Op Bevroren Blog

This just in from the Washington Capitals:

Washington Capitals fans can listen to tonight’s preseason game at Ottawa and the next five preseason games live on WashingtonCaps.com. The Capitals and Senators drop the puck at 7 p.m. tonight and Steve Kolbe, the voice of the Capitals for the last 10 years, and WashingonCaps.com senior writer Mike Vogel will call the game live from Scotiabank Place.

The final preseason game, a 5 p.m. home tilt against the Senators on Sept. 30, will be broadcast on the new Talk Radio 3WT, on 1500 AM, 107.7 FM and 820 AM, which is the Capitals flagship station and owned by Bonneville International Corporation.

One aspect of the change in training camp venue from Piney Orchard to Kettler Capitals I’m coming to enjoy a great deal is the lengthy elevator rides from Ballston’s 8th floor down to the shopping and eatery levels. It’s not the most efficient set of elevators I’ve ever encountered, but the company I often get to keep within them tends to alleviate a lot of impatient aggravation.

You never know who is going to hop in Kettler’s elevators with you; but about 30 minutes after the conclusion of practices and scrimmages each day, many players and organization personnel make dashes downstairs for hot eats and such. Often on these rides either I eavesdrop on interesting puck chatter or initiate a friendly chat with a prospect or vet or coach.

Back in July, during prospect development camp, I was sharing an elevator one afternoon with three players. One was an American, the other two players from the Western Hockey League. They were discussing the vagaries of travel, and at one point the American player asked his Canadian counterparts how often they flew.

“Never,” they replied. “Our shortest bus ride is about 7 hours — 12 in bad weather,” they added. The American was dumbstruck.

This is not stop-the-presses stuff, but to me it’s darned interesting, and with something like a prospect camp as a backdrop, it reminded me of the sacrifices and commitments these remarkable athletes make in their long-odds pursuit of careers in professional hockey.

This afternoon, a good hour after the 11:30 scrimmage had ended, I moved into elevator waiting position next to Eric Fehr. Eric is really easy-going and pleasant to talk to. But these days, he has to be a bit tight-lipped — he’s under a gag order from management about discussing his injury.

“Can’t talk about the injury, I know,” I said to him, smiling. He was holding what looked to be a book report for a high school English class.

“It’s all in here,” he replied, holding it up for me to inspect. The cover had his name and I think the word ‘Medical’ on it.

Just as the elevator doors opened, behind us arrived a freshly showered Nicklas Backstrom and what was clearly a Swedish media contingent (everybody was blond) encircling him. We all boarded.

I was standing next to Fehr. To my immediate right a Swedish reporter began a fresh dialogue with Backstrom, in their native tongue. My Swedish being rusty, I turned to talk to Eric again.

“Were you back in Manitoba this summer?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I was curious to know a bit about summers in Manitoba, having never been there and hating Julys and Augusts in D.C. and their oppressive heat and humidity. I like to hear about places that offer comparatively cool temperatures — I guess I air condition vicariously in that regard.

“We actually get the greatest extremes [in temperatures] in all of North America,” Eric told me. “We get minus 40 and 40 celsius.”

My metrics fluency is like my Swedish, so I asked Eric for a bit of a conversion.

“We go over a hundred [degrees] in the summer,” he told me.

“Did it ever get so cold in winter that you couldn’t skate outside on the ponds there?” I asked as followup.

“Oh yeah . . . it’d get cold enough they had to close school.”

We parted company a few moments later. Downstairs I dined on tasty Mexican food during a late lunch. An hour later I headed toward the elevators again to get up to G6, where my car was parked. Just as the doors were set to close Caps’ goaltending coach Dave Prior joined me. Behind him was Assistant Coach Jay Leach, and some others I didn’t recognize. Prior stood next to me, meaning his ride wasn’t going to be silent.

“How do you think your netminders are looking, coach?” I asked.

He smiled. “How do you think they’re looking?” he replied.

I asked him if he’d ever known of a training camp when the Caps had so much an abundance of talent in net. He made an important clarification in my observation. One of the organization’s prized prospects, Russian Simeon Varlamov, isn’t at camp. Back in July, he told me, when both Michal Neuvirth and Varlamov were at Kettler for the development camp, he realized how fortunate he and the Capitals were.

“Those two goalies,” Prior told me around G4 of our ride, “they’re top-rated in their respective countries.”

Next I asked the coach about Olie Kolzig’s relationship with all the younger goalies. I wanted to know if they sought him out for advice, guidance, technical assistance, or if perhaps they were intimidated by him.

“Olie . . . what he does is pick up [their spirits] after I get through with them,” he replied, smiling.

I guess it’s pretty universal to fear getting stuck in an elevator — everything so confined, the victims so uncertain of when rescue is going to arrive. I wouldn’t wish it upon myself, but if it had to happen, I’d like it to out at Kettler, during training camp, on a day perhaps when Don Cherry or Barry Melrose was taping an interview with Alex Ovechkin.

10:55: The task of live blogging from a week two, mid-week morning camp scrimmage has fallen to these incapable hands. I’m reminded of the inscription inside the Habs’ dressing room — “From failing hands to you we pass the torch” (I think that’s right). Anyway, that’s my message to my bloggermates this morning — pick up the torch from me some time this afternoon.    

The salient news of the moment is that the league looks like it’s going to go back to the pre-lockout regular season schedule, though the exact permutation isn’t known. While that means longer road trips for the Caps in the years ahead, it will be nice for fans to see every team in the league, methinks. Consider the current dynamic of select clubs out West getting to see the likes of Ovechkin and Crosby once every three years at home. Or we in D.C. getting to see Jarome Iginla so seldom. Even better, it would seem to mean fewer Southeast Showdowns. 

Scrimmage is scheduled to commence around 11:30, incidentally.

I am also very interested in chatting a bit with Donald Brashear about this maybe-story of the new uniform system potentially proving injurious to its wearers (on the ice). The ‘Net is abuzz about the Cam Janssen injury last weekend (shoulder, his uniform system top tore, allegedly easily). I don’t know if I’ll be able to catch up with him this afternoon, but I’ll try. I tend to doubt the view that this is some manufactured, reactionary, knee-kerk conspiracy cooked up by the haters of the new look. I say that because had there been such a scheme, I’d have led it. 

Of course we need a heck of a lot more data and analysis beyond this incident to draw any firm conclusions, but if it proves true, can we agree that perhaps, just perhaps, the core aspects of hockey — such as what its players wear — ought to be left in the capable hands of hockey people, and not general sports corporations who are Johnny-come-latelys to our game?

11:20: We have Zamboni. Also, a spartan crowd. Washington professionals, save me, are hard at work today.

11:35: The ice is drying and what was a meager turnout is now close to passably healthy. Maybe 100 folks are in the stands.  

I’ll be updating.

11:43: We have scrimmage. Hanlon, at least at the outset, appears to be treating it as a controlled one. Yep, there are whistles and instruction from him. Your faceoff forward pairings:

Flash- Kozlov- Ovy (in blue)

Backstron- Nylander - Semin (in white) 

11:48: We have the scrimmage’s first goal — Matt Bradley, a tap-in, on a bit of a seeing-his-linemate (of the moment), eyes-in-the-back-of-head dish from behind the net from Nicklas Backstrom. 1-0 White.

11:54: Another Blue line — CBourque - Wilson - Klepis. It’s from Hershey, obviously. The Sweetener Line?

The crowd continues to grow. Now that I think about it, the scrimmage’s start was close enough to folks’ lunch hour that we’re probably getting a healthy lunch-hour turnout. I saw Ted gazing down on the 10:30 practice for a while.  

High Noon: A line in White: Brashear- Clymer - Steckel. I thought Tarik’s file on Clymer this morning heart-wrenching in a sense (for Ben personally) but also healthy in the sense of it as an indicator of the organization’s maturation from a roster of many muckers into more one of skill and speed in the Top 6 followed by two lines of two-way grit and guile. And some skill.  

Still 1-0 White, but there has been quality puck movement and some decent chances at both ends. No hitting to speak of, and this has been more or less true since the start of camp. Idle thought: is the chemistry within this organization so strong that the players like each too much too drop ‘em? That’s not a serious question. It’s still reasonably early in camp.   

12:10: Here are some D pairings for you: Erskine - Eminger and Schultz - Pothier in White; Jurcina - Poti in Blue.

I am aware of my privilege in being here and how some of our readers, enconsed in their offices, appreciate the modest slivers of report I’m able to offer, but I’m not sure I’ll be repeating this gig. I am, by virtue of this exercise, acutely aware of Mike Vogel’s long-standing opposition to writing during game action. It’s not just that I’m apt to miss a slick pass or the development of a play from its defensive zone breakout; I am an alien to the overall flow. Still, I’m aware again of all of you poor schleps slaving away for the Man. This will really piss you off: I may chat for like 15 minutes with some of the guys at the scrimmage’s conclusion and then make my way down to Bailey’s for a sinfully early happy hour. 

12:17: Another D pairing: Pokulok - Green, in Blue. Foreshadowing of a top 4 unit for Coach Boudreau up in Chocolatetown this autumn?   

A couple of camera crews are in between the players’ benches monitoring the action. I do not know for whom they’re recording.

1-0 still. The play has been crisp, and Hanlon, after initially appearing to be holding the reins in on the guys, has actually allowed a free-slowing scrimmage to take place. There are no refs, so he blows the whistle when he wants lines changed or some situational formation established. But by and large, they guys are just going at it.

12:25: WE HAVE A FIGHT! Clymer and Morrisonn! It’s mostly just a slow dance and a tangle of arms, no damage done, but something set them off (Tarik’s file this morning, in Ben’s case?)

12:30: It’s shootout practice time. Hanlon is pitching pucks out at center ice and guys are taking turns going in on Cassivi and Neuvirth. Kozlov’s backhand tucked behind Freddie was slick.

Good news: a decent number of goals were scored. Or does that say something discouraging about our netminding?

Update (1:30): I was able to get in the room and chat with Brashear about the Janssen-new sweaters intrigue, and basically, right now, he’s not concerned about it. Sweaters that perhaps tear more easily, he pointed out, can actually be beneficial to the valorus members of hockey teams who seek fairness of play and respectful treatment of their teammates out on the ice. Their arms would be liberated sooner, you see. But he also noted that whatever the new enforcement dynamic that’s now in place — and there may well be none — “It’s the same for everybody,” he told me.

So for now at least we can focus on the fact that outside the Caps and only a handful of other teams in both the NHL and AHL, the new look is generally a demonstrable aesthetic downgrade.  

2007 Washington Capitals Training Camp Roster

The Washington Capitals have announced the assignment of 19 players to Hershey. They are Dean Arsene, Scott Barney, Jay Beagle, Sean Collins, Andrew Gordon, Marty Guerin, Jamie Hunt, Andrew Joudrey, Quintin Laing, Sami Lepisto, Tommy Maxwell, Chris McAllister, Grant McNeill, Patrick McNeill, Jason Morgan, Travis Morin, Steve Pinizzotto, Grant Potulny, and Steve Werner. Dan Kronick was released.

Just like during July’s development camp, sk84fun_dc has snapped some beautiful pictures at camp. Again, she’s allowed us to post some of her images. OFB is grateful for her generosity and photographic eye.

(Continued)

Ken Warren of CanWest News Service has posted his “Ten camps worth watching” (viewable here on canada.com). Nothing earth-shattering, but it’s nice to see the Caps’ camp highlighted as one of the more interesting ones in the league. An excerpt:

“At this time of year, it’s important to never count on an overseas prospect until he is hatched. But if 19-year-old Swedish centre Niklas Backstrom is half as good as advertised, he could eventually become the ideal playmaker for Alexander Ovechkin. . . . The Capitals are still vulnerable defensively, but they’ll be fun to watch.”

The swollen and bruised Russians are dressed and practicing this morning. None were making the trip to Carolina today anyway. Their commarade Ovechkin is anything but beat up; he was in his usual Acela Express super stride, and he made a point of turning this morning’s 9:30 practice partly into his own personal competition with Olie Kolzig, dancing hip jigs at scores and uttering rink-wide-audible, English-blended-with-Russian oaths at his failures, during every drill. (For his part Kolzig didn’t man his crease quietly during the challenge.)

Another entertaining portion of the day’s first practice arrived at its end, when Hershey Bears’ bench men Bruce Boudreau and Bob Woods, who ran practice, placed 10 pucks on the two bluelines and divided the session’s skaters into two teams for a quasi-shootout showdown. I was wondering how early into camp I’d see the Caps try and address last season’s shootout woes. My recollection is that Hershey didn’t fare much better, so it may have have been a mutually beneficial endeavor. But this drill was as much relatively relaxed fun as anything else, and you could hear and see the enthusiam in every skater.

Players were seated on the two benches, and rotated taking shots. When a player failed in his shot he had to retrieve the puck and skate it back to the blueline and “tag up” with the next skater. The competition only ended when one team had bettered its goaltender with all 10 pucks. Jacub Klepis was by far the most impressive shooter, potting three behind losing netminder Kolzig in very elite hands fashion.

You try and remind yourself that barely a long weekend’s worth of camp has been completed, but with it so compressed now, actually, by day’s end, camp will be about one-fifth completed. The Caps have already made cuts.

Over camp’s first three days Brian Sutherby has been a standout performer. His stride, too, has been strong — he’s absolutely flying out there, skating as well as I’ve ever seen. After today’s first session I asked if him if he’d done anything new or distinctive with his training this summer. This biggest change, he told me, was getting back on the ice a lot earlier than usual.

“I started skating twice a week in early June, which a lot of guys don’t do,” he said. “I also worked on my strength, just trying to get stronger.”

“I want to get lower [in my stride]. You see how low guys like Nylander and Crosby get in their strides . . . taller guys have to work at it.”

His long battle with a troubling groin appears to be in the past. “It’ll never be 100 percent,” he told me. “I battled it a long time, and it feels great now. I think I’ve put [that concern] to bed for the most part.”

I also asked him to try and place this year’s camp into context with the other half dozen or so he’s completed with the Caps. I wanted to know how far he’d thought the organization had come since his arrival in it.

“Compared to the first couple of camps, we’re getting right there, with where we want to be,” he told me. “Back when I first got here, we were supposed to be good — we had guys like Jagr. Now it’s a lot different. We have a lot of depth. We have a lot of young guys but they’ve got 150, 200 games in the league.”

Reminder: today’s matinee exhibition opener in Carolina will be audiocast on the Caps’ web site, with Mike Vogel teaming with Steve Kolbe on the call.

And we are live at the ‘Plex, and we are 3 minutes into the scrimmage. So far Team White (the group that hasn’t scrimmaged yet) has carried the bulk of play, as Nicklas Backstrom showed some strong puck-possession skills in the offensive zone, waiting out the defense and creating a scoring chance for Matt Pettinger. Olaf Kolzig is in net for the White team, and Cassivi returns to the crease for Team Blue.

Michael Nylander, who in an earlier drill deked someone to the ice, holds the puck with two White defenders on him, then delivers a one-time opportunity to Erskine. Kolzig steers it wide. Later in the play, Nicklas Backstrom takes up the puck on the half boards and delivers to a cutting Pettinger, who can’t handle the puck.

(Continued)

Between 8:00 and 11:00 a.m. Friday the Kettler Capitals pro shop sold $8,000 worth of merchandise.

Check out this article in today’s Washington Post (yes, in the print edition) about Michael Nylander. Nice to hear that Bethesda, where half of OFB calls home, played a part in the Nylander family’s decision to return to the Capitals.

In addition, the Washington Times has a profile of Jeff Schultz and his efforts to stick with the club this year. Though competition for a defensive spot will be tight this year — and how long has it been since one could say that about the Capitals? — Schultz’s blueline grit and maturity makes him a strong candidate this year: “A couple of the guys [on the team] try and push me around kind of jokingly, but I’m not afraid to push back.” As Olie Kolzig said of Schultz, “He’s just a steady, smart defenseman out there. He makes a minimal amount of mistakes and plays with a lot of poise.”

We’ve had comments and email the past couple of days expressing wishes to meet up with us out at Kettler during and after camp days’ proceedings, simply to share sentiments of summer-starved puck-love and perhaps a few puck sodas. May we ask these authors the honor of actually making good on the intentions? Do not stand on any ceremony; at least one of us is perched in or near the media station of Kettler each day –on weekends, usually more than one of us. We own faces tailor-made for radio and blogging.

We are honored by your readership, and we know full well the value of your puck passion. This is a forum through which we seek to gather good will for our great game, and we are in the dawn of the calender season we cherish. We are jazzed about it beyond words, and we want those who are likewise to stop by the party and party with us.   

Today’s contest will be between the blue and white teams, and there will be refs, who get booed as soon as they hit the ice.

Ha! #33 is Chris McAllister, and I am heartened by the fact that the scrimmage features names and numbers on the sweaters. That should make life a lot easier.

Alex Ovechkin is on team white, btw. Alexander Semin is on team blue. Neuvirth is the White goalie, and Olie Kolzig is the goalie for the blue squad.

Real, live, competitive, veteran hockey. FINALLY.

(Continued)

8 minutes until the official start of training camp, and already there are plenty of skaters out on the ‘Office Side’ rink. Broken up into color groups, there’s just a general warm-up going on right now. There is to be a scrimmage at 11:30 which should be the highlight of the day, and we’ll try to get that covered for you.

Dressed in a burnt umber appear to be the defensemen, with Jurcina, Morrisonn, Pothier, Hunt, Lepisto, Schultz, #33 and Pollock. Bouchard, Ovechkin and the very smooth Viktor Kozlov. The Blue group includes Clymer, Steckel, and Brashear. The white group is Motzko, Andrew Gordon, and #57. The Maroon group is #54 and Pinozzoto. We’ll try to clear up the numbers for you when we can.

The whistle goes, and the camp is officially underway, a wearing drill with the defensemen feeding the forward lines. So far, a few fumbled pucks. Maybe they are excited, too.

(Continued)

We have more to celebrate than just the start of training camp today.  According to The Globe and Mail, hockey fans in the United States may soon be able to receive the NHL Network.

“NHL Network will launch in the United States in time for the start of the regular season, sources say. The network, which operates out of Toronto, will air basically the same programming in the United States as it does in Canada.”

No word on which cable or satellite systems will be picking up the network.  Also mentioned in the article is the possibility of another Super Series, this time between Canada and the United States.

A tap of the stick on the ice to Paul Kukla for the assist.

Some dominant themes swiftly emerged at players’, coaches’, and the general manager’s media conferences this morning out at Kettler Capitals:

• What a difference a year makes in terms of training facilities. I asked Chris Clark what he thought were his responsibilities as captain to his teammates this summer, and quickly he noted how in past seasons “we didn’t have anything to come to,” but that this summer, with Kettler, “we had almost a full team skating here days ago.” He said that he wanted to get everybody settled in town, early, to get the off-ice distractions related to moving and adjusting to new surroundings out of the way, and Kettler and its amenities was an easy sell to his teammates early in the summer.

“This is the best facility in the league,” George McPhee said. “It’s a place players want to be . . . it makes everything that we do better. It helps [with] community relations, media relations . . . It helps you keep your players and it attracts free agents.”

A year ago in Ashburn, Va., training camp was conducted in makeshift and cramped quarters. “Last year we were vagabonds [out at Ashburn],” Olaf Kolzig said.

“What the [team’s] trainers went through last year is a story in itself,” Glen Hanlon said.

• “These are the better days.” This came straight from Kolzig’s mouth early on in his session with the media. The first thing out of Kolzig’s mouth, as he moved before cameras and microphones, was “This is the Caps [press event]?” Both he and Hanlon were struck by the size of the media contingent attending Media Day. As we’ve seen in recent days, there is an intensity of media interest in the Capitals, particularly among local mainstream media, relative to that of recent years at this time.

Some reporters were discussing a quote Jason Spezza gave the Canadian Press this week: ‘’I think Washington could be a darkhorse team that could get into the playoffs. They made some good acquisitions in the off-season and they had a pretty good base of young guys so they could be kind of a team that might sneak up and make the playoffs.'’

Cap after Cap came forward Thursday morning with the word “playoffs” on his lips. It’s not an entitlement, it’s something they must earn, but Captain Clark made the mission as plain as could be: “We have everything we need to get there.”

The good karma around this team now has had a clear impact on Kolzig. “My enthusiasm and energy level is at an all-time high,” he claimed.

• Yes the new guys are important, but don’t overlook our core. Hanlon noted that the Caps finished 25 points shy of the playoffs last season. “The free agents [by themselves] can’t make up 25 points,” he said. There is a tendency to overvalue high-priced, free agent newcomers as saviors swooping in to lead a surge in the standings. Hanlon pointed to the emergence last season of so many young players on Pittsburgh’s roster, guys who, like the young Caps of the past couple of seasons, played together through rough times. Like Therrien in Pittsburgh last season, Hanlon is looking to his core to come through this season. “Our remaining 16 or 17 players have advanced,” he said.

• It’s AO’s planet, we just share it with him. “Your English has gotten better,” one reporter observed after Alex answered the first question posed to him, and the reporter wondered if AO had worked on it during the summer.

“I practice in the [night] clubs,” he replied, sporting a devilish grin.

The starting goaltender offered a passing observation about the superstar left wing’s unkept hair. A reporter brought this to Ovechkin’s attention.

“It’s gangster style,” he responded, grinning again.

The general manager offered a number of insightful assessments related to the present and the recent past. He acknowledged that beyond the signings of the three big free agents, he added bodies with pro experience — guys like Boumedienne and Lepitso — in response to the experience that the team went through last December, when injuries and illness assailed an above-.500 club that was sniffing a playoff spot then. He also offered the view that chemistry with three significant new faces in the room is less an issue or concern than it was when the league was first experiencing significant free agent movement. Relatively few teams were making most of the significant acqusitions early on, he noted, but today “every team is acquiring [free agents].”

Where are the Capitals at the dawn of training camp 2007?

“A couple of years ago, we were looking [just] to fill boots. Now we have good players to fill a few number of [open] positions,” McPhee claimed.

Yes, the THN OFB mention this week is pretty cool, and yes, we’ll tip back a few self-congratulatory cold ones out at Bailey’s in Ballston this weekend, but training camp starts tomorrow! Moscow was a blast, but we’re thinking about the promise of the present this week.

With his feature on the dramatic impact that bloggers have had in altering coverage of hockey in this town, James Mirtle has given bloggers a nice bit of PR but more importantly done hockey a terrific and important service. James is a blogger himself; it’s clear that like Ted Leonsis he recognizes and champions the role that new media already is playing in the NHL and will continue to play in the years ahead.

Someone from the Washington Post is traveling to Voorhees, NJ, this afternoon to . . . cover . . . a . . . rookie . . . camp . . . scrimmage . . . there this afternoon.

Times are-a-changin indeed.

On Tuesday, Caps’ owner Ted Leonsis conducted a bit of a new season tour of media, and his message was static-free and stout: 2007-08 is the year for the organization and its fans to raise their expectations high — postseason high. “The rebuild is over,” Leonsis proclaimed to Joseph White of the Associated Press, adding that during the offseason “we improved a lot . . . and a lot of teams around us didn’t.”

That’s throwing down the gauntlet. For what it’s worth, while we haven’t completed an overview of the offseasons of 29 other NHL clubs, we see it a lot like Leonsis does, especially in the Southeast division.

White’s preview of the Caps’ season is commendable on many fronts. It outlines Alexander Ovechkin’s progression from a stand-alone star on a talent-starved club immediately following the lockout to his status this autumn as a leading figure now surrounded by a distinctly talented supporting cast: Michal Nylander, Alexander Semin, Viktor Kozlov, Tom Poti, Nicklas Backstrom, Chris Clark.

White also broke some news Tuesday: the Caps’ payroll for this season appears lodged at $42 million — higher than conventional kneejerk forecasts (you know the ones, suggesting that the club would once again anchor the payroll floor for the league). At this salary level, Leonsis noted, the Caps possess what he termed “optionality,” or manueverability in-season to remedy roster needs.

” . . . we could be a really good team. . . . We’re under the cap. We have a lot of assets. I could see us during the season making trades. We’ve reached that point now where we’re a team going up with good cap management. We have ‘optionality.’ We’re very well-positioned in the new NHL.

“If you look for the most part, the teams who got really, really good were [first] really, really bad. That’s the nature of professional sports. It’s a very difficult decision to say, ‘We have to get bad, we have to strip this house down to its foundation and rebuild it to be great.’”

If we had a gripe with White’s work on Tuesday, it’d center on his rote recitation of the overplayed “the-stands-are-empty-for-hockey-in-D.C.” refrain. Nothing wrong with the observation, so long as you paint a full contextual landscape for it: for nearly 10 years Leonsis has run his team in a city with a dismissive-to-hockey media. Sneering columnists, ignorant radio jocks (bar one, who happens to be Canadian), superficial sports anchors, and blissfully balance-free sports page editors. How do you market a product, even in playoff-qualifying times, when virtually every media shop in town acts as if you don’t exist? One approach is to go beyond the local traditional media and find other outlets to spread the word.

Tuesday also saw the publication of an interview with Leonsis by local blog DCist. He discussed his film Nanking, reiterated the Capitals’ salary cap strategy, and again set the playoffs as the team’s 2007-08 goal. He also addressed the alleged — and subsequently discredited — report recently of a scuffle between Alex Ovechkin and Russian agent Gennady Ushakov:

“As with any international superstar, there will always be speculation and innuendo written, but with media ethics today, I tend to disregard most of what I read and deal with what I know to be fact.”

Leonsis’ interviews with the AP and DCist speak to, as he put it, the “need to go direct to consumers and bypass media filters as much as we can.”

We at OFB, unsurprisingly, couldn’t agree more. Just as fortunes for the Caps appear to be changing for the better on the ice, so too are they off it: in broadened, better, and MSM-challenging coverage.