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The Other Alexander

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

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Bruce Boudreau, Hockey, IIHF, Incompetent Referees, NHL Trophies, National Hockey League, New Jersey Devils, Pittsburgh Penguins, Sergei Fedorov, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals, World Championships| Permalink| Comments (4)

Worlds Go Retro

By Gustafsson

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

This year’s IIHF World Championship Tournament is going old school, if only for one game. Fifteen of the sixteen participating teams will play one preliminary round game with retro sweaters. The sweater each country will wear was selected from what they considered to be a significant year for their national team programs. Belarus is the only country not participating as they did not have a national team until its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

CANADA: Commemorating the inaugural Canada Cup, the sons of the Great White North will be sporting the split-leaf jersey from 1976. The retro sweater game is May 6th against the United States.

RUSSIA: This one could not have been an easy decision with the all the success the Russians have enjoyed. Fedorov, Ovechkin, and Semin will be rocking the red in the retro threads from 1956 commomorating Russia’s first Olympic gold. The sweater will be “modern retro” with Rossiya replacing CCCP. Since the 1956 Olympics were held in Italy, the retro sweater game will be on May 2nd versus Italy.

UNITED STATES: Naturally, the US is going back to the miracle on ice. Though it’s the first one in 1960 that occurred in Squaw Valley, California. The US game is on May 2nd with Latvia.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Canada, IIHF, Miracle on Ice, Russia, Sergei Fedorov, Sweaters, USA Hockey, Washington Capitals, World Championships| Permalink| Comments (10)

A Uniform of One Color for an Army’s Offseason

By pucksandbooks

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Capitals unveiled their new uniform look early last summer, but it’s this offseason that will fully showcase just how successful the makeover was.

Saturday afternoon I stopped by the Kettler-Capitals’ pro shop to see a buddy there working a weekend shift sharpening skates and moving merchandise, and the movement of goods this spring, he reported, has been brisk.

“It’s been a zoo in here the last few weeks,” he told me.

Fans seemed to appreciate the new look just two or three games into the preseason last September. Until then, they’d seen only photographs of the fashion upgrade in action-less stills. Once vivid, high-def-in-digital game imagery of the new threads was published on line, praise for the makeover was widespread. The team modernized its on-ice look, but not lavishly or outlandishly or, most importantly, faddishly, and there were clear but subtle acknowledgements back to the original threads. It was a look that appeared to be the best of the old blended with a hip new.

More fans wearing more of the new color and look became apparent at Verizon Center after the end-of-the-year holidays in 2007, and as the team turned its season around by late winter in 2008, even more of the red, white and blue filled the home rink. The new look was fast becoming a smash hit.

When the stretch-run became white-red-hot, so too did the look of the nation’s capital. The team declared “Red Outs” for the final week of regular season play, and the fans responded fanatically. The uni-color solidarity within the Phone Booth continued into the postseason. Comcast’s Lisa Hillary told me during one home postseason game that Verizon Center looked distinctly like Calgary’s Red Mile of playoffs past.

Planned or unplanned, the team’s return to its original colors has afforded an opportunity to market the old with the new. On my visit to the Kettler shop Saturday I saw rack after rack of red, but the names and numbers on the t-shirts were both old and new. Semin, Clark, and Ovechkin were joined by Hunter and Langway. My father, who wore his red senior’s hockey sweater to two postseason home games, will later this week be receiving an old-school, old-logo-ed red t-shirt bearing Rod Langway’s nameplate and number on its back, along with instructions to wear it both while mowing his massive yard and barbequing for Saturday night houseguests. He loved Langway.

I have plans for some heavy-duty recreating this summer. I’ll be sweating a lot in red.

Saturday was gorgeous in D.C., and the moreso to be navigating the route back from Kettler-Capitals toward Maryland on the GW Parkway. The first Saturday of being eliminated from hockey’s postseason is always a painful one for me, but under that Chamber of Commerce sky Saturday, with my sack of red as companion, I felt immense pride instead of pain, and I began thinking about Washington’s hockey hardcore as well as the new converts this spring showcasing their pride in the hockey team this offseason. There is so much to be proud of.

Our Army should be arriving at neighborhood pools this offseason covered up in red. Yard work should be conducted in a ‘Rock the Red’ tee. Jogging, rollerblading, dog walking — all of it should be completed while identified as Ovie, Olie, Huntsy, or Langway. We should attend rock concerts at Nissan and Merriweather and Rock the Red there as well.

Let’s Red-out the region this summer. The Washington Post is watching.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Chris Clark, Hardcore hockey fans, Hockey Rituals, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Lisa Hillary, Media, Olaf Kolzig, Print, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals, Washington Post, Washington the Hockey Town| Permalink| Comments (3)

An Unfathomable Scandal Sends the Home Team Packing for the Summer

By pucksandbooks

Thursday, April 24, 2008

The great Bob McDonald was singing the national anthem near 7:00 Tuesday night in a darkened Verizon Center when, standing high above the playing surface in the press box, I noticed something most peculiar: two uniformed Verizon Center maintenance workers were, to Bob’s immediate left, on their knees, trying to remain inconspicuous, a bucket stationed between them, doing something of a repair nature to the ice quite near a goal cage.

This was transpiring some 120 seconds before the puck-drop for an Eastern Conference quarterfinal Game 7 in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The maintenance workers performed their labor while the arena lights were dimmed and while most of the arena was patriotically distracted. It was abundantly clear that they didn’t want their work to be noticed.

As odd as this sight was, I didn’t make much note of it at the time. I think I was consumed by the novelty, the spectacle, of taking in my first playoff game 7 from a press box to pay it much notice.

Then I encountered Daniel Briere’s reflection to the Washington Times’ Corey Masisak yesterday afternoon. This is what Briere said:

“Another thing that favored us was the condition of the ice,” he said. “It was so bad that it was tough for guys like Semin, Backstrom and Ovechkin to get anything going, the ice was so bad. That was another thing that went our way.”

Twice in the same sentence Briere used the words “so bad” to describe Verizon Center’s ice surface Tuesday. Post-game, Briere was amid a madhouse celebration of Flyers’ teammates. What in the world was he doing flapping his yap to a Washington Times’ reporter about Verizon’s Center’s ice surface . . . unless it really was part of a storyline of the game?

A bit more backfile before I lay my bombshell of a theory on you. I was able to arrive in the Verizon Center press lounge reasonably early in the 5:00 hour Tuesday. It was a zoo in there, as you might imagine. There were a lot of friendly faces and plenty of new arrivals as well. It being a game 7, I wanted to survey the pros — the men and women who get paid to work hockey as a beat, and especially the veteran ones who’ve worked these decisive games before — to try and gain a sense of how they thought this remarkable series would conclude.

I was able to chat up 11 press members before seating myself upstairs at my assigned seat, eight affiliated with Washington media, two with Philly, one with a Canadian outlet. All eleven reporters forecasted a Caps’ victory Tuesday night. That sort of unanimity, imbalanced as the survey sample was, struck me as odd, particularly for a series as closely contested as this one. But it matched forecasts I’d seen on television since late Monday night.

With two of the scribes I pressed the matter. Why so Caps’-certain, I asked? The answers were the same, and interesting. The Caps had matured about midway through the series — learned tough lessons from the series’ first three games. Moreover, they were able to adapt in the series in a way that the one-weapon Flyers weren’t: the big-bodied Caps could go physical, whereas the bruising Flyers couldn’t hope to out-finesse the highly skilled Caps.

These reporters mentioned the word “momentum,” if at all, only at the very end of our dialogue, almost as an afterthought. The one variable of vulnerability for the Caps, a few of them suggested, was if somehow Cristobal Huet turned in a dog of a showing. Unlikely, they suggested, but possible.

The Flyers as we all know prevailed Tuesday night, defying the forecast of all 11 hockey media pros I surveyed and a host of national television commentators. I didn’t really think much about this oddity until late yesterday afternoon.

Over a beer early Wednesday evening, without a game to monitor for the first time in months, I had this thought: couldn’t it be possible that all 11 reporters presumed, subconsciously of course, that the Caps Tuesday night at home would be skating on a sheet of ice comparable in quality to Philly’s from the night before?

Makes sense. The two cities, close as they are to one another, experience basically identical weather, and both are home to multi-purpose venues experiencing virtually identical challenges in terms of attaining hockey ice integrity. And perhaps more to the point: fresh in the minds of these reporters was the nature of the goals the Caps scored in game 6 just the night before: that dazzling exchange between Brooks Laich, Alexander Semin, and Nicklas Backstrom on the first Caps’ goal, the one that led Pierre McGuire to issue a warning to the rest of the Eastern conference for its virtuosity; then, Viktor Kozlov’s near 100-ft. bullet, to the tape, of Alexander Ovechkin’s stick blade up the center of the ice, for a third-period breakaway, game-winning tally. And lastly, the insurance marker — a perfectly flat, cross-ice setup from Laich to Ovechkin for a bullet one-timer Martin Biron never saw.

Those type of plays can only be made on decent ice. Those type of plays weren’t made just one night later — though some of them were attempted. On Tuesday night the Caps, on about a half dozen attempts, tried long-range, middle-of-the-ice passes from various players to Ovechkin and Alexander Semin, seeking to replicate game 6’s success. All of them failed, most of them bouncing over or away from the recipients’ stick blade.

Also conspicuous Tuesday night, in light of the preceding night’s success in breakout passes and offensive zone entry, was the Caps’ reliance on dumping and chasing. Why so dramatic a reversal in tactics just 24 hours removed from stunning success — and before 18,000 lunatic-loud supporters?

The explanation, it seems to me, is both simple and shocking: the Caps had no home-ice advantage very late this spring; indeed, as Daniel Briere noted, they had a distinct disadvantage at home. Worse, it was a wound self-inflicted in nature. A most unnecessary one. At one time not all that long ago the Verizon Center aptly demonstrated its ability to chill out, and get the building feeling like a hockey rink should. Correspondingly, the hockey played on the sheet within was of comparatively high quality. But despite the absence of Verizon Center’s other principal tenant, the Wizards, over the weekend, event staff was unable to deliver a competent playing surface for a game 7 in the playoffs — for perhaps the most anticipated and important hockey game Washington, D.C., has hosted in a decade.

It was — is — a scandal. Continue reading ›

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Boyd Gordon, Brooks Laich, Cristobal Huet, Eastern Conference, Hockey Rinks, Ice, Mike Green, National Hockey League, Nicklas Bäckström, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Viktor Kozlov, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (43)

The Calm Before the Seventh Game Storm

By pucksandbooks

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Over a 75-minute period late Monday evening I fielded a dozen-plus phone calls from family, friends, and media, all waxing euphoric over an “It’s ordained in the heavens” sense that Tuesday night was to be all about partying for Caps’ fans.

The euphoria is understandable. Where this Caps’ team is this morning is magical, miraculous, and marvelous. The sense that Uncle ‘Mo is with the Caps is irrefutably accurate. The analysis that suggests that it’s much better to be the Caps than the Flyers right now is spot on.

But there’s this tempering thought:

Because what we’re dealing with on April 22, 2008, at Verizon Center is a Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs, none of the preceding variables matter.

None.

If you think this Flyers’ team is busing down I-95 in perfunctory fashion to play the patsy to our party, you’re in for a rude awakening around 7:15 Tuesday evening. On this blog over the weekend we talked about a reversal of pressure, from an advantage for Philly toward one for the Caps. It reversed itself again around 9:30 Monday night. For the past three games the Caps have been the hunters. Beginning tonight, they’re the hunted. And Alexander Semin’s wrists and Alexander Ovechkin’s new-found confidence, I’m loathe to report, don’t mean a heck of a lot in the matter.

In a very real sense, the heart of the matter is articulated best by Flin Flon, Manitoba’s, Donnie Schultzhoffer, television commentator for the big game in ‘Mystery, Alaska,’ when asked to sum up the small town’s chances against the New York Rangers:

“This isn’t exactly rocket surgery. Now send the kids out of the room. I don’t care how fast a skater you are, if you don’t play this game with a big heart and a big bag of knuckles in front of the net, you don’t got dinky-doo.”

From this blogger’s perspective, there was a whole lot of dinky-doo in the doings of the Caps Monday night, particularly when down 2-0 in the second period amid the Philly frenzied, but there’s also no guatantee it’ll be back Tuesday.

But to take a step back — and an important one — Washington this spring deserves what’s arrived here tonight. What will take place tonight at Verizon Center represents the summit of sports’ hold on our culture. This is neither the file nor the forum (right now) for an elaborate debate about Game 7s in hockey versus those in other sports. They all have their virtues. But hockey’s hold the greatest quotient for unpredictability.

They often deliver remarkable feats of heroism. When we learned that the Caps would be playing the Flyers two weeks ago we posted a video file of Dale Hunter scoring a Game 7, series-ending goal in overtime, against Philadelphia. It occasioned an outpouring of reminiscence here. To no surprise to us.

Incidentally, this spring marks the twentieth anniversary of that goal.

Often, Game 7s are scintillating in their drama. Moreso than any other sport’s single night’s sudden deaths they raise us out of our spectating seats precisely because every single rush of the puck carries such magnitude.

And Washington this spring, however accidentally and or fortuitously, has embraced hockey in all its culture and trappings. And so it should experience this rare vintage of a Game 7 sporting drama. And savor it.

Nothing that precedes Game 7 means that much — not 20,000 maniacs in red, not the momentum earned just 24 hours before up the Interstate. Line matchups don’t matter that much. Who’s home, who’s away is virtually irrelevant.

And as such that is their elemental and enduring appeal. These games — and they occur rather rarely — are their own islands, with their own tides, winds, and storms. That the Caps — the Cardiac Caps — should be involved in one this spring, and against an arch-nemesis of playoffs past, perhaps should be no surprise at all.

We are so lucky to host one.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Eastern Conference, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (18)

Is the Big ‘Mo with the Team in Red?

By pucksandbooks

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Hockey’s most mysterious quality is momentum. It wavers at times — is obliterated, even — from shift to shift. Years ago I saw it change for the Caps from bad to beautiful with a single shift of chaos from Kevin Kaminski. A solitary act of incompetence by a single referee, as with yesterday’s mystery infraction alleged against Sergei Fedorov in period two, can (and did) radically realign a game’s outlook.

The Caps earned a series-prolonging victory Saturday afternoon, but it wasn’t until about 4:30, as I walked toward a Verizon Center exit behind Flyer forward Mike Knuble, that I thought this series’ momentum might have changed.

I was walking, but Knuble most assuredly was not. He was more in a shuffle of anguish. I’ve seen my share of miraculous recoveries from fairly major injuries in 48 hours’ time, especially in the NHL playoffs, but watching Knuble labor under such obvious distress, I began to wonder if the sudden shift in the series’ authorship of the physical — for the second straight game the Caps outhit the Flyers — might have signaled a new overall control. In this series, control of the physical most often means victory.

Suddenly, Saturday seemed like more than a single loss for the team still the favorite to prevail.

It was only after I’d arrived home that I learned from Corey Masisak’s blog that Knuble was indeed out for Monday — and Tuesday, if there’s a game 7.

Meanwhile, in the other dressing room, there are suddenly answers where 40 hours earlier there were only questions.

In a series in which Alexander Ovechkin is goal-starved his countryman Sasha Semin has announced himself as a stealth sniper, setup man, and in-your-face antagonist, the latter of which I don’t imagine was of much concern to the Flyers’ coaching staff when this series began. Semin’s game-winning goal Saturday was surreal — I described it in my game file as a “high-slot sling of heavy, heavy heat” — and the type of tally that can rattle an opposing team out of its comfort zone. It’s one thing to have a home team hold serve in a gritty elimination game; it’s quite another to see a secondary star being born into a primary role and leading a comeback. The Flyers have done a magnificent job of mitigating the impact of the planet’s best hockey player. Now they have to do something about his roomie on the road.

And keep an eye on that Mike Green fella.

Semin’s 6 points through the series’ first five games are second only to Green’s 7, but it’s when you stand about a foot away from the supremely shy 24-year-old and see the playoff’s black and blue etched deep within his face that you fully appreciate his maturation this postseason.

That’s right, there was an Alexander Semin sighting among the press yesterday afternoon. He did his best to duck us again — biking (his customary post-game pursuit), bathing, even immersing himself in a video training session — but eventually he came out and with the aid of a Russian journalist answered a half dozen questions from the local press. He has a Halloween-scary look about him now. It’s really quite beautiful.

“I’m playing as well as I can, I’m happy with how I’m playing and I feel good,” he said.

In his bashfulness Semin is economic with his expressions but also thoughtful in a summary kind of way.

“It’s a different game in the playoffs,” he noted. “You simply can’t make mistakes at the blueline — you can’t lose the puck, you have to use your chances.”

Semin’s turnover awareness may be most heartening to a fanbase patiently awaiting his maturation on that front. He’s playing with confidence, an inspiration for which there is no surprise: on playing with Sergei Fedorov — “He sees the ice very well, he’s a great passer and as far as what he’s brought to the team I think it’s more of a confidence.”

Alluding to Semin in particular and some of his other young players as well, Bruce Boudreau confirmed a change, a maturation within this series: “I think there’s a big difference from the first three games of the series to the last two,” the coach said in his postgame press conference. “Semin, Backstrom, some of these younger guys are really playing good hockey right now.”

Another player helping to change this series’ outlook is its unlikeliest, perhaps — Steve Eminger.

“He’s stepped in and done a tremendous job,” his coach said late Saturday afternoon. “He’s playing physical, he’s taking hits, he’s doing a lot of the stuff that Steve Eminger can do.”

There is no game film to analyze for the remarkable ascensions individual players make from one night to the next in the NHL playoffs. The opposition merely endures it and hopes one of its own can answer in kind. But the combination of three young Caps so delivering — Semin and his new-found grit, Backstrom suddenly looking no longer the NHL rookie, and Steve Eminger, the forgotten one now a third-pairing rearguard creeping toward top four minutes with his polish and poise — gives the Caps and their fans hope for the underdog on Monday night.

“It’s not a situation that we’re not used to,” Gabby noted. “We’re gonna go into that building and we’re gonna play as hard and we’re gonna leave everything in that building that we have.”

No one I think doubts the effort they’ll bring. The Flyers, however, now thrust in the must-win role themselves, elst they face Red Chinatown again, have to wonder if the series’ swagger has swung Washington’s way as well.

Filed in Alexander Semin, Kevin Kaminski, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (8)

Playoff Perspective in the Post

By OrderedChaos (Mike Rucki)

Friday, April 18, 2008

Jason La Canfora echoes Pucks’ assessment in today’s Washington Post:

Rallying for three straight victories likely is too much to ask, too, but even in cold defeat this feels much more like a beginning than an end, a fresh-faced group experiencing growing pains en masse.

Thursday night’s effort left the Capitals just short of a series-altering victory, but that much closer to fully grasping all that playoff hockey encompasses.

The always-enjoyable Mike Wise weighed in on the team’s best game of the series:

Backstrom, who never met a barbell he liked, almost went toe-to-toe with Brière during that scrum in the opening minutes. A snowflake in the series up to Game 4, the sedentary Swede was suddenly charged. He scored his first playoff goal moments later.

Same with Semin, who started the little brouhaha and then guided home a power-play rocket just left of the net. He met aggression with aggression each time the Flyers tried to rattle him.

Ovechkin became an ornery chap, too. He camped in front of the crease as if he were the injured Chris Clark, whose work outside the net the Caps have missed the past week. After his first assist Ovechkin glared at the fans, almost mocking their anger. His checks were meaningful, menacing.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Nicklas Bäckström, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (5)

Languishing in the Learning Curve

By pucksandbooks

Friday, April 18, 2008

If you watched Game 4’s broadcast last night likely you saw Comcast illustrate the dramatic discrepancy in playoff experience between the Caps and Flyers: last night 14 Capitals were making their NHL playoff series debuts, just 6 for Philadelphia. The way the game was contested you’d never have known.

Small solace this morning.

But I think I am going to enjoy watching Eric Fehr compete in playoffs hence. Through nearly 90 minutes of game clock I kept seeing Fehr impose his physical will down low and along the boards and carry off the simple and smart decision under pressure and in traffic. Next season I suspect we’ll begin seeing him score more regularly and then take that scorer’s touch and add it to his already impressive physical drive.

And I think Alexander Ovechkin has, four games into his NHL postseason career, found a prescription for making his mark at this time of year: first hit everything that moves, helping to dictate a game’s tempo and feel, instead of waiting for the play to come to you — and the scoring will follow. The Capitals last night followed Ovechkin’s physical lead: four games in, and likely three games too late, they finally got physical, winning the hits ledger 38 to 29.

And I’ll take six or eight more springs like this from Dave Stecklel, too, and, if I can, at least a dozen more of this caliber from Alexander Semin.

Semin, for me, is the storyline of success in what is fast beginning to look like an abbreviated first trip to the postseason by the rebuilt Caps. I’ve enjoyed watching him in all four games, but last night was perhaps the most impressive hockey game he’s played in his young NHL career. The playoffs have a way of maturing, of rounding out and of broadening the skill set of previously one-dimensional hockey players. I’m not suggesting that Semin was altogether one dimensional prior to April 11, 2008, but watching him make quality Flyer defenders look foolish along the boards, watching him dish out as good and at times better than he got, watching him be the first Cap in at a scrum to aid a victimized teammate, watching him get bloodied and battered and thereby only more resolved to win, well, how can you not be excited about what future seasons — and especially springs — likely hold for him?

Viewers last night also saw a rebound performance from Milan Jurcina. He got real physical after playing comparatively passive in previous games. He also didn’t much attempt passes up the middle of the ice from behind his own net. He, like many of his young teammates, is learning.

There’s no other way to get to where the Caps ultimately want to get except through trial and costly error in the cauldron of the NHL postseason. That cauldron includes grotesque gaffes — at times wild in their imbalance — by game officials.

I read Mike Vogel’s commendably restrained litany of lousy officiating, but I’m glad that as grievously bad as it’s been at times — and referee Mike Hasenfratz should be chemically castrated for what he did with 3 minutes left last night (was that as commendably restrained?) — that it’s occurring in this series, so early in the postseason careers of so many Caps. It needs to be filed away among the very hard lessons learned.

One of the toughest lessons a young hockey team has to learn about the postseason is that victory isn’t always awarded to the deserving. There’s about a baker’s dozen of those in Capitals’ playoff history. Add Thursday night to the tally. When Bruce Boudreau was asked about changes his club would need to make for Saturday’s game 5, he replied, “None. I thought we outplayed them. I thought we deserved to win.” Me, too. But that and a $5 bill will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Hockey clubs that come up short get tinkered with and tweaked in offseasons, and as exciting and rewarding and even inspiring as the 2007-08 Capitals have been, there are missing parts among them, and I’m going to enjoying monitoring how General Manager McPhee works his home improvements this summer. Debates about names and signings are fit for another day. But help is on the near horizon.

More youth will be served. And it will need to be led just as this spring’s has been by the likes of Sergei Fedorov, Matt Cooke, and Cristobal Huet. Here’s hoping the 2008 Young Guns are taking good notes.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Dave Steckel, Eric Fehr, Joe Finley, Karl Alzner, Mike Vogel, Milan Jurcina, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Prospects, Sami Lepisto, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (30)

A Hockey Team Looking Orphaned from Postseason Prosperity — As It Should

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Near 10:00 last night I had a singing Little Orphan Annie stuck in my head:

The sun will come out, tomorrow
Bet your bottom dollar
That tomorrow, there’ll be sun
Jus’ thinkin’ about, tomorrow
Clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow
‘Til there’s none

Annie, though generally not commonly channeled for her thoughts on the Stanley Cup playoffs, was a red-head. And Cristobal Huet wishes it were merely cobwebs in his goal crease as opposed to a swarm of Philadelphia Flyers. Instead, there’s plenty of sorrow there.

Were Annie following this playoff series “tomorrow” for her wouldn’t refer to Thursday’s game 4 but rather next year, for the Caps. The Caps this April have some not-so-ready-for-prime-time players on their roster — including the planet’s greatest hockey player and most particularly his center. I also thought this last night: didn’t Sidney Crosby’s young (sorta) Penguins manage to win just one playoff game last spring against Cup-finalist Ottawa in their maiden postseason appearance as a rebuilt club?

Lest you think this is merely a 2-1 deficit for the Caps to climb out of, know this: of the series’ nine periods played the Flyers have been in thorough control for eight of them. They take penalties but pay no price for taking them, as their penalty killing acumen is elite. They are following their coach’s strategems perfectly. They are in synch. And they are in complete control of this series largely because they have experience in this mission.

Miracles can happen, and larger deficits in playoff series of course have been overcome (don’t we in D.C. know about that), but generally youth doesn’t serve them. You can just tell that Scott Hartnell’s been through this before. Ditto for Daniella Briere. And while Derian Hatcher is largely a pylon at this stage in his career, he’s a very springtime-tested one. Youth is being served in orange and black in the form of Mike Richards. What a stud.

In the interest of making it as tough as possible for the Flyers to prevail I would like to see Gabby tinker a bit more with his lineup. It was right to remove the overmatched Tomas Fleischmann and re-insert Eric Fehr. And I’m with JP: I’ve seen enough of John Erskine, and I want to see a heck of a lot more of Steve Eminger.

There is some good news for Caps’ fans this week: Alexander Semin, whom most in hockey thought would be brutalized by the Flyers’ aggression tactics in this series, is the Capitals’ best forward, and likely only to get better. Do you know how many hockey players there are on planet Earth who can stand on one leg and basically decapitate a well armored netminder?

This would be a more interesting series were warrior Chris Clark a part of it, but that’s spilled milk. No matter how healthy the Caps roster this spring, some brutally tough postseason lessons would have to be learned by the dozen in Caps’ sweaters who’d never participated in them. However aberrational 6-14-1 was last fall, it just isn’t the calendar season stuff of Lord Stanley. I suspect most Caps’ fans recognized this even in the delirium of last Friday night. ‘85 Villanova types generally don’t get their names etched on the Big Silver: that trophy requires eight weeks of excellence, not 40 minutes. And its winners overwhelmingly are comprised of players who’ve slogged through seasons’ worth of hockey’s springtime marathon — one that bears little resemblance to its regular season.

For Game 4 tomorrow I’m attending a late-afternoon Capitol Hill game-watch barbeque with a Sea of Red set under a forecast of springtime perfect skies. For a few minutes late last night I thought about a somberness settling in over our planned picnic, but my friends will read this and I trust be persuaded that tomorrow’s game, and however many more follow before we pack it in this hockey season, is an occasion to celebrate. We in hockeyWashington were orphans from postseason dreams present and future just last fall; now we’re mezzanine ticket holders headed toward orchestra seats.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Chris Clark, Cristobal Huet, Eastern Conference, John Erskine, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Steve Eminger, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (64)

In-Game Knee-Jerks & Notes: Caps-Isles, 2/20

By pucksandbooks

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I’m not one to traffic much in the off-ice affairs of star athletes, at least not in published fashion, but with local media’s over-the-top coverage today of Alex’s overseas ingenue, there was for me a slight sense of light and welcome distraction from the day-in, day-out drain of the team’s postseason pursuit. Another positive spin on the matter: when was the last time you saw the Washington Post take inches worth of interest in the romantic runnings of a Caps’ player?

With a victory tonight the Caps will ~~equal~~ exceed the total number of wins for 2006-07. They can also go three games over .500 for the first time since . . . the season’s opening three games.

With big rugged bodies Andy Sutton and Brendan Witt out of the Isles’ lineup tonight, it’s going to be interesting to see what manner of net-crashing Bruce Boudreau asks his players to undertake. The predatory nature of NHL teams is perhaps best illustrated in a situation such as tonight’s between the Caps and Isles. Earlier today the Caps returned two young and inexperienced players to Hershey, Eric Fehr and Sami Lepisto. With tonight’s being the team’s only game of the week before Saturday, Boudreau appears to want to exploit the Isles’ backline vulnerability with a more veteran lineup.

Lunar Eclipse outside Verizon Center (photo by Mike Rucki)

Thirty minutes before faceoff, the Isles’ blueline tonight apparently will consist of: Radek Martinek - Freddie Meyer; Marc-Andre Bergeron - Bryan Berard; and Aaron Johnson - Drew Fata (Rico relation, yes). Those very inexperienced final two may be partnered with more veteran blueliners, or Coach Ted Nolan may up to seriously limit their minutes and try and go with just two defense pairings as long as possible.

We’re within a week of the NHL trade deadline. To deal or not to deal, if you’re GMGM? It’s a question I’ll try and place before a few scribes up high during the intermissions.

Nolan’s opening D pairing: Martinek and Meyer.

2:17 in: Sniping Semin lights lamp on a breakaway, off a fine head-man feed from Matt Pettinger. 1-0 home team.

Milan Jurcina’s struggles this season — he’s been wildly inconsistent from week to week, offering physically dominating performances one night and inexplicably mistake-prone ones following — I think need to be corrected if the team is to do anything more than make a ceremonial postseason performance.

13:37: Brooks Laich it appears to earn a tip-in power play tally off a Mike Green point wrister. Olie is announced with a secondary assist! 2-0 Caps, and while the shots are 7-6 in favor of the Isles, in all other respects this appears to be a game that the caps ought to win comfortably. This blogger can’t remember the last game the Caps won comfortably.

2-0 Caps after one. Continue reading ›

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Brooks Laich, Chris Simon, Kevin Kaminski, Matt Pettinger, Milan Jurcina, National Hockey League, New York Islanders, Nicklas Bäckström, Olaf Kolzig, Peter Bondra, Viktor Kozlov, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (11)

A Grade of C+ on the Crucial Road Swing through the South

By pucksandbooks

Sunday, February 17, 2008

I’m sticking to my prediction: on game days, it’s antacid through early April for Caps’ fans. Jonathon Warner of 3WT asked me last night to predict the Southeast division’s resolution, so of course I told him I’d get back to him around April 5. Near that evening’s end.

Of a possible six points among this week’s three divisional road games I thought three the baseline for a passing grade. Insomuch as Alexander Ovechkin was magnificently neutralized by both Florida Friday night and Tampa last evening, and the team displayed great gumption in salvaging regulation-time victory from the jaws of an infuriating overtime Saturday (and more Tums and Pepto for Washingtonians), I’m grading the gang out at C+.

I fielded calls and email from out-on-the-ledgers after Friday night’s loss in Florida. That was a game determined by a miscue (a Mike Green whiff) and a bad bounce (on BJ’s left post). But generally speaking, the Caps would rather face Detroit or Ottawa than the Florida Panthers. Since the lockout, the teams have faced each other 22 times. The Caps have won a grand total of six of those games. Six. It doesn’t seem much to matter that Roberto Luongo is no longer in South Florida — it’s a mean moon rising for the Caps in Sunrise.

At least three compelling storylines emerged from this roadtrip. The most obvious, in light of his first-star effort last night, is Olie Kolzig’s revitalization. The Washington Times’ Corey Masisak this morning notes that the 37-year-old netminder “is now 11-3-2 since Christmas. [He] has allowed a total of 10 goals in his past five games.” He’s in a groove for sure, and the consistency and game-stealing he’s displaying gives one ample evidence to believe that the rotation with BJ that Bruce Boudreau has insisted on in 2008 is paying big-time dividends. Yes the Caps would have liked more than three points from this trip, but if they arrive in mid-March with a fit and sharp no. 1 netminder — all things injuries being somewhat equal — you have to like their chances in the race for the division crown.

Sami Lepisto made his NHL debut last night, and his 14 minutes of ice time seemed in their impact more like 24. He displayed the poise and mobility and deft puck distribution that had Hershey Bears’ officials and fans raving about him. It was only one game, but it was a very good one on a must-win night, and Lepisto’s resume in his first season of North American pro hockey is stellar. He skated a +27 with the Bears and put up almost a point per game (32 points in 38 games, good for 4th on the team in scoring) as a rookie rearguard — much of those numbers accumulated while Hershey’s blueline was decimated by injuries.

A third-round selection in the 2004 bumper crop of Caps’ Entry Draft picks, Lepisto represents one of the more intriguing prospects in the entire Caps’ organization. For whatever reason the Caps have seldom selected Finns, in an era when that small, Scandanavian, hockey-mad outpost has delivered scores of smart, sturdy defenders, reliable two-way forwards, and the odd stud goalie to the NHL. Prior to coming over to North America, Lepisto had three full seasons of experience in Finland’s top pro league with Helsinki Jokerit. (The team, incidentally, that beginning next season will be coached by Glen Hanlon.) Contending NHL teams need not only to select well in round one each June but to pick up serviceable players intermittently in later rounds. As a young pro hockey player Sami Lepisto already looks a good deal more than serviceable.

Another non-first-rounder, Tomas Fleischmann, may have announced his comfort zone arrival as a productive top-6 NHL forward on the road trip. The owner of a new two-year contract, Flash had 2 goals and an assist in the three games and looked a lot like his did in the AHL the past two seasons — among the best players on the ice each night. So many hockey fans render etched-in-stone verdicts on players’ value and potential from an opening 50 or 100 NHL games. Alexander Semin, for instance, had 10 goals in his first 50-plus games as a rookie. Fleischmann is from the same draft class, and now has 8 goals in 56 games on the season. Flash is particularly important to the Caps as a skilled winger on the left side should the unthinkable in terms of injury take place. The Caps didn’t give him a new two-year, one-way deal out of a sense of charity.

So the old and new came through on an important road swing through the South. On the radio last night studio host Jonathon Warner a few times used the word “separation” as Caps’ fans hoped it would relate to the team’s fortunes on this road trip. Mike Vogel, calling in from Tampa, was quick to dispel us all from such a silly notion. New data arrived this week further confirming that this will be the springtime of our disquiet.

Filed in 3WT, Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Atlanta Thrashers, Eastern Conference, Florida Panthers, Jonathan Warner, Media, National Hockey League, Olaf Kolzig, Radio, Sami Lepisto, Southeast Division, Tampa Bay Lightning, Tomas Fleischmann, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (6)

To Russia (Hopefully) with Appreciation and Goodwill

By pucksandbooks

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Ted Leonsis

Last spring Capitals’ owner Ted Leonsis bank-rolled an act of unprecedented goodwill for hockey, dispatching two of his communicators and two OFBers to Moscow to cover hockey’s World Championships, in which a number of Caps competed. This coming offseason, he’s poised to organize more goodwill for the game, and pursue a plan of the Caps traveling to Russia — sooner rather than later — to showcase the team and simply celebrate hockey there.

“My bet is that in the next 13 years that Alex [Ovechkin] is here, at some point we’ll get him back [to Russia],” the owner told a couple of Russian journalists this past weekend.

Most assuredly, it won’t take 13 years for the Caps to make such a trip. The smart money is on a late summer excursion in 2009, right before that season’s training camp. The owner has already discussed the idea with team President Dick Patrick and Vice President and General Manager George McPhee.

While management is focused on the team making the playoffs right now, the trip to Russia is an idea Leonsis is committed to pursuing further this offseason. He will be talking to league officials about the idea then.

“Alex is Russian first and foremost,” the owner noted. “He’s a Washington Capital second, and he loves Washington, D.C., and America, but he loves his country, and he’s our player and we would like to do things that make him feel more and more comfortable.”

“The cultural exchange would be good for everybody,” he added.

There are scores of compelling reasons for such a scheme. For starters — and perhaps most importantly — Gary Bettman is supportive of it. The NHL, the owner noted, is encouraging teams to go play in Europe. “I think Gary Bettman would like us to go to Russia,” Leonsis said.

And it just so happens that largely because of Ovechkin the Capitals are the most popular NHL team in Russia. It’s why there are two full-time journalists covering the team for Moscow news organizations here in D.C.

Leonsis views such a trip as primarily an act of goodwill, but in listening to him discuss the idea it’s also clear that he’s made a link between the internationalization of hockey and the Internet. You can bet he won’t send his team over there crossing his fingers for old media coverage.

“In Washington, D.C., you want to be a global team, and I think it’s a reason that players like Alexander Ovechkin feel so comfortable here — it’s a very cosmopolitan city. We would want to show Russia some of the best players in the world, and celebrate the connection [between Russia and the NHL]. It’s not about money,” he said.

“Our team would be very popular in Russia, because of Ovechkin, Semin, and Kozlov,” he added.

There’s another reason driving this idea. Russia, it turns out, is one of the few countries in the world the owner hasn’t visited. “Russia is such a hockey loving country, and we’ve got such great [Russian] players, I think it would be a great thing for us,” he said.

In 1989, the Capitals joined the Calgary Flames in a headline-grabbing tour of the then Soviet Union for a historic series of exhibition games that September. The team traveled to Moscow and Leningrad for eight games against various Russian professional teams. Here’s how high-profile a happening that was: NHL Commissioner John Ziegler made the travel announcement from the United Nations Assembly in New York.

Twenty years later, the Capitals could be returning to Moscow. They’d be carrying a whole lot of Glasnost in their equipment bags. And quite a few thank yous for the Russian hockey development program.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Front Office, George McPhee, National Hockey League, OFB in Russia, Ted Leonsis, Viktor Kozlov, Washington Capitals, World Championships| Permalink| Comments (3)

Big Media Love for the Big Turnaround

By The OFB Team

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

More on the theme of a widening universe of folks noticing these winning Caps: an overview of the Bruce Boudreau overhaul of the Caps’ offense from USA Today today and a profile of Alexander Ovechkin in today’s New York Times. In the USA Today account Brooks Laich offers an insightful assessment of the effectiveness of Boudreau’s system:

” . . . you just know where teammates are at all times. You always have an option. You’re always in a good spot. A lot of his game plan is just positioning. If a guy has a puck here, the other four guys go to these positions. It’s an easy game.

“We use our speed so much, it seems like the game in our mind has slowed down because we’re not rushing,” Laich adds. “We have some great creative players up front and that translates into more goals.”

Of Verizon Center’s fullness these days, Ovechkin told the Times, “Now we bring the fans and the crowd is very good. When it’s full, it’s unbelievable.”

“Ovechkin has quickly become Washington’s pied piper of hockey,” the Times’ Lynn Zinser wrote.

Indeed.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Media, Michael Nylander, Mike Green, New York Times, Nicklas Bäckström, Print, USA Today, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (0)

The Branding of a Winner in Washington, the “Good Hockey Market”

By pucksandbooks

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Little commented upon during this Capitals’ Renaissance is how many people around town are taking notice:

Lots.

Suddenly, the downtown rink is packed. The team’s new look is a red-hot hit with the home crowd. The sports section fronts of the city’s newspapers are each week ablaze in full-color hockey victory imagery. Even the TV numbers are up. There is buzz about hockey in Washington.

“This is a good hockey market,” Jim Van Stone, Capitals’ Vice President of Ticket Sales and Service, told me during the Caps’ 3-2 win over the Rangers on Sunday. “There’s a huge amount of hockey fans in the region, and what we’re trying to do is convert them into Caps’ fans.”

It’s a big tent revival taking place in Chinatown, and the numbers of the converts are growing.

The Capitals’ players are doing their part out on the ice, and the team’s marketing professionals have devised some creative sales packages that have fueled an impressive surge in group and partial plan sales. But “the buzz” about hockey in town — the one driving thousands more into the stands, toward the souvenir stands and stores, and before their television sets at home — seems to have its origins in a remarkable and broad confluence of positive events for the organization.

Go back to last June and the launching of the revamped look of the team. Caps’ fans long hungered for a return to the team’s original red, white, and blue colors, and the team not only listened but carried out the makeover in an appealingly clean and restrained contemporary design that, judging by its red wave prevalence within Verizon Center, appears to be popular across gender and age.

There’s an understated, classic look to the new look that seems synchronous with its founding predecessor — perhaps best illustrated among the array of fashionable baseball caps seemingly on every hockey head in Verizon Center. January home games most especially seemed to showcase that Santa Claus trafficked thick in these parts in Capitals’ red, white, and blue. This new look is largely responsible for the team’s merchandise sales being up 40 percent this season over last, according to Tim McDermott, Capitals’ Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer.

It’s great to look marvelous, but now the Caps’ are a good looking winner. Washington loves nothing so much as a front- runner, and a Caps’ ticket sales staff that for years had to pitch an at times far-off seeming future can now point to a present that includes things like sweeping the Ottawa Senators and vying for first in the Southeast division. Paid admissions this season, McDermott told me, will be up 15-20 percent over last season.

And if winning weren’t enough, the team’s sales staff gets to market a set of young stars catching the notice of the entire hockey world.

“We are fortunate to have what we call our four young guns,” McDermott told me, alluding to Alexanders Ovechkin and Semin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green. “You can honestly and very objectively sit back and say that for the next 10 years this is a team that’s going to compete for the playoffs, this is a team we hope that will compete for the Stanley Cup,” he added.

So the Caps are not only winning but doing so with young star power. It’s a fantastically appealing headlining quartet — a Rat Pack on skates — and a core of the team positioned to play together many years. Who wouldn’t be lured in by that? Hence, Gang Green, Ovie’s Crazy 8s.

And to this already potent marketing mix management has added the immensely quotable and feel-good story of hockey perseverance in Bruce Boudreau. He dresses a bit oddly, he’s chock full of fabulous tales, he never fails to deliver a money quote after games, and from his gaudy stint of winning in Hershey he’s vested in most of the Capitals’ young core. He just seems the right guy for the part.

Home crowds here typically start out discouragingly small in October and November, no matter the team’s forecast or its early season success. Then, come January, after the Redskins’ season is completed, there’s long been a healthy improvement in puck patronage. But there’s something different about this season’s mid-winter attendance improvement: its vastness.

Ovechkin in Caps shirt - photo by Sovietsky Sport

The Caps’ three most recent home games have all seen attendance solidly above 17,000 — and for two of those dates, the opposition came from the Southeast division, long a yawning bane to HockeyWashington’s Old Guard who feasted on the high nutrition fare of Patrick Division foes for years. Last Friday night, fully 45 minutes before the Caps squared off against Carolina, the number of tickets available to F St. walk-ups for seats in the 100 and 400 levels was zero.

Nada.

As if Hanna Montana was in the house.

Perhaps even more interesting was a new demographic among them: college students. No fewer than 2,300 area collegians took part in the Capitals’ Student Rush program last Friday night, by which they can access tickets at admission rates even college kids can afford: $25 for seats in the lower bowl, $10 upstairs. How did the Caps lure thousands away from campus keggers on a Friday night? With winning, but also with aggressive and well-placed branding, particularly in social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

“Our street teams have actually been on the campuses,” Van Stone told me, alluding to Caps’ staffers who this season have regularly been out promoting the team at Metro stations, area businesses, and now college campuses, distributing t-shirts, pocket schedules, and even hot dogs to promote $1 Dog Night.

Verizon Center as the world’s largest frat house? You have to admit, the Friday night atmosphere in there has changed — and for the better — of late. And while college-budget-friendly admission rates to see Alex Ovechkin are inducement indeed, the hordes of collegians may also be responding to the team’s youth: in their ages, the likes of Ovechkin, Backstrom, and Mike Green, among others, are their peers.

The swell in popularity isn’t restricted to game attendance, either. According to McDermott, Comcast viewership for Caps’ broadcasts is up 37 percent this season over last. That viewership is virtually certain to increase during the stretch run, too, particularly if the team remains in contention for the Southeast title.

It was predictable that the team’s winning ways would garner some level of interest from sports Washington, but not to be overlooked in the equation is the perhaps redefining, landscape-altering, sublime performance of Hart Trophy candidate Alexander Ovechkin. The Caps and this city simply have never seen his likes in the team’s sweater before. Nor for that matter has the rest of the league.

Sunday afternoon a camera broadcasting a feed to Verizon Center’s state-of-the-art, high definition center-ice scoreboard honed in on Ovechkin on the Caps’ bench. Ovie being Ovie, as soon as he realized he was on camera, he beamed that gap-toothed grin of his and the arena erupted. Of course soon thereafter he scored a goal, and the team came back from a 2-1 deficit and prevailed in overtime against the Rangers. Ovechkin’s hold on HockeyWashington — which is expanding — is irrefutable. And thanks to Caps’ management early in 2008, that courtship will endure past next decade. Van Stone and McDermott confirmed for me that fans are purchasing ticket plans for this season — as well as putting down deposits for next — while citing the new deal for Ovie as a reason.

So with the arena virtually full, revenues up all around, and the team in first place these days, the branding work must largely be finished for the Caps, right? Wrong, claims McDermott.

“What I’ve learned is that we have to be prepared for success, to capitalize on it,” he told me. “That means that we can’t ‘go dark’ once the season is over. We have to find a way to connect with hockey fans here even in the offseason. That’s what we’re thinking about now, ideas for doing that.”

“The rebuild is over,” the team’s owner conspicuously claimed at the onset of training camp last fall. Now it appears that Ted’s team — the one on the ice as well as the one off it — is buiding an infrastructure to make Washington a durably built hockey town. Tickets, if you can believe it, are already becoming scarce.

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, Bruce Boudreau, Comcast SportsNet, Front Office, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, Mike Green, Nicklas Bäckström, Pro Hockey Ticket Pricing, TV, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (12)

Good Thing Alexander Semin Isn’t a Pickpocket With These Hands

By The OFB Team

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

If you are having problems with the video above, you can view this version from the NHL. Although, it does not have the number of replays as the above video.

Filed in Alexander Semin, Ottawa Senators, Video Clips, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (6)

Five Keys to Postseason Qualification

By pucksandbooks

Monday, January 7, 2008

Morning Cup-A-Joe

In inventorying the season’s first half with an eye toward what the Caps must do with their second to break through to the postseason, one must divide October through December into their own halves: Glen Hanlon’s and Bruce Boudreau’s. It’s a fair bet that we won’t see the likes of a 6-14-1 run in 2008 — particularly if elusive roster health ever arrives. There is good reason for optimism, some key weak areas to remedy, and the overarching task of playing exceptionally winning hockey ahead. More specific observations:

(1) The Lightning have the look of a cellar dweller. It appears to be a four-team race in the Southeast for the postseason.

(2) The surest way to the postseason is to finish first in the Southeast. The Caps are 7 points back of the Hurricanes, who are 4-5-1 in the their last 10. A significant but hardly daunting endeavor.

(3) There is cause to be seriously concerned with the Atlantic division. It is the division of the losing streak thwarters: Lundqvist and Brodeur. And Sidney. All five teams within have credible shots at 90-plus points this season. The sturdy Atlantic could gobble up five postseason berths, and with Ottawa and Montreal looking as strong as they have, this would leave only the Southeast division winner with a dance card.

(4) Olie Kolzig needs rest. A rather serious rotation with BJ seems imperative. The Caps’ final seven games of the season are against the Southeast division — four on the road at the end of March and the final three at home. You have to figure that if the Caps are still in the postseason hunt come March 25, Kolzig would get all seven of those starts. He needs R & R and he needs it soon.

Kolzig needs rest, but he also needs improved play no matter what his second-half workload requires. This morning there are 35 goalies in the league with better numbers than his. Most glaring is his .890 save percentage. You gotta figure that if it’s not above .900 come late March the Caps will not have leapfrogged a half dozen teams in the East and surged in or near the conference’s eighth spot.

Only Montreal among East teams can match the Caps’ 5-2-3 run in their last 10 games, but the Caps’ competitiveness under Bruce Boudreau is all the more impressive in light of the fact that it’s occurred sans the team captain, and recently without the likes of Alex Semin, minutes-eater Tom Poti, and a viable backup netminder. The Caps are 20th in the league in power play efficiency, at 16.7 percent. If they can move that up just a percentage point or so they’d enter the league’s top half of extra-man excellence. This would help the team accumulate more points in the second half.

On the penalty kill, the Caps are again in the bottom third — 21st in the league, at 81 percent. Clark and Poti are key performers here, and both should be returned soon. It would be both wise and beneficial to move up to say 17th or 18th in the league here.

First periods tell us a good bit about this Caps’ club. When they trail after the first period, they come back to prevail just about 27 percent of the time. When they lead after one, they win about 70 percent of the time. Fast starts should be a motto to the second half.

Now for the rough stuff. The good news for the Caps is that they’ve encountered only two shootouts thus far. The bad news is they lost both. The worse news is that they’re virtually certain to see more of them in the second half. The Caps are simply going to have to find a way to win two out of every three shootouts they confront in the second half, elst they’ll merely tread water in the East, picking up a point in the setbacks while a conference rival earns two. This really could be the team’s undoing in the back half: the Caps last won a shootout on February 4, 2007, against the Isles.

So five keys to postseason qualification:

(1) Health. Bumps and bruises are inevitable in NHL life, but bad ones in bunches are not. It’s immensely appealing to ponder the impact that the fresh and repaired bodies of Chris Clark and Alexander Semin could have on a stretch run.

(2) A rested and rejuvenated Olie Kolzig. Today he has the numbers of an overworked 37-year-old netminder.

(3) Modest but important uptick in specialty team performance.

(4) Turnaround in shootout suckitude.

(5) Go serial killer on the Southeast. Four games remain against each of Florida, Atlanta, and Carolina; three remain with Tampa. At a minimum, you’d think, the Caps would have to go something like 8-4-3 in this slate. Clearly, they’re going to have to pass Florida and Atlanta to have a plausible shot at the postseason.

Turns out, Leonsis was right — the rebuild is over. The Caps are winning about 60 percent of their games under Bruce Boudreau. They’ll need to do even better in the second half if they want more fun with Ottawa.

Filed in Alexander Semin, Bruce Boudreau, Former Coaches & Players,