s becoming a better goal-scorer this season and Ovechkin’s playmaking skills are blossoming this campaign too. Him and Backie have sharing their games with each other.

Theodore looks strong and looked strong against Carolina. Whatever was bothering him last month has certainly not been in his coconut lately.Doubters may disagree, but his “poor” performances are more defensive errors than his.

When Alex Ovechkin isn’t shooting, his passing game is *ON*. He set up Knuble’s goal completely unselfishly on a play he’d normally shoot on, just as he set up Backstrom’s two-goal game against Toronto. Looks like Crosby’s becoming a better goal scorer this season and Ovechkin’s playmaking skills are blossoming this campaign too.
Theodore, on again, off again, on again: he looked strong last night and he looked strong against Carolina. Whatever was bothering him last month has certainly not been in his coconut much lately. Doubters may disagree, but his “poor” performances seem to include more defensive errors than we see with Semyon Varlamov in net. Do you think it’s possible that the team plays differently in front of the two goalies to any degree — even subconsciously?
Interminable goal reviews not only rob hockey games of their flow but often halt the momentum one team is enjoying. A new glacier formed in the Rocky Mountains in the time it took Toronto to adjudicate Brooks Laich’s kick-in goal, and seconds after play finally resumed the Caps out on the ice didn’t quite seem to be moving their legs as before, and Eric Fehr went to the sin bin for holding on that shift.

2nd Period

Andrew’s take:

While there was so much good in this period, the hit on Green just can’t be ignored. It is clear to me that Green is viewed as one of the Caps “can’t lose” players, that he’s irreplaceable. In my mind there is no question that the hit was dirty, and warrants a sizable suspension (not holding my breath for that). Koci led with a shoulder to the head, and I don’t think it was any coincidence that it occurred after the Caps were up 5-0.
Keeping the foot on the gas was the theme of this period. Earlier in the year Coach Bruce Boudreau said the team needed to learn how to win 3-0 and not 9-0. Watching them this season, I think the way that the team wins 3-0 is by actually winning 9-0. If they stop gunning for the net or playing their elite playmaking style it seems like they get caught flat-footed and on their heels a lot.
A tip of the victory glass to John Erskine. The quiet big man wasted no time seeking retribution for the hit on his teammate. At the start of the season many were worried about the team’s toughness after Donald Brashear left, and there are very legitimate questions as to whether having two “middleweights” carry out the enforcing is an adequate substitute, but there can be no denying the vigilance and guts of Erskine and Matt Bradley.

Alex’s take:

The Avs looked flat without the puck. With the puck, only a couple of their lines were buzzing, but if this was a first-place team playing tonight, that was pretty pitiful. Duchene and O’Reilly, really, were nowhere to be seen. Thumbs up to the D tonight for keeping them quiet.
Erskine’s game really picked up in this period. Over the past few weeks he’s been one of the safest players for the Caps, always funneling the puck deep in the offensive zone and digging deep in the defensive corners. Locker mentioned his minutes were up because Morrisonn only played five minutes the whole game, but did a lot with them including sticking up for his buddy Mike Green.
A shift for the ages: with about seven-and-a-half minutes left in the second stanza the Caps’ fourth line of Chris Clark, Dave Steckel, and Matt Bradley pinned the Avs in their own end for a seeming eternity, outhustling and out-playmaking their hosts at every turn. Ultimately they scored, too. The game was already 4-0 Caps before the goal. The effort and production on that shift seemed a microcosm of the entire night.
Forget Flash, he’s on Fire. He really wanted to get that hattrick, and the way he was shakin’ and bakin’ made him look like he was hell-bent on scoring his third. Unlucky to not get it in the end, but if he keeps up the way he’s been playing, it’ll happen really soon, I bet.

3rd Period

Andrew’s take:

What does it say about the Caps scouting and coaching that they can seamlessly switch forwards and d-men in and out of the front three and back two? That was a positively emergency bit of personnel movement required by Gabby in the game’s second half — they were down to just three D at one point! And they surrendered just the lone goal to the Avs. Amazing.

Alex’s take:

When Joe B and Locker have nothing else to say about how the Caps thoroughly crushed the Avs, well . . . there really isn’t.
The Lisa Hillary Christmas sweater back in the Comcast studio looked a heck of a lot better than the Avs’ third sweater.

Say Hello to a Series of Sixty Minutes of Quality Hockey

pucksandbooks — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:29:43 +0000

Three periods of complete hockey from this team that had gone conspicuously long this season without them now arrive nightly, in successive fashion. It wasn’t there to begin the roadtrip in Montreal, but the Caps got the win that night in a shootout. Carolina two nights later was a step in the right direction. And then the last three games, including a brief layover at home against Florida, have been textbook. “No lapses [tonight],” Craig Laughlin told his Comcast Sportsnet audience late in the third period Monday night. It’s a team in a groove alright, and it’s a team having an awful lot of fun playing hockey right now.

The night’s line for a liberated AO: 2 goals, 7 shots, about a half dozen hits, 22 minutes of ice. Basically, your typical AO brilliant game. He’d caused quite a stir with his reaction to his two-game suspension over the weekend — “maybe it just get me more angry” — but that turned out to be bluster. As we should have suspected. Ovi loves nothing so much as playing hockey, and when that’s taken away from him he takes it personally. That’s a fabulous trait.

Admit it: when the Caps were awarded the game’s first three power plays — all in the first period — and went 0-for, it just felt like it wasn’t going to be their night, no?

Tampa entered play last night trailing the Caps by a dozen points in the Southeast. Huge game for the hosts. The ‘Bolts needed their Big Three of Levacalier, St. Louis, and Stamkos to play big in a big game. Did you think they did? Last spring I came to the opinion that just as the wonderful talent Stamkos was ascending into a star NHL career Lecavalier and St. Louis would experience their respective thirtysomething career descents. Last night did nothing to change me of that opinion. There’s a lot of wear on those French Canadian tires, and in Lecavalier’s case, miles still to go on them. Incidentally, Brooks Laich is outscoring him this season.

Semyon Varlamov = a Lamborghini of lateral speed.

His play the past few weeks has rocketed him up a number of important goaltending categories. He’s now 7th in the league in goals-against average (2.21), and tallying both his regular season and postseason games the past two seasons, he’s earned four shutouts in fewer than 40 games. And of course he’s not playing behind the ‘76 Habs’ blueline. It’s time to get seriously excited about him.

The development of Eric Fehr (points in seven straight games) is one of the now-not-so-young season’s most important and encouraging storylines. I venture to say that upwards of three-quarters of the Capitals’ fanbase had tossed in the towel on him in recent months, and of course did so loudly reminding of the Caps failure to grab Ryan Getzlaf (Fehr at no. 18, Getzlaf to Anaheim at 19) in the ‘03 draft . I never did, partly because out at Kettler in camps I kept seeing displays of so much elite raw scoring ability in Fehr, and partly out of a conviction that you don’t put up consecutive 50-goal campaigns in the WHL without a gifted game. Fehr of course is never going to be Getzlaf , but the wager here is that he’s going to enjoy a terrific NHL career — and at a position of need in this organization. On the whole Getzlaf thingy (and Mike Richards went later in that 2003 first round as well), move beyond it. The Caps did ok with picks like Mike Green and John Carlson deep in subsequent first rounds.

Craigh Laughlin referenced the Harlem Globetrotters in analogizing the Caps’ passing with the man advantage, and I thought that clever and appropriate. I remember seeing the Globetrotters out at old Capital Centre back in the ’70s, the real Harlem Globetrotters, and they were famous and world-class entertaining for their ball movement, kicking it back and forth from the perimeter to the paint, behind-their-back-passing and sleight-of-hand maneuvering making millions, young and old, smile. I remember the Globetrotters passing up layups in their prolonged exhibitions of ball possession razzle-dazzle, scoring only when they felt they’d entertained long enough. The Caps to an extent do this as well on the power play, almost toying with four defenders in the offensive zone and at times passing up decent scoring opportunities for the perfect one. The Globetrotters of course were being intentionally cute, in exhibitions. While it’s a marvelous testament to their skill level and poise with the puck, the Caps aren’t playing exhibitions, and their downfall at times is being too cute with the puck. But what a nice problem to have.

When I watched the Adam Oates-Peter Bondra-Sergei Gonchar power play in Washington I was convinced I wouldn’t see its like here again in this lifetime. Ovi-Backstrom-Semin and Green are a whole aesthetic level above, however. Wow.

The Caps are real good at home (9-2-3) and virtually New Jersey-good on the road (10-3-3). There is now serious separation from the rest of the division (double digits). In the Comcast studio during last night’s postgame Lisa Hillary asked the broadcast team about any concern we ought to have about this team’s peaking too early in the season. Laughlin suggested that there would be brief struggles in midseason, perhaps, and that’s about it, which, given the success the Caps have had while battered by injury, and with Semyon Varlamov’s emergence as a between-the-pipes stud, sounds about right. But I really liked JoeB’s point about strong play early in a season; he noted that recent Stanley Cup winners all had come out of the gates real, real strong.

So . . . About That Goaltending

The OFB Team — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:46:39 +0000

I wasn’t the most popular fella in these parts when, in the middle of summer, I offered the opinion that losing out on Cristobal Huet and settling for Jose Theodore didn’t exactly inspire dreams of circling around Verizon Center ice with Lord Stanley raised high. To be fair: the Caps pursued Huet with vigor, and lost out having made a very good-faith effort to re-up with him.
But at the time I recall the Capitals’ fanbase responding to the disappointment with something approaching a collective “Oh my f*in god.”
For good reason.
It’s not that Cristobal Huet was the second coming of Johnny Bower; it’s that in a Caps’ sweater, playing behind the Caps’ young D corps last spring, there was chemistry . . . and conspicuous success.
This morning I’m not interested in going back and playing what-ifs; it’s futile and pointless. I will remind though that we are where we are (sh*tsville between the pipes?) because the one area this organization wasn’t prepared for in its rebuild was with a succession plan for Olaf Kolzig. I said that in July and I felt that — thoroughly — on Friday night.
Now, on Saturday, a team with more than one good shooter arrives at Verizon Center.
There is one other important area of the past to acknowledge. Two, actually. The Capitals would not have come close to winning the Southeast and qualifying for the playoffs last season were it not for the stretch-run heroics of Huet. That’s fact. Second, something sublime occurred between Huet and his new defensemen in D.C. — something stunning truly took root; a real reliable chemistry of awareness and predictability of rebound and positioning, allowing for the Caps’ young corps to look more mature and developed than they actually were. That too is fact.
When that dynamic was extinguished, something important was lost. It matters not what you think of Huet as an individual talent, then or today. What matters is what he did while in a Caps’ sweater.
Friday night was, if you want to view it as such, just one game (against a very weak Atlanta team). Or, it was the 445th of Jose Theodore’s career, of which he’s won 183.
Here’s what’s particularly scary about Friday night in Atlanta: Ilya Kovalchuk actually didn’t play that well in the season opener for both teams; the Caps are going to see far more lethal from him this season.
Also, this: that Atlanta team, the one that hung seven on the ‘Cup contenders,’ went 1-6 in the preseason and was slated to finish anywhere between 30th and 27th in the league’s standings. Bryan Little? And there’s more: five more times this season the Thrashers will start Kari Lehtonen in net against the Caps, and no matter who starts in net at the other end there will be a gross mismatch in talent between the pipes. In hockey, that’s a daunting evening factor.
Credit Joe Beninati, calling the game on Comcast last night, for acknowledging on the air that Theodore’s preseason play was sub-par as well. And it wasn’t particularly comforting to see him storm off the ice at his yanking and march straight into the dressing room. Later, he returned to the team bench.
Whatever you thought of Theodore’s career up to this summer, and even if you thought the Caps susceptible of believing too much their preseason press clippings, in your wildest imagination, did you conceive of a second-period yanking in the debut, and against Atlanta?
Early Friday afternoon there was a thread started on the Caps’ message boards themed on Brent Johnson emerging as the Caps’ no. 1 netminder this season. For most of the afternoon, it was met with ridicule. From the vantage of salary, it does seem ludicrous. And yet from the vantage of pure technical ability, it’s not. Jose Theodore has an abundance more raw talent than BJ; still, that BJ stopped the bleeding and was in position to be the winning netminder in the third period Friday night (a converted AO penalty shot might have made that quite feasible) casts a considerably dark cloud over the home opener.
A concluding thought, one that animated my distress back in early July: goalies in their 30s with a decade-plus legacy of inconsistency don’t appreciably change their games by virtue of new contracts in appealing surroundings. However we might wish it so.
Be afraid, friends, be very afraid. No matter how electrifying a team’s left wings, the one constant in hockey is that the most important position on the ice remains between the pipes.

So . . . About That Goaltending

The OFB Team — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:46:39 +0000

Rocking the Red on a Code Red Day

pucksandbooks — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:42:01 +0000

It’s 1,000 degrees outside in the blast furnace known as the District of Columbia, the air practically unbreathable, the sun an unwelcome intruder. Well Dr. OFB prescribes that you cool down tonight by sipping a frosty beverage while watching the Capitals’ skates carve the ice.
As we mentioned last week, Comcast’s Capitals: Season to Remember begins tonight at 7:00 p.m. in Philadelphia with Bruce Boudreau’s first game behind the Washington Capitals’ bench. Click here for Comcast’s page promoting Capitals Week — then sit back, cool off, and enjoy.

A Capital Week Begins on June 9

pucksandbooks — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:24:27 +0000

Comcast SportsNet is serving up a summer treat for Capitals fans next week. Each weeknight at 7:00 p.m. CSN will show a key game in the Caps’ incredible worst-to-first run into the playoffs, along with new commentary/insights from Joe Beninati each night.
I for one will be granting those April 5 & April 11 games the coveted “Save Until I Delete” designation on my DVR . . . the energy of those nights was unparalleled in Verizon Center history, and the 11th was my wife’s first NHL playoff game.
From the press release:

Capitals: Season to Remember debuts as the network airs coach Bruce Boudreau’s first game as head coach of the Washington Capitals from November 23, 2007 — the start of an incredible run in which Boudreau took the Capitals from last place in the Eastern Conference to a Southeast Division title.
Capitals: Season to Remember, June 9-13, 7 p.m.
Monday, June 9: November 23 at Philadelphia Flyers
Tuesday, June 10: March 21 at Atlanta Thrashers
Wednesday, June 11: April 5 vs. Florida Panthers
Thursday, June 12: April 11 vs. Philadelphia Flyers (Game 1)
Friday, June 13: April 22 vs. Philadelphia Flyers (Game 7)

How to Watch the Playoffs Without Going Into Labor

pucksandbooks — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:00:59 +0000

I obviously didn’t plan the timing of this pregnancy well, since I now find myself watching the Caps’ playoff run from the comfort of my couch instead of being at the Verizon Center. When you’re 9 months pregnant and less than a month away from giving birth (in total, it actually works out to 40 weeks, or 10 months), and you can’t fit into the seats anymore, it’s time to stay at home. Dear husband Chanuck is at the arena, so it’s just me, the remote, and the Internet. The one key item I’m missing is beer, of course. Don’t talk to me about non-alcoholic beers; they’re pointless. Let’s hope the Caps win so I won’t be wishing I had one.
7:10- Here we go! Can’t get enough of that sea of red. Glad to hear the “Flyers suck” chant is going already.
7:14- How ironic that Brashear gets the first goal against his former team.
7:23- Lousy Vinny Prospal. I hope the Caps shove it up his posterior.
7:29- Here’s the Flyers’ statistically impressive power play. Deep breathing exercises commence: hee-hee-hoo, hee-hee-hoo.
7:36- The GEICO ad with the dancing caveman is actually kind of entertaining- then again, I’m a fan of jazz hands. The Bruno Cipriani ad, however, is not. I think it would be greatly improved if Giuliana or Joe B. used jazz hands.
7:43- End of the 1st period. What’s with the two guys in the crowd wearing Rangers jerseys? They’re clearly confused- why, the Rangers aren’t playing here tonight!
8:05- Joe B. is ridiculing a fan for “scarfing down a little snack” and not sharing his chicken fingers. That guy must be pregnant too.
8:06- Excellent goal by Steckel! That’s a great way to come back from a broken finger.
8:17- Briere is going to sit in the box and feel shame. There is some justice in the world after all.
8:22- So much for that justice- the Magical Spearing Midget (MSM) scores a goal.

8:23- The baby is kicking up a storm after Prospal’s second goal. Can’t say I blame her. Here come more hee-hee-hoos.
8:30- MSM scores another one. Well, I’m always happy when people with disabilities show they can succeed.
8:38- HEE-HEE-HOO.
8:40- I receive an email from Dave Lifton. “Ugh, kill me now,” he says. I couldn’t agree more.
9:01- Mike Green singlehandedly stopped the light contractions I was having.
9:10- Mike Green again! We may have to consider naming this baby Michaela.
9:28- I spoke too soon; we may also need to consider the name Alexandra.
9:33- This last minute is going to kill me. Contractions starting again.
9:34- WHEW. Time for a celebratory bowl of ice cream (no pickles, though).
If every game is like this one, I think the baby is coming early.

Caps / Pens Rewind

The OFB Team — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 04:00:40 +0000

It looks like the league is really trying to promote Sunday’s Caps/Pens game televised nationally on NBC. The communications department of the NHL alerted us to a special recap video of the January 21st Caps/Pens game that saw two friends and fellow countrymen score two goals and assist each. Ovechkin and Malkin were the first and second stars, respectively, in a game that saw the Caps beat the Pens in a 6-5 shootout.
We’re not trying to look past today’s game versus Boston (and the players better not) but we wanted to share the video with you which contains radio highlights from both teams and parts of the Versus broadcast with our very own Joe Beninati.

Speaking of the NHL on NBC, Sunday’s game is shaping up to be a preview of OvechKam. NBC will have live cameras following both Ovechkin and Crosby through their shifts. The rub lies in that you’ll only be able to view those camera angles online.

Leafs TV? How About Caps' TV?

pucksandbooks — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:59:24 +0000

Apprised of Comcast’s commitment to the Caps this week, I turned on Comcast SportsNet the moment I arrived home from work Monday night, and left it there. What I watched over the next four hours stunned me.
I saw new Comcast Caps’ beat reporter Lisa Hillary studio host a season preview alongside Joe Reekie. I saw just about all of Alexander Ovechkin’s first-ever NHL game (I’d forgotten that he was a flubbed breakaway from a hat trick that night). Then I saw JoeB and Craig host another studio half hour, “Caps Speak,” for another team preview. Promos for Comcast’s “SportsNight” that followed promised even more Caps’ coverage.
It was “Monday Night Hockey in Washington,” of course.
Head Coach Glen Hanlon was interviewed in depth by Hillary. GMGM was thoughtfully interviewed, at length, and he provided his customary thoughtful replies. Key personnel — Chris Clark, Olie Kolzig, Tom Poti, Nicklas Backstrom, Michael Nylander — all took turns before Comcast’s cameras. Tarik El Bashir’s segment with Joe and Craig I thought was a highlight of the entire night. (Tarik, true to form, offered a sober and fair assessment amid the rampant optimism engulfing the organization early this autumn. The Caps, he said, could finish anywhere “from sixth to tenth” in the Eastern conference.)
Broadcast Buzz about pro hockey in D.C. these days? Umm, yes — only if you regard all-consuming, single-topic devotion by the local sports television outlet to the city’s red-headed stepchild of pro teams “buzz”-indicating. Apparently it’s going to be like this the remainder of the week each evening on Comcast.
At one point during the prime time proceedings I saw Joe and Craig flash on the screen multiple-screen listings of Caps’ prospects. I saw the names Michal Neuvirth, Simeon Varlamov, Karl Alzner, Joe Finley, Mathieu Perreault, Francois Bouchard, Dave Steckel, and Chris Bourque, all broadcast on an outlet that never in its life held an office fantasy hockey pool. Briefly, it was like a breakout from hockeysfuture, and two DraftGeeks renting out the Comcast studio and making like Wayne and Garth on local cable access.
Wayne, er, JoeB: “Look at all this talent in the pipeline, Dude!”
Garth, er, Craig (head cocked): “Excellent!”
This is what importing one Canuck can do to an outlet!
More seriously, Hillary was hired to bring her NHL coverage experience to Comcast. The in-house hockey talent was significant, if under-appreciated and grossly under-utilized, but had the outlet ever boasted a dedicated reporter on the beat? Next I’m going to allege that coverage decisions like Comcast’s for this week haven’t occurred in a vacuum, and that they’re a harbinger of better coverage to come, print and broadcast, traditional and alternative. To an extent, it’s fashionable, of course: the Caps may not make it to the postseason this year, but they will not be dull.
But of course I’m a subscriber to the theory that a media revolution for this team and its sport is well underway these days, in these parts.
I’m also, at week’s end, when this trial run on Comcast terminates, planning on becoming a subscriber to CapsTV.

Party at the Phone Booth

pucksandbooks — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 09:02:17 +0000

OFB attended the Capitals’ Meet the Team Party on Wednesday. Here’s a review, knee-jerk style:

Sparse attendance, maybe half as many people as last year’s. The weather is partly to blame — people in DC react to snow flurries as if it were a nuclear winter (duck and cover!). But hosting the event late in the season for the first time was an odd choice by the team. Then consider the recent trades and the Caps’ precipitous drop in competitiveness, and I understand why some fans chose to stay home.
Despite the low turnout, plenty of star-struck children still excitedly queued up to meet their favorite players. So in that regard the event was a definite success.
The autograph lines were lengthy but not outrageous; in fact, the lines for free hot dogs & sodas seemed as long as most autograph lines. Olie Kolzig was personable as usual (which I’m sure slowed his line a bit, but no complaints) and seemed in good spirits.
Matt Pettinger is wearing a clear cast/brace on his broken finger, which did not make autograph-signing much fun for him.
Freddie Cassivi’s name is now above Olie’s usual locker, with the understanding that Olie will reclaim it when he returns to the roster. Olie skated this week for the first time since the MCL tear, albeit in sweatpants rather than goalie pads, so the team assigned him a temporary locker until he’s off the IR.
At 8:15 PM, the lights dimmed and Joe Beninati took the stage. He gave a brief speech thanking the fans, then introduced each player in numerical order. When he jumped directly from #8 to #10, it felt like he forgot someone… the gap in number sequence mirrored the hole in the lineup left by Zubrus’ departure. This observation is not meant as an indictment of the trade, but rather as the gut reaction of a Caps’ fan grown accustomed to seeing #9 in a Capitals sweater.
Ted Leonsis was not in attendance due to numerous prior commitments (see Ted’s blog for details). They did not screen the video he mentions on his blog — not sure why. [admin edit: check the comments for the explanation from Ted why the video was not shown. Many thanks to Ted for the update.]
Anyone who towers over Kolzig is tall. Welcome to DC, Jeff Schultz.
The final Cap to take the stage — #87, Donald Brashear — hammed it up, sashaying down the stage and doing a spin-turn at the edge of the stage to great applause.

Terrific moment; perhaps a tip of the hat to the classic Slap Shot fashion show scene? That would be appropriate for the Capital closest to being a Hanson Brother.
foil
Chris Clark stepped up to give a brief speech. A few words in, he paused… “I have to remove my teeth, I’m not used to talking with them in yet.” So he popped his recently-installed false teeth into his hand and continued his speech. High comedy.

An enjoyable evening, though the energy level was admittedly lower than prior seasons’. The Capitals displayed a real stand-up quality by making the entirety of the organization accessibile during a rough time and on the heels of a dispiriting bit of roster upheaval.
Memo to the team: move the party to preseason (or October) next season — and sign a few key free agents to fill out the roster — and next year’s Meet the Caps party will be a hot ticket.