Matt Cooke’s dangerous and inexcusable antics continued today with a brutal WWE-style flying elbow to the New York Rangers’ Ryan McDonagh’s head.
The officials, to their credit, immediately escorted Cooke off the ice—there was no doubt that he’d played his last shift of that game. The only question remaining is not whether the NHL will suspend Cooke for the fifth time in his thuggish career, but for how long.
Don’t believe it? Perhaps another example of a player’s reputation making things seem worse than they are? Let me allay your doubts with Prosecution Exhibit A:
Bradley fights against Pittsburgh.
In addition to Andrew’s excellent game write-up of the Caps 3-0 shutout of Pittsburgh yesterday (in the first of the city’s doubleheader of losses) , I wanted to add a few quick notes from talking to Nicklas Backstrom and Matt Bradley after the win. Backstrom was the first guy to make it to Matt Cooke [...]
These are salad days for salaries in the NHL. Yesterday came word that the salary cap for 2008-09 would rise to $56.7 million, with a salary floor ($40.7 million) higher than the league’s cap just back three seasons ago, in the first post-lockout regular season. ¬†Stunning. As the salary cap is directly linked to the [...]
Also filed in Alexander Semin, Boyd Gordon, Brooks Laich, Eric Fehr, Front Office, Mike Green, National Hockey League, Pittsburgh Penguins, Sergei Fedorov, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals
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10. The Rebuild Is Over. Owner Leonsis uttered this proclamation during the preseason, later claiming that the season’s barometer for success would be qualifying for the postseason. Through the middle of November both seemed delusionally wishful thinking. But when the right guy arrived behind the bench, when the Caps’ skilled young core was encouraged to [...]
Also filed in Alexander Ovechkin, American Hockey League, Calder Cup, Chris Clark, Development Camp, Eastern Conference, Entry Draft, Front Office, Hershey Bears, John Walton, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Media, Mike Green, National Hockey League, NHL Network, NHL Trades, Nicklas Backstrom, Philadelphia Flyers, Print, Sergei Fedorov, Ted Leonsis, TV, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals, Washington Post
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You can cross one name off your list of free agent concerns for the Capitals this offseason — Head Coach Bruce Boudreau. Speaking with reporters at Kettler-Capitals Iceplex just moments after wrapping up a season-concluding meeting with the team this afternoon, the coach confirmed that he’d had discussions with General Manager George McPhee about a [...]
“It’s probably the best crowd I ever seen in my life.” – Alexander Ovechkin
Of Alexander Ovechkin’s Friday night performance, Bruce Boudreau on Saturday morning said, “He made the strongest case you can possibly make for MVP.” He also said that the 22-year-old¬†”hasn’t reached his potential” yet. Imagine. You may have heard that just last week none other than the Great One himself claimed that 90 goals could be [...]
The NHL’s borderlessness is an unassailable virtue — the long-standing reality that a single NHL roster can be comprised of five or seven differing nationalities, all united in a common competitive cause. And yet as players move in significant volume as they did with last week’s trade deadline, big-time bureaucratic challenges set in as the [...]
Through the middle of the first week of March, we’re gaining, at long last, a firm sense of identities in the Southeast division. To state the most obvious, Tampa and Atlanta have forks in them: It’s a three-team race through the final 15 games, and Florida could be the next casualty. Their no. 2 goalie [...]
