Waiting for Godot? No, Searching for Boudreau . . . or rather, the next Bruce Boudreau, a.k.a. the next AHL coach or coaches ready to make the leap into the big leagues. In Saturday’s Globe and Mail, James Mirtle highlights a few of the leading candidates and points out that “some prominent voices in the hockey world suggest a long-time minor-league bench boss might be the way to go.”
Category Archives: Bruce Boudreau
Farewell to Our All-Time-Best Netminder
By pucksandbooks
Thursday, May 8, 2008
It seems reasonable to posit that Olie Kolzig’s play as a middle-thirtysomething netminder during the first two seasons after the lockout was distinctly solid. Not spectacular, clearly, but quite solid. He didn’t have the most formidable blueline corps in front of him, which to some extent his numbers reflected, but few in the sport would have pointed to those seasons and suggested that Olie Kolzig was no longer a no. 1 netminder in the NHL.
Heading into 2007-08, we knew that Kolzig the gracefully aging elder statesman was a superbly conditioned and distinctly dedicated professional athlete. He spoke very openly about the adjustments he was incorporating in the twilight of his career to ready himself for a new and long season and its rigors. This was an explicit acknowledgment that he was feeling the effects of Father Time. Still, he appeared to be aging a bit like wine. During training camp he spoke of playing another two or three seasons after ‘07-08, under a new contract, hopefully with Washington.
Last fall, the present and the forecasted future for Olie Kolzig seemed promising, without a scintilla of wishful thinking attached to it.
The difficulty, the angst, as it’s settled in among Kolzig’s legion of loyal fans here this spring derives singularly from what settled in upon Kolzig’s game this past season. Most glaringly, October through January: really bad numbers. Now Olie Kolzig, save his Vezina season and his spectacular run through the postseason in 1998, has never really been about stellar numbers. But this season’s were unprecedented in their wretchedness. At one point deep into the season the statistical Olie Kolzig didn’t rank among the league’s top 40 netminders. George McPhee wouldn’t have dealt for a no. 1 netminder bearing looming unrestricted free agency unless he believed he needed an upgrade — immediately — in net. The acquisition of Cristobal Huet proved to be one of the GM’s most impressive personnel moves in his 10-year run in Washington.
No one would reasonably have suggested that with Kolzig in net instead of Huet the Caps would have won 11 of their last 12 regular season games and stolen a Southeast title away from Carolina. The lone loss during that run was with Kolzig in net.
Moreover, there was something peculiar and unnerving about Kolzig’s very public rebuke of Bruce Boudreau to the Washington Post’s Mike Wise at a time when the team was really gelling and making early rumblings of transforming its season. He intimated that the locker room had become a home for Hershey Bears, and that he was a bit out of place in it. He very explicitly called into question the head coach’s faculties in handling goaltenders. The bellyaching seemed out of character. It seemed distracting. Knowing what we know about Kolzig and the franchise deep in the spring of 2008, one wonders if that wasn’t the breach from which there was no repair.
Which brings us to early this offseason when every apparent indicator suggests that Olie Kolzig has played his last game in a Capitals’ sweater. The situation strikes many of the team’s fans as outlandish, as cruel and cold-hearted to the core on the part of management. These fans are reacting as fans should. Caps’ management, however, is acting precisely as it should.
The fans, understandably, want the franchise’s all-time best netminder to enjoy the promising harvest from a rough rebuild. Kolzig having guided the team to its only appearance in the Stanley Cup finals, this thinking goes, it’s only cosmically just that he’d lead them into postseasons ahead, when the Caps would enjoy roles as favorites rather than long-shots and underdogs. He’s been through so much this sorry decade, his sympathizers sigh. And it’s true. But fairness and cosmic justice and Hollywood endings aren’t the domain of the National Hockey League.
This is about business. The business of winning hockey games. And the cold hard reality is that in this Olie Kolzig NHL offseason the skill set he has to offer is at odds with the present composition and ambition of the only NHL hockey organization he’s ever served. Gordie Howe shouldn’t have left Detroit, ever, but this isn’t a mythical, age-resistant athlete we’re talking about. Olie Kolzig, somewhat sadly, but also somewhat predictably and certainly rather naturally, is aging away from the Capitals’ ascension.
He may well find gainful if non-no.1 netminder employment elsewhere in the NHL this offseason. And as with Peter Bondra, Dale Hunter, and Calle Johansson before him, if that comes to pass it will be jarring and painful to see him compete in a sweater not the Capitals’. Against the Capitals. The man who stood so tall when all around him hockey was so small here actually working to defeat the Caps? I could almost feel an opposing force emanating from the keyboard as I typed the thought.
But by April 5, when Cristobal Huet backstopped the Caps into storyline-of-the-year contention, the business writing was bright on the arena wall. No longer losers, with losers’ payrolls, the winning Caps now need to pay up for services very well rendered. (Think Mike Green.) The team needs not Olie Kolzig so much as his $5.45 million per.
Kolzig and his agent, to judge by their public pronouncements, believe that #37 is worthy of no.1 dough and no. 1 minutes, somewhere. The Caps can’t deliver either to him. It’s really that simple. There is also the matter of their having a capable backup netminder under contract at a budget-friendly rate for ‘08-’09. And Brent Johnson’s contract will expire right about the time it would appear probable that one of a stable of young, highly skilled, recently drafted netminders is ready to ascend to an apprenticeship behind Cristobal Huet or someone like him.
It’s business — the business of pro hockey. Uncomfortable at times to be sure, but never sidelined for sentimentality.
Enough about business, though. Olie Kolzig deserves his night of honor, he deserves to have his sweater retired, when the timing is right, and the wager here is that it’ll happen. Kolzig with his commitment to his club and his leadership in his hockey community came to embody what fans cherish most about pro athletes: he was the rare superior performer and role model. His fans deserve a night to shower him with a decade’s-plus worth of admiration. But until that night, gone now seemingly forever is Verizon Center’s chant of “Olie, Olie, Olie.” The place won’t quite be the same.
Hall of Fame netminder Eddie Giacomin played 10 seasons for the Rangers before being dealt to Detroit. He famously discussed his return to Madison Square Garden to face New York as a Red Wing, where Rags’ fans stood and thundered down — drowning out the national anthem — chants of “Eddie, Eddie, Eddie” while Giacomin stood in his new crease with tears streaming down his cheeks.
“The New York crest is embedded in Eddie Giacomin’s heart,” he said of that night and New York’s impact on his hockey career.
Giacomin never won a Stanley Cup. He also never forgot where was his home in hockey.
Let it be said — God willing one day soon — that this player, his organization, and his fans realized that Olie Kolzig is Washington’s Eddie Giacomin.
Hardware Hopes and World-Class Hockey Help Alleviate Some Local Heartache
By pucksandbooks
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Last week, in the throes of a sudden and sour end to the season, it was somewhat difficult to delineate just how successful a season the Capitals and their fans had enjoyed, wasn’t it? Lip service to a terrific run could be mouthed, but there was a pervasive sense that something quite magical had prematurely expired. But this week, virtually day by day, the formal acknowledgments of a transformative season began rolling in, affording more than a wee bit of perspective.
The beginning of the week brought word of Nicklas Backstrom’s designation as Calder finalist. By mid-week we received word of Alexander Ovechkin’s finalist status for the Hart. And near week’s end came the good word for Gabby — a finalist for the Jack Adams. None were surprise announcements, but their formal delivery captures the attention of the hockey world, and this spring — one quite unlike any other for the Caps as far as hardware nominations go — the NHL has helped create an echo chamber for the remarkable story that was, up until this week, rather parochial to Washington.
It wasn’t so much that Western Canada or the Maritimes or Minneapolis-St. Paul intermittently followed Alexander Ovechkin’s historical season; it was that we in Washington necessarily held the larger and more appreciative context for the Ovechkin-led rebirth of a franchise forming fast within frenzied-Red Verizon Center. This week, with the NHL’s press releases fairly screaming that something spectacular happened in HockeyWashington in 2007-08, room on the big story stage has been created for years to come for the Caps.
It’s really remarkable.
And this is much, much different from what we saw both Carolina and Tampa Bay acquire with their respective Stanley Cup victories. Neither team — Tampa especially — was constructed for a lengthy run with success. This May, there is, I venture to say, a pervasive acknowledgment in hockey that the Caps won’t be fun to play against for quite a while.
Really, you have to go back I think all the way to the dynastic Oilers of the early ’80s to find a parallel for a team that has accumulated so many world-class skilled parts so early in their NHL careers (and with more reinforcements fast arriving) and have guiding them an ascendant maestro — with all of them pursuing glory’s journey together for quite some time. Even Mario’s two-Cup Pens of the early ’90s were a more thorough blend of young and veteran. (To me, Tom Barrasso was a Sabre, Bryan Trottier an Islander.) It matters not how skilled a draft eye Lou Lamoriello possessed in New Jersey last decade and much of this — the product he peddaled as Cup winners was antithetical to marketing hockey.
Washington, however, attracts admirers in other NHL markets for precisely the style of hockey it plays. We saw this most individually on this blog this spring, as scores of fans of other teams stopped by to sing this team’s praises and profess a new-found allegiance to the Caps as an adopted team.
Another novel form of admiration arrived this week from Mother Russia: from Team Russia with love for the Russian Capitals, who in the 2008 World Championships have formed the entirety of that team’s first line. It’s as if international hockey wants to pay tribute to what Washington accomplished — and possesses — with such a lineup. And as luck would have it, the Worlds this year are being contested in North America, in time-zone friendly fashion, allowing Washington and anyone else on the continent to appreciate a key core to the Capitals’ renaissance. And as has been duly noted already, Ovechkin, Semin, and Fedorov have six additional teammates competing in the tourney.
These are small solaces for the disappointment of last week. Or maybe not so small. I forgot to mention that neither Paul Devorski not Don Koharski are working the Worlds
Gabby a Finalist
By The OFB Team
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The Capitals have a chance for a hat trick of post season awards with the Calder, Hart, and now the Adams. From the Washington Capitals Press Release:
ARLINGTON, Va. – The National Hockey League announced today that Washington head coach Bruce Boudreau is one of three finalists for the Jack Adams Award, which is presented annually to the coach who has contributed the most to his team’s success. Boudreau joins Detroit’s Mike Babcock and Montreal’s Guy Carbonneau as the three finalists.
Members of the NHL Broadcasters’ Association submitted ballots for the Jack Adams Award at the conclusion of the regular season, with the top three vote-getters announced as finalists. The winner will be announced Thursday, June 12 during the 2008 NHL Awards Television Special, which will be broadcast live throughout Canada on CBC and the United States on VERSUS from the historic Elgin Theatre in Toronto.
Boudreau is the third Capital finalist for a postseason award and will be joined in Toronto by Alex Ovechkin (Hart Trophy finalist) and Nicklas Backstrom (Calder Memorial Trophy finalist). The Capitals could become the first team since the inception of the Jack Adams Award (1973-74) to have the coach of the year, player of the year and rookie of the year. Boudreau would be the second Capital head coach to win the award, as Bryan Murray received the honor after the 1983-84 season.
The Capitals’ Top 10 Storylines for 2007-08
By pucksandbooks
Monday, April 28, 2008
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 attack, the team took off, rampaging from last in the league at Thanksgiving to a Southeast Division crown on the regular season’s final Saturday. The right pieces indeed were in place, and the team’s future has never been as promising.
9. Backstrom: the no. 1 Pivot of the Future — and the Present. Really nobody knew what Nicklas Backstrom’s rookie season in the NHL would bring. During last July’s Development Camp, he seemed to struggle a bit with making plays on a smaller sheet. But he looked better at the end of camp than at its start, and by September’s training camp he looked even more adjusted. Like other skilled players in Glen Hanlon’s system, he struggled. Like other skilled players under Bruce Boudreau, he blossomed.
His 69 points on the season represented the second-most prolific rookie season in Caps’ history (behind a certain precocious Russian in 2005-06). Most telling: 60 of his points came in the final 61 games. He adjusted all right. He played his finest hockey of the season when you want a player to — in the postseason. In so doing he defied a long tradition of rookies fading under the rigors of an 82-game season. And he rightfully earned a nomination for the Calder trophy.
8. One Seriously Sorry Sheet. Washington’s never been known to offer a quality sheet of ice for its NHL games, but the matter gained unprecedented urgency when in December team captain Chris Clark spoke with commendable candor to the Washington Post about the indefensible ice at home. This surface wasn’t merely bad aesthetically, it was, suggested Clark, injurious to players. Clark himself lost virtually the entire season to a groin injury. Flyers’ winger Mike Knuble injured his leg when he caught it in a Verizon Center rut in the playoffs. And game 7’s sheet was so ill-prepared that arena workers could be seen repairing it on their hands and knees in the moments before puck-drop — and throughout the game.
Whatever greatly skilled and exciting roster Capitals’ management assembles for the future, it won’t much matter if at home it’s asked to compete on an ability-leveling and integrity-sacrificing surface.
7. Deadline Day Doozies. Trade deadline day was supposed to be quiet for the Caps. It turned out to be anything but. General manager George McPhee engineered a dramatic infusion of postseason experience and skill in areas of weakness on February 26, including securing a no.1 netminder in Cristobal Huet from Montreal for merely a second-round pick in the 2009 Entry Draft. All three players acquired on deadline day played pivotal roles in the season’s final 18 games.
In his Capitals’ debut on February 29, Huet stopped all 18 shots he faced in backstopping the Caps to a 4-0 win in New Jersey. He went 11-2 in his 13 starts for the Caps, winning the final nine games he started. In the biggest game the Caps played in years, Sergei Fedorov, acquired for 2007 second round selection Teddy Ruth, was named the game’s first star in the Caps’ 3-1 win over Florida on April 5, which vaulted the team to the SouthEast title and the postseason for the first time since 2003. He was especially adept in the faceoff circle. Matt Cooke played a less significant part statistically during the stretch run but recaptured his active, pest-like play from years ago in Vancouver night in and night out. All three veterans were credited with providing vital leadership to the young and inexperienced Caps.
6. Mike Green: the no. 1 Gun Arrives. If there was one overarching question confronting the Caps’ blueline heading into the 2007-08 season, it was: is there a no.1 Gun among? If last September you thought there was, you knew something the rest of hockey didn’t. In 2006-07, Mike Green played 70 games for the Caps, tallying just 2 goals and 10 assists. He offered glimpses of high-end promise, but he also seemed years away from becoming consistent and reliable and earning a top pairing assignment. But this past season Green blossomed into a dominant, mature-for-his-years force. He led the entire league in goals by a defenseman during the regular season, and he followed that with a superb playoff series — so much so that Flyers’ head coach John Stevens very publicly made it known that Mike Green was a weapon his team had to strategize to stop. The no.1 Gun on the Caps’ blueline has arrived.
5. AO: The Best Hockey Player on the Planet. Alexander Ovechkin’s hardware-hogging brilliance during 2007-08 earned him broadcasts of “Ovechkin Ovations” on the NHL Network and, more importantly, ascension over the Nova Scotian as the game’s greatest talent. His 65 goals during the regular season were the most scored by a Capital in franchise history, and he became just the 19th player in NHL history to score 60 goals in a season. By the end of the regular season he’d staked unassailable claims to both the Richard and Ross trophies and was a near mortal lock to command both the Hart trophy and the Lester Pearson award for his most valuable performance. At one point no less than the Great One suggested that his seemingly unbreakable record of 92 goals scored in a single season could be within Ovechkin’s visored viewfinder.
4. Canning Glen; Finding the Right Guy Right up the Road. After winning their first three games of the season, the Capitals proceeded to lose 15 of their next 18 and plummet to the very bottom of the NHL standings. While Glen Hanlon may well have been the right coach to preside over the rebuilding Caps beginning not long before the team began its purge of high-priced, under-achieving talent in the 2003-04 season, autumn 2007 seemed to deliver a resoundingly rotten verdict on his ability to advance the team to where management deemed appropriate for 2007-08.
No one would suggest that Hanlon didn’t offer the organization his fullest possible effort. But by late 2007 that effort wasn’t working. “He knew as soon as he saw me this morning,” McPhee told the Washington Post on Thanksgiving day. “He said, ‘I wouldn’t have known what to do today.’ ”
Enter Bruce Boudreau, aka “Gabby.” On Thanksgiving Eve Bruce Boudreau was in his third season behind the Hershey Bears’ bench. He’d enjoyed an auspicious first two seasons there: a Calder Cup title in his first season in Hershey in the spring of 2006 and a return to the finals the following season. He’d won a Kelly Cup title in the East Coast League as well. Still, to many Capitals’ fans, he appeared to be just another “no name” plucked from the farm.
Probably it was with this in mind that Hershey Bears’ Senior Manager for Communications John Walton authored a memorable open letter to Capitals’ fans on the day that Gabby was announced as the new Caps’ coach. “Know this first and foremost,” Walton wrote in his letter. “He’s a winner . . . For what it’s worth, we have seen the magic here. We’re more than willing to share.” Continue reading ›
At Kettler the Day After
By pucksandbooks
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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 new deal. He didn’t want to speak in specifics, and he wanted to defer to the GM for a more formal acknowledgment, but he did say, “I’m gonna be coaching the Caps a little while.” He was smiling.
The coach also confirmed that Alexander Ovechkin played hurt in his first playoff series. He suggested that some struggles the left winger experienced at times in the series were related to the injury. After the game last night Ovechkin did tell Sovetsky Sport’s Dmitry Chesnokov that he had played games 6 and 7 on painkillers. When Chesnokov pressed him for more details about the injury, AO replied, “I cannot tell you that.”
The coach remains in awe of his star. Alluding to Ovechkin’s extended stay in D.C. that was secured earlier this season, he said, “Thirteen years for that guy — maybe it should be 18!”
Nicklas Backstrom, it was announced while we were gathered at Kettler, has been named a finalist for the Calder Trophy.
The coach is going up to Hershey tonight to take in game 4 of the Bears’ opening series with Wilkes Barre-Scranton. The Caps’ affiliate is in a 3-0 hole in that one. When asked how he thought he’d spend his first offseason as an NHL coach Boudreau said that he didn’t quite know but added, “This is the environment I feel comfortable in.”
Both the coach and the superstar were effusive in their praise for Washington’s hockey fans. Ovechkin wants the city’s fans to pick up next season where they left off this. “I hope the fans support us the same way [next year]. The atmosphere was unbelievable.”
Boudreau pointed to a pronounced difference in the arena from fall to spring. “I’ve really seen it pick up since I came here,” he said. “[There were] an amazing amount of jerseys in the crowd last night.”
Matt Cooke, on Tom Poti’s overtime tripping call: “You’d like to see them call something that wasn’t a marginal call, something that takes away a scoring chance.”
Lastly, the coach acknowledged that he’d had a private and very personal conversation with Olie Kolzig. He didn’t offer much about its substance, but he did say, “[Kolzig's] one of the classiest men I’ve ever met in this game.”
The goaltender’s Kettler locker, for what it’s worth, still had his nameplate in place.
A Return to Mortality
By pucksandbooks
Monday, April 14, 2008
In a league conspicuous for its parity, NHL hockey teams these days aren’t supposed to win 12 of 13 games, or 13 of 14 — and the moreso when something like the success of the entire season is compromised by a single additional loss during such a stretch. On Sunday afternoon at Verizon Center, the Capitals played their first non-must-win hockey game since the middle of March. That’s a month of Russian roulette with near nightly trigger pulls. The surprise wasn’t that the team fell flat yesterday, finally, without some hero-rescuer’s arrival. It was that it took so long to happen.
The Philadelphia Flyers, conversely, were a desperate hockey club on Sunday. And it showed.
I expressed the opinion last week that the Caps’ having a break of five days between the most important games of their season, following a month of ones virtually identical in stature, was good for the team’s fans. It was probably also good for the players. There are only so many elite emotional peaks human beings can consecutively carry off.
One of the reasons hockey is such a compelling affair to chronicle — particularly during the postseason — is the collective emotional synergy required to win. Units of 18 playing on the same page often are bested by ones of 19 or 20. Like: fourth lines coming through and playing winning roles. The Caps since the Black (and gold) Weekend of March 8-9 have been, save a single night, a unified force of 20. That’s as much a story as their winning so consecutively and qualifying for the postseason. Because it’s reason for it.
This past week of scrutiny of the Caps by national and international media almost certainly ratcheted up the emotional aura of game 1, and with players from Mike Green to Alexander Ovechkin confessing to unprecedented nerves early on Friday night, the team managed still to triumph against a two-goal, third-period-deficit odds. You had a sense, though, I think, that there was going to be, eventually, a price to pay for such prolonged prosperity. Sunday there was a bill collector named Biron at Verizon Center. The Caps’ coach afterward expressed the hope that Sunday’s reckoning would come “cheap.”
“I’ve never believed that you’re due for a game to be bad . . . Philadelphia made us look pretty bad. Hopefully it was a cheap lesson,” Boudreau said.
Prior to Sunday, the Caps last lost a hockey game on March 19 in Chicago (also a shutout). They’d hung on for a harrowing triumph in Nashville the night before. The encountered a rested Blackhawks’ club and 21,000 of their supporters in a trap game. The 5-0 result was an aberrational outing in the spring of 2008. Caps’ fans have to hope Sunday’s was as well. The body of this team’s work the past two months is highly suggestive that it was.
If there are ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys to a hockey club’s competitive psyche, the real story of Sunday was the at-last arrival of an emotional flat-lining, of the breaks uniformly going the other way, so late in spring for a team in a sport whose bounces toward bad fortune can’t be forecast from one dump in to the next.
With one point separating these two teams after 82 regular season season games, with two quality netminders backstopping clubs that finished the regular season as strong as anyone in the league, with firepower and youthful exuberance spread out all over the ice, the Sunday stunner would have been one club seizing a commanding 2-0 lead in games. This one isn’t ending early — or easily. We have a good old fashioned, hard-to-call hockey series on our hands.
Capitals’ players and coaches spent all last week claiming that they’d been playoff battle-tested by the previous month — playing weeks’ worth of “Game 7s” night in, night out. The new challenge confronting them this morning is dusting off a big-game’s defeat and rising back up to an elite, united peak.
“Philly-Washington is going to be downright ugly”
By Gustafsson
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Yesterday, the NHL held a media conference call with several big name broadcasters, Don Cherry of CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada”, Mike Emrick from VERSUS and NBC, Pierre McGuire from TSN and NBC and Mike Milbury from NBC and TSN. Each broadcaster started the call with a few words about a series before they took questions. Pierre McGuire spoke of the Caps/Flyers matchup.
PIERRE McGUIRE: Well, I’d like to talk a little bit about the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals. I think this series has a chance to have the most bloodshed of all the series, and the big reason why is because of the targeting that’s going to go on. Whether you talk about going after Alex Ovechkin or even challenging a rookie like Nicklas Backstrom, I think that’s going to be real tough for Backstrom who’s never played in an NHL playoff game.
I think when you look at the Philadelphia Flyers under John Stevens, he brought back a little bit about what made the Flyers good in the 1970s and that’s intimidation. It’s not easy to do now with the way games are being called, but I expect you’re going to see players like Braydon Coburn having an impact on the series Philadelphia is going to win. I think you’re going to see Steve Downie and Scottie Upshaw potentially have an impact if Philadelphia is going to win.
But the thing that Alex Ovechkin does, like any superstar in the NHL, is he attacks the people that are trying to attack him. He will not be intimidated. He’s yet to show that in his three years in the league, so I expect it’s going to come down to a goaltending situation, and who’s going to be the better goalie. And right now neither one of those goalies has won a playoff round in their NHL history.
I think right now Huet has probably got a little bit of an advantage, but I think the MVP of this entire thing is George McPhee, the general manager of the Washington Capitals at the trade deadline. One of the reasons they are in the playoffs is he got Fedorov, he got Matt Cooke who’s been a tremendous energy player for them, and obviously Huet. What they’ve done with Bruce Boudreau is they’ve cultivated talent like Mike Green to put them in a position where they have a chance to succeed.
But when you play against Washington, the most underrated part of their game because everybody focuses on the skill of Kozlov, Fedorov and Ovechkin, they’ve got powers upon powers on defense. Shaone Morrisonn is a big body. They lean on you. They’re not intimidated. This will be a long, physical bloody series and I think the Washington Capitals will win it, but I think they’re going to win it under severe physical duress.
With the storybook season of this year’s Caps — along with the Caps and Flyers being two of the most improved teams this year — a majority of the questions focused on the Caps and Flyers. Here they are:
Q. Pierre, a lot of buzz about Ovechkin as MVP this year. Why beyond statistics do you feel he would be a candidate?
PIERRE McGUIRE: Because he can do it by himself. A lot of guys need other players around him. He can make himself great and make this team win because he is so overwhelmingly dominant because of the physical nature of his game.
The one thing that he does, and Don and Mike coached against him and obviously Mike played against him. Teemu Selanne was great but he needed Andy McDonald with him or another career type of player to do that. Alexander Ovechkin doesn’t need that. You give him a stick and a puck and he doesn’t even need gloves. He’s virtually indestructible. I would call him a cyborg.
When you look at it, he is without a doubt the MVP of the league, and whoever has a vote that doesn’t vote for him should have that vote rescinded. He’s the MVP of the league.
Q. Mike Milbury, you’ve seen a lot of players in your time. Is there anyone that Ovechkin reminds you of, or is he kind of his own man?
MIKE MILBURY: He’s taken it to another level that I haven’t seen. When you see him jumping up against the glass and the enthusiasm that he demonstrates with his teammates, whether it’s him scoring a goal or not doesn’t seem to matter to this guy. There’s no question he’s as electrifying a player as I’ve seen when you put him in that category. Crosby last year was in that similar vein, but I think Ovechkin may have knocked it up a notch. It’s hard to believe that he can, but this is as improbable a run as you’d want to expect from a team that was down and out until Boudreau comes along and turns them into just a fantasy that’s hard to believe. It’s great for Washington and they’ve waited a long time and it looks like they should be good for a lot of years to come.
DON CHERRY: I think George McPhee did a great job. I heard him on the radio, and he said, yes, well, we all knew that Boudreau was a great hockey mind. That’s why he left him in the minors for 17 years I guess it was, and he named him interim. Who’s kidding who? He was there just until he found another coach, and all of a sudden he pulled a little magic out and now he’s staying.
But make no mistake about it, when he first went there, he was just cannon fodder until he found another coach.
MIKE EMRICK: One last thing on Ovechkin, the last time I checked he was tenth in the league in hits, and he’s the scoring champion.
Take Me Out to the Ballgame - Capitals to Visit Nationals Park
By The OFB Team
Monday, April 7, 2008
Per the Capitals’ press release:
Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau, defenseman Mike Green and goaltender Cristobal Huet will take part in pregame ceremonies at the Washington Nationals-Florida Marlins game on Monday, April 7, 2008, at Nationals Park. The Capitals representatives will handle the Nationals’ “Play Ball” announcement, lineup card duties and throw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Nationals battle the Marlins at 7:10 p.m.
UPDATE 11:10 a.m.: Coach Boudreau will be unable to attend tonight. However, Mike Green will be tossing the first pitch—the second ever thrown at the new ballpark. It’s a safe bet Green will receive a more positive crowd reaction than the President did on opening day.
Dear Hershey: Thank You for Sending Us the Magic
By The OFB Team
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Note: the following letter was penned by Hershey Bears Senior Manager of Communications and radio play-by-play voice John Walton on the day that Bruce Boudreau was named head coach of the Washington Capitals last November.
AN OPEN LETTER TO CAPITALS NATION
11/22/2007 - To: Capitals Fans far and wide
From: Humble Bears Radio guy
Re: Bruce Boudreau
Caps Nation:
I know it’s been a trying few weeks watching your team slide in the standings, and I know a lot of you have been frustrated with what you’ve seen. I also know that some of you in discussion boards have wondered what Bruce Boudreau will do for your team, with some of you thinking “here we go again” with another AHL coach being called up instead of some “name” coach for big bucks. I just wanted to let you know, as a humble servant of your minor league affiliate, I believe Bruce is the guy you need. Bruce Boudreau is one of the greatest people I’ve ever been around, a great leader of men with just enough grit to go with his compassion for his players to get the job done for you. I’ve ridden the buses with him, I’ve seen him one-on-one with players, I’ve seen him when times are good, and I’ve seen him when times are bad. Know this first and foremost: He’s a winner. He’s won more games than anyone in the last ten years in the AHL, and twice with two different teams has won at least 50 games in a season. In 2005-06, he took a group of Washington farmhands that missed the playoffs the year before in Portland, shaped them along with some Hershey guys that also missed the playoffs the season before and made them into Calder Cup Champions. To prove it wasn’t a fluke, the BEARS the next season won a franchise record 51 games (and we’ve been around for 70 years now, not a shabby record to have) and went all the way back to the Finals again. We’d have gone back-to-back except we ran into goaltender Carey Price, who now tends goal for the Montreal Canadiens. That’s 29 wins in the playoffs the last two years. When Hershey won the Cup in 2006, they had to beat the Portland Pirates, who featured NHLers Dustin Penner, Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf. Yes, that would be the Penner that signed for big bucks in Edmonton this past summer, and yes, that would be the same Getzlaf who just this week signed a five-year deal with Anaheim. Suffice it to say that Bruce has a pretty good handle on guys who play at the National Hockey League level. All big name coaches in the NHL had to come from somewhere and get their chance before they became “name” coaches. I refer you to none other than your own Bryan Murray from back in the day. He was Hershey’s coach too before he came to D.C., and I’d say as the franchise leader in wins down there, that worked out pretty well.
We’re pulling for you guys to turn it around. We really are. So many players on your team started here and got their feet under them in Hershey, and we wish them nothing but the best. If Bruce remains for the long term in Washington, we’ll miss him terribly here, but you’ll love him like we do. Honest. For what it’s worth, we have seen the magic here. We’re more than willing to share.
Sincerely,
Humble Bears Radio Guy
All Caps on WaPo Live
By Gustafsson
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Ready the DVRs (does anyone use a VCR anymore?) for Comcast SportsNet at 5pm on Thursday. ‘Washington Post Live’ is leaving the studio for a day and taking the whole show to the concourse of Verizon Center for a full slate of Caps’ talk.
Dmitry Chesnokov of Sovetsky Sport, and good friend of OFB, is booked for the show. Naturally, Dmitry is closer to certain members of the team than other reporters, and his insight is always welcomed. Other confirmed guests include Lisa Hillary, Craig Laughlin, former radio play-by-play voice Ron Weber, Tarik El-Bashir, Steve Kolbe, and Mike Vogel. Additionally, either Bruce Boudreau or George McPhee will be on to start the show.
WaPo Live often takes email questions on the air so fire them off to wpl@comcastsportsnet.tv. If you miss the live broadcast at 5pm, there is a rebroadcast at 1:30am.
Reflections from a First-Place Locker Room
By The OFB Team
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
“It’s probably the best crowd I ever seen in my life.” - Alexander Ovechkin
What Fun Would 5-2 Games Be Anyway for a Team of Destiny?
By pucksandbooks
Friday, March 28, 2008
If you’re of the opinion that an end-game/standings resolution is required to render a positive judgement on this edition of the Washington Capitals, you’ve most assuredly arrived at the wrong blog. To sorta quote the Cure, It’s Friday and I’m in Love, with my hockey team.
Back in early February I published a cup-a-joe post titled “25 Panic Attacks in 25 Games,” forecasting a stretch run heavy on antacids for the fanbase. I was right about the season’s final quarter being white-knuckled (and haired)-contested. I was accurate, too, in my tally of panic attacks — if you apply them to last night’s third period and overtime. But I severely under-estimated the number of therapy sessions, toupees, and hair dye kits that’d be procured by hockey fans across the region this spring. EMTs were on high alert all about the region for last night’s third period.
For all intents and purposes, it’s now a nine-team race for eight postseason spots in the Eastern conference. If you don’t consider the Caps a team of destiny you are either (1) a Washington Post sports editor or (2) orphaned from the team’s third periods and overtimes the past three weeks. Now 9-3 in their last 12 games (and very, very close to being 11-1), the Caps are finding all manner of methods toward victory. Last night, on a night when the world’s greatest hockey player was hard-pressed to complete the most basic of passes, his subordinate teammates picked him up. No NHL team from October 2006 through December 2007 was as futile as the Caps in shootouts, so naturally, now, in the crunch, they are winning them. They are winning, too, in 4-on-4 OT. A pesky last-place Tampa team well neutralized Ovie last night, so Brooks Laich, Matt Bradley, Alexander Semin, and Tomas Fleischmann get the job done offensively.
Tomas Fleischmann? Prior to last night, Flash’s points total for the month of March was zero. From zero to hero.
Now that’s Bucky Dent. That’s destiny.
The Caps have adopted, fully, the personality of their head coach, who saw only opportunity for prosperity in a closing stretch of schedule that had his youngins on the road for six of the season’s final nine games. The Caps have completed five of those road games, with a record of 4-1. Just how are they doing it? 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
Gabby and Ovie Chat up the Press
By The OFB Team
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Late Monday afternoon the NHL conducted a media conference call with Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau and left wing Alex Ovechkin. OFB was able to listen in and ask a few questions. We figured there would be many about Alex hitting the 60-goal mark. Since Alex’s focus is on the Capitals making the playoffs, we stayed away from those concerning the goal scoring and focused on the next two weeks with a question for both. The remainder of the conference call follows the break.
OFB: Is it easier for a head coach in a situation like yours these last couple of weeks where your players don’t need any motivation, or is there a new challenge in managing or controlling their nerves and emotions?
BRUCE BOUDREAU: You know, I don’t really know because I haven’t been in this situation either. I have to control my own nerves. I’m usually watching the race for the Stanley Cup. And now, sometimes I pinch myself that we’re in it. But the players don’t need any motivation, and at the same time, young men get complacent and they need somebody to push them. I think that we don’t allow them as a coaching staff to get too complacent. We want to push, push, push, which is I think what we do every day. The last two weeks have been pretty exciting but every time something negative happens, we bounce back pretty well.
OFB: These last two weeks, and then these upcoming two weeks, how does this rank in excitement and pressure relative to your experiences with the Olympics and the World Championships?
ALEXANDER OVECHKIN: Well, that was last week, last month, and it was a great experience for me. And everybody in the Washington organization because everybody is excited and everybody is a little bit maybe nervous, maybe, I don’t know, how to say it, but right now it’s a great time for us and for me and for my team. You know, Bruce is right, like we don’t look forward. We only look one game. Tomorrow we have a game against Carolina and after that game, we look to the next game. We don’t look forward.
Minimal Rest for the Surging, Now Led by an Emerging Legend
By pucksandbooks
Sunday, March 23, 2008
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 in one of Ovechkin’s future seasons.
“Ovechkin has the release and hands that Bossy had. He’s got the quickness that Kurri had. And he’s got the toughness that Messier had. He’s the whole package,” Gretzky told Canadian media while his Coyotes were up North.
“He just loves to score. The thing about scoring goals is some guys enjoy it more than others. That’s Ovechkin. It’s like he wants to keep the puck for every one of them.”
“I think he could score 90 in a season.”
But what may be more impressive than Ovechkin’s offensive prowess, which will shatter team and league records, and what may ultimately prove more important to the welfare of his hockey team, is his arrival in the second half of the 2007-08 season as a Messier-like leader. It’s the broadcast stuff of Ovechkin Ovations.
So much attention Friday was focused on his scoring a 60th goal, and yet the goal proved less the turning point in reversing Friday’s 3-1 deficit to Atlanta than Ovie telling his teammates on the bench, “Just get on my back and we’re going to go.” Moments after that sentiment was expressed the Caps unleashed a 23-2 shot barrage the rest of the way.
Saturday morning Brooks Laich said of Friday’s triumph, “it could be a season-changer.” Would the season have been changed if AO was merely a super sniper?
Like many of our readers who left us comments Friday and Saturday about the endearingly jubilant, third-period Caps, the head coach Saturday morning was impressed by the camaraderie he saw in Atlanta.
“I talked to Mike Green and Brooks [Laich] after the game, and I said it was like a Hershey win. Everybody was for each other, everybody was jumping up and down, and that’s how we were when we were winning series [in Hershey] and winning the [Calder] Cup.
“It was a really close feeling as a team,” he added.
Likely the team didn’t feel quite so close at the end of the second period Friday. Asked if he’d delivered a message of motivation of any sort during the intermission, with his team’s season hanging in its competitive balance by a worn skate lace, Boudreau yesterday said, “I said a word or two.”
Care to share that word, or two, coach?
“No,” he replied with a smile.
The surging Caps are 7-3 in their last 10 games, and 9-4 since the deadline day deals that delivered Sergei Fedorov, Cristobal Huet, and Matt Cooke. They appreciate the three-day break they’re immersed in now, as they’ve bumps and bruises and travel fatigue aplenty, but they also can’t wait to get down to Raleigh for Tuesday night’s next “biggest game of the year.”
Saturday’s was an optional skate, and coming off three tough road games, and with Sunday being declared a day off, a good many Capitals could have enjoyed a pleasant two full days off. Instead, 19 dressed for the 11:00 a.m. session, including all three goalies. Alexander Ovechkin (nearly 26 minutes of ice time Friday) and Sergei Fedorov took the morning off, as did the injured Donald Brashear, Dave Steckel, and John Erskine. Chris Clark skated by himself prior to the practice session and then went in for treatment.
Out on the ice there were smiling skaters but also some hard drills and a general seriousness of purpose. Even with three days off before resuming the second of Boudreau’s “two road trips,” it was all business. Afterward in the dressing room, Matt Bradley and Brooks Laich and Shaone Morrisonn were quick to shift the focus of their comments away from the feats of 14 hours earlier and toward next Tuesday in Raleigh. The team has had the game “circled” on its calendar for quite some while. Their last visit to Carolina included four power play goals surrendered in a 6-3 wipeout — a loss that moreso than any other in 2008 may have motivated management to make the moves it made three days later.
A small band of reporters Saturday asked Boudreau if he was satisfied with the points results from road trip no. 1. He was, and he intimated that, while the Caps certainly want to win all three road games ahead, a comparable performance in the week ahead would be dandy. Success this past week was assured in large part because the Caps won the opening toughie in Nashville.
“Tuesday is huge in the standings, but it’s also huge for momentum” for the rest of the trip, Brooks Laich said, speaking in a unified voice for a surging hockey team.
Knee-Jerks & Notes: Caps-Thrash, 3/14
By pucksandbooks
Saturday, March 15, 2008
I’m trying to remember the last Capitals’ game that had Alexander Ovechkin skate sub-20 minutes. He didn’t even hit 18 minutes. He went for 17:40 Friday night. It wasn’t that he failed to perform to Bruce Boudreau’s standards; rather, the coach recognized that Friday represented Atlanta’s third game in four nights, and he rolled four lines and wore down the weary Thrash. All 18 of Boudreau’s skaters hit double figures in minutes skated, including callup Sami Lepisto (who tallied his first NHL point).
If you watched the game you saw perhaps the turning point/culmination of the Boudreau strategy when two consecutive Capitals’ lines in the second period cycled the puck throughout the Thrashers’ zone with little resistance — a possession dominance interrupted only by a Donald Brashear penalty. The game-score didn’t reflect a lopsidedness of affair then, but after that display, you knew the Caps had the game.
- No one should have been mesmerized by the Caps’ shot dominance (37-12). On February 16, the Islanders outshout Atlanta 49-10. Atlanta has managed to outshoot its opponents this season a grand total of nine times. No wonder Hossa didn’t resign.
- Imagine where this Atlanta team would be in the standings without Kari Lehtonen.
- Friday night was easily Sergei Fedorov’s best game as a Washington Capital. The scoresheet shows him earning two assists, but when I suggested to Bruce Boudreau in his post-game presser that Fedorov could have had “four or five assists” on the night, the coach replied “easily.” And when I mentioned Fedorov’s play to Olie Kolzig, he reminded me of #91’s sacrifice of his body to block a shot: “I actually gave him a little bit of grief for it. I said, ‘Look man, I’ve only had eight shots in the game, you think you could let me have one from the blueline.’ He’s still got it for an old guy “
- “It was as complete a game as we’ve played,” the Capitals’ head coach said afterward.
- When I asked Kolzig if the pre-game warmups were the toughest part of his Friday night’s labor, he replied, “As a goaltender, those are the hardest games to play. You don’t get any kind of flow. You’re constantly talking to yourself — ‘Hey, stay in it, stay in it.’ Because for the longest time there, it was a 2-1 hockey game. The last thing you wanna do is let your team down.”
- Boudreau noted that Fedorov’s playing time the past three games has increased, and he reminded the media that in January and February, he was out for 16 games. “He’s starting to get in real good shape . . . so we haven’t seen the best of him,” he said.
- Of Atlanta, Gabby pointed out, “They had an emotional, come-from-behind win last night [over Calgary] , and they didn’t get in here until late, they’ll be an awful lot better when we play them again next week.”
- Gabby on scoreboard watching: “That’s all I do. I kind of wish for one team then I say no I want the other team. It’s a fun part of the year — when you’re in it, to be scoreboard watching. The biggest thing is, when you don’t play, you lose. That’s what I’ve found. There’s some many teams vying for positons that . . . hey, we’ve got a day off tomorrow, somebody’s gonna gain on us somewhere.”
- The Hershey Bears concluded the longest roadtrip in team history (9 games) with a 5-3 win over first-place Philadelphia Friday night. Only two home games on a weekend two weeks ago separated the Bears from a sixteen-game roadtrip. And the Bears are badly battered. They return home on Saturday and Sunday for a pair of games with the Manitoba Moose.
- Sports Illustrated’s Michael Farber, who just last month profiled Alexander Ovechkin and his family in the magazine, is back in the Caps’ press box following AO’s pursuit of 60. He came rather close to it Friday night, smacking a crossbar and a post along with tallying no. 57.
Oh Yes, It’s Ladies Night
By DC Sports Chick
Friday, March 7, 2008
photo by Mrs. OC
- Can you describe how the evening was structured?
We all arrived between 5:30 and 6:15. Slap Shot greeted us as we came in the door; he was passing out snacks and water. As I checked in we were broken into 4 groups. They provided color-coded group bracelets, and told me my first stop would be Wives Q&A. I went to wait in the bleachers and watch the “Caps Cribs” and other video goodies. They had one about who is the biggest ladies’ man. Brooks Laich!
Each group spent 25 minutes at each stop. My stops were 1. Wives, 2. Hockey stick session on the ice, 3. Locker/Equipment room 4. Chalk Talk with Coach Boudreau.
At the end of our last session we were escorted to Clyde’s. Chili Amar [Mix 107.3] was announcing the players in attendance as I came up the stairs. But there were a lot of people, so I couldn’t see anything.
- Which session was your favorite?
I’m surprised to say this, but it’s hard to decide which event I liked best. I truly enjoyed all the sessions because I learned something in each. But I think I enjoyed the on-ice demo and using the hockey stick — Sami Lepisto would pass each of us the puck, then we’d pass it back, then he’d pass it again, and then we’d shoot at the net. I also really enjoyed the time with Coach Boudreau. I was impressed by his demeanor and how articulate he is. He was also pretty funny.
Sticks, sticks, and more sticks
- How would you characterize the other women- hockey novices or dedicated fans, or a mix of both?
There were lots of hockey moms and lots of fans. I’d say about three-quarters of attendees were serious fans. In my group, approximately half of the participants had season tickets, and everyone had been to a game. It seemed like most were conversant with the rules and asked “Why don’t they (the players) just go up the center and shoot?” They showed some frustration with the team in the questions they asked Coach Boudreau, but the coach handled it all well and with good humor.
- Was the event geared more towards novices or experts?
I think it was geared toward novices, but was good for experts too because they could ask specific questions. The “experts” seemed to be there more to see the facilities, see the locker room and equipment room, and ogle the players. During the bar event I was surprised that almost every time when I asked the person in front of me, “Who is that player?”, they always knew their name and position they played.
- Did you learn anything new? If so, what?