People can dissect the Dale Hunter plus/minus comment regarding Mike Knuble to their heart’s content; the odd call up (twice) of Joel Rechlicz; and the equally odd call up of Braden Holtby; it’s all fair game for analysis (and when you figure out a logical answer, please give me a call). But the other side of the coin is to figure out if the guys feel they’re growing under Hunter’s tutelage.
Caps Casino Night isn’t really the venue for asking serious hockey questions, but Karl Alzner, Matt Hendricks, Jay Beagle and Mike Green were accommodating nonetheless. Alzner also had some interesting insight into what Hunter’s locker room directives are like between periods in-game (since HBO 24/7 isn’t there to show us). The guys’ comments don’t answer a lot of the aforementioned questions, but they provide an interesting angle to consider in the current state of the Capitals.
Take the stats sheet with a grain of salt on this one. Wednesday saw one of the Capitals’ best third period performances, at least effort-wise, so far of the season. Going into that period against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday, the Capitals were beating the black and gold in just about every statistical category, including [...]
There’s a delicate balance in sports between remaining alert and on top of your game, yet staying loose – or, as they put it in hockey, not gripping the stick too tight. One member of the 1989 Stanley Cup-winning Calgary Flames turned on the movie Slap Shot before a crucial Game 7 and got the whole team laughing, chronicles Ross Bernstein in Raising Stanley. The 1993 Cup-winning Montreal Canadiens used their coach’s imperfect English as an endearing joke that kept the team light-hearted.
If it ends up being a Philly-Washington conference final, the Eastern Conference champion might as well start digging a grave now to bury the battered bodies. That was a grueling 65-plus minutes of hockey last night between the two teams, and the Caps definitely got the worst of the physical play in the 3rd. The fact that Jason Chimera isn’t seeing stars right now and Scott Hannan is still walking (at least, we think both those things are true) is a testament to superhuman toughness.
Last night’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes felt like another one of “those nights” for Washington where the team doesn’t look interested against a team who is in the bottom part of the league. While several guys had some pretty poor games, I am looking at you Alexander Semin and Jeff Schultz, good thing Braden Holtby showed up though. In a night that seemed to be filled with scoring it was Holtby who made the biggest difference.
Discovery has its Shark Week; at OFB this week we’ll be celebrating and chronicling the brief but oh so memorable Caps’ career of Kevin ‘Killer’ Kaminski. Cause Killer’s coming home — he’s coming into town this weekend to take in the Caps-Hawks’ game on Sunday, his first visit to D.C. since his playing career ended [...]
Friday night we saw something that’s been in conspicuously short supply this hockey season in D.C. : passion. Also, 60 minutes of quality play. The result was perhaps the Caps’ finest road showing of the season, relative to the caliber of opponent, and the Caps will lace ‘em again on Super Sunday against their most [...]
I’m highly suspicious of the likelihood that the actual jockey for the great Secretariat, Ron Turcotte, is an OFB reader; nonetheless, a commenter identifying himself as such had over the weekend what I regarded as the best reflection related to my Saturday morning cup-a-joe, which dropped the gloves on this stinker of a Caps’ season: [...]
Also filed in Alexander Semin, Cody Eakin, Columbus Blue Jackets, Eastern Conference, Evgeny Kuznetsev, George McPhee, Jason Chimera, Marcus Johansson, Mathieu Perreault, Matt Bradley, Mike Knuble, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Southeast Division, Tampa Bay Lightning, Trap hockey, Washington Capitals
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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 [...]
Also filed in Alan May, Alexander Semin, Comcast SportsNet, Foster Hewitt Memorial Award 2010, Hockey Hall of Fame, Michal Neuvirth, National Hockey League, Pittsburgh Penguins, Ron Weber, Ted Leonsis, Verizon Center, Washington Capitals, Winter Classic 2011
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