07 February, 2012

Hat Tricks, Scary Finishes, and Alznergeddon

By Elisabeth Meinecke 14 January, 2012

Jay Beagle knows what it’s like to be up against a seasoned NHL scrapper in your first big-league fight.

On Friday, however, Beagle was merely an observer to teammate and good friend Karl Alzner’s first NHL bout against Steve Downie of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

“Anytime there’s a fight happening, you never know what’s gonna happen, so you’re obviously hoping for the best, hoping that the guy does good,” Beagle said. “He did well. I was happy for him.”

Alzner himself was fairly calm about the ordeal afterwards talking to the press. He explained the jawing at Downie afterwards in the box by Downie taking a final punch when Alzner was on the way down (perilously close to breaking one of Matt Bradley’s rules of gentlemanly fighting: never hit a guy when he’s down).

It earned him a nod from coaches Dale Hunter and Jim Johnson as well.

“Him and Jimmy both came down and said ‘good job,’” Alzner said. “I think they appreciate when anyone does something like that for the team.”

Despite Alzner’s effort, however, it was Tampa who made waves after the Downie-Alzner fight, putting up a goal to make it only 3-1 in the Capitals’ favor. The Capitals had scored two of their goals early after Tampa got three penalties back-to-back-to-back at the start of the game.

The late push by Tampa that continued into the third closed the scoreboard gap even more. Tampa scored twice, including once within the final minute of the game.

Fortunately for the Capitals, forward Troy Brouwer had his first multiple goal game of the season. He upped it to a hat trick late in the third and still managed to lead the Capitals in hits, with seven.

The shoving and hat trick in the third managed to mask what was otherwise a somewhat disappointing third period for the Capitals, who saw their lead get shortened to one with 11 seconds left and were outshot 7 to 15.  The end result was a mixed bag—the Capitals got the needed win, their power play went 2 for 4, their penalty kill was 4 for 5, but they allowed Tampa to stay in the game until the final seconds.

Check out additional analysis with Ted Starkey on the game in the video below.

 

Filed in 2 Points, Karl Alzner | Comments (0)


Friday the 13th A Bit Scary: Caps 4 / Bolts 3

By The OFB Team 13 January, 2012


Filed in 2 Points, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals | Comments (0)


A Third Period That Brought Down the House, and Personnel Notes

By Elisabeth Meinecke 12 January, 2012

Photo Caption: Photo by Clyde Caplan, clydeorama.com

Take the stats sheet with a grain of salt on this one. Wednesday saw one of the Capitals’ best third period performances, at least effort-wise, so far of the season.

Going into that period against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday, the Capitals were beating the black and gold in just about every statistical category, including the most important—the scoreboard, which had the Capitals leading 1-0 thanks to a Jason Chimera goal (he needs three more goals this season to tie his NHL career-high). There was one big exception to that rule: the shots on goal, which the Penguins were leading 20-12.

But the Capitals in the third played anything but sit back and protect the lead (narrow though it was) hockey. At one point, they had closed the shots on goal gap to only 2. They played like the team down by one, and seemed to find that next-level energy gear which has often eluded them this season—an encouraging sign after their two disappointing performances in second and third periods out on the West Coast.

And it’s an example of how the stats sheet doesn’t always tell the full story. Though by the end of the third period, the Penguins were able to pass the Capitals in hits by one and end up with a final shot total of 30-21, it still wasn’t enough. In fact, there was one shift in the third period where the Capitals stayed so long in Pittsburgh’s offensive zone that the crowd roared with approval as loudly and sustained as if Ovechkin had just scored.

The Capitals players themselves felt it was one of their best third period efforts of the season, too.

Capitals forward Jay Beagle said that between the second and third, head coach Dale Hunter told the team to stick to their game plan: keep Pittsburgh in their zone.

“He came in and he just said, ‘Keep playing our game …  be smart on the wall and get it [the puck] out, and make it come 200 feet,’” Beagle recalled.

Straightforward, and the Caps executed.

Hendricks responded in the affirmative when asked if it was the team’s strongest third period performances.

“I think it was a combination of us executing really well, great goaltending, and them being tired. Back to back games is hard to play, especially with the travel. So we executed our game plan, we tired them out through the course of the game, and by the third period, you could really tell they were struggling,” Hendricks said.

Of course, one good third period does not the rest of a season make, but it’s a new look at what ‘exciting’ Capitals hockey might look like under the new regime.

The excitement wasn’t limited to the third period, though. Hendricks and the Penguins’ Craig Adams dropped gloves before the game was three minutes old. And the crowd responded enthusiastically.

“I figured that them riding a losing streak that their scrappers were going to try to get the energy going in their favor. Adams came right at me right away. I figured we were on a two-game losing streak, we’re at home,” Hendricks said, and then finished with a  line that probably isn’t used much to describe fistfights: “It was a great time.” [He won the fight, of course.]

On a personnel note, there were other observations to keep in mind, particularly as Dale Hunter gets to know his team and personnel better: Jeff Schultz and John Erskine were both scratched, and, even more important, there was an abnormally high amount of team scouts present at Wednesday’s game.

As far as the debut of defenseman Tomas Kundratek, who was called up from AHL Hershey yesterday, Hunter gave what seemed like a positive assessment for the young player: he said Kundratek kept it simple and didn’t make any mistakes.

Filed in 2 Points, Jay Beagle, Matt Hendricks, Washington Capitals | Comments (2)


Those Birds Don’t Fly: Caps 1 / Penguins 0

By The OFB Team 11 January, 2012

Filed in 2 Points, Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals | Comments (0)


When Animals in Orange Attack

By pucksandbooks 6 January, 2012

Last month I intimated that the reconstitution of the Patrick division represented something very special for Capitals fans. But by very special I didn’t mean always uplifting.

Dateline, Philadelphia, January 5, 2012. Three Philadelphia Flyers fans are wanted by Philadelphia police for their role in beating two New York Rangers fans in the immediate aftermath of Monday’s Winter Classic. One of the victims was beaten quite brutally and hospitalized. Video of the assaults emerged. (You can watch it easily enough; I urge that you don’t.) The more seriously maimed victim, turns out, is a cop, an Iraq war vet, a Marine, and a Purple Heart recipient. He had the temerity to attend a big hockey game in Philadelphia wearing the colors of that day’s adversary. You know, just as has happened with every game in every arena and stadium on the continent the past 40 years. But in Philadelphia, this hero of his country was beaten for it, brutally.

I like to think that somewhere in her eternal rest Kate Smith is restless and nauseous.

To me there is something distinctive about this instance of violence relative, say, to that we witnessed in Vancouver after last June’s Stanley Cup finals. Both outbreaks are abhorrent to be sure, but there is in our sport something enduring and singular — and brandished as a badge of honor, even — by the bellicose and beer-swilling  in orange sweaters, somewhat a minority of the overall Flyers fanbase, I think, who for at least a generation have taken it as a blood oath to violently defend their allegiance.

There are fights in the stands at many rinks and ballparks, I know. But it’s really only with one civic outpost that news of them seems to be met with . . . a wildly warped sense of pride.

You see, yesterday I had to endure a soberly stated justification by a Flyers fan — a high school classmate of mine — for what transpired in Monday’s assault: that somehow the Rangers fan, likely loose of victory-bragging tongue, deserved his fate. My Flyers’ partisan high school buddy is a Duke graduate, a Gulf War vet (Marine), a lawyer, a husband and a father. And he thinks as he does in this instance. So I say he’s card-carrying member of a warped culture. I’ll still call him classmate and friend, but yesterday I wondered: just how eager would the hospitalized Rangers fan Marine be to share a foxhole with my Flyers’ friend, and would my friend really have articulated the defense he did with me in front of his daughters?

You want to say that only a tiny sliver of the Flyer fanbase could and would go perp like this, but afforded over many years ample opportunity to disavow themselves of the reputation, collectively they’ve passed. They like the reputation not just of their skating heroes being bullies but of being bullies themselves. That sweater, its wearers want you to know, represents a good deal more than division titles and Stanley Cups won. And it’s been that way for years.

I can’t say that I can recall an instance when the executive leadership of one of Philly’s professional sports teams has led some public initiative to counteract the city’s pride in its twisted embrace of being bullies. Instead, the culture of Philadelphia seems almost to celebrate that their football stadium — and theirs alone in the republic — erected a makeshift courthouse on site to address violent attacks that have become a staple of sports patronage there.

There is a seemingly lone voice of reason up there in all this — the Broad Street Hockey blog. Those bloggers did what the Flyers should have: reluctantly, but courageously, they pushed out video and narrative of this super sad story and condemned the violence. “We say so often that we don’t deserve our reputation as awful monsters moonlighting as sports fans, but when this sort of thing happens, it completely undermines everything we say on the subject,” they blogged.

By about 5:00 yesterday this story had gone viral — Fox News, NBC.com, Puck Daddy were all weighing in on the malevolence. Out of curiosity I visited the Flyers’ web site to see if the public relations damage had occasioned any concern from the team. Maybe the team wanted to intervene and assist the victims’ families in some way. Nope. A band of cretins wearing your sweater pummeled a Purple Heart vet, in broad daylight, fellas. Would it really be beneath you to show some moral leadership and remind your community that this isn’t really behavior that ought to be replicated, again, or even celebrated? This morning there is acknowledgment of injury in Philadelphia on the team’s web site — Kimmo Timonen got dinged (upper body) during last night’s game against Chicago.

I like to think that two forms of justice ultimately will visit the assailants in this crime — the formal one meted out by the courts, and then the other seldom detailed but widely understood, enacted, well out of sight, against those who harm those who sacrifice to keep us safe. More importantly, I hope at long last a story that makes you cry will occasion a leadership long lacking in a bully culture.

Filed in Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Philadelphia Flyers, The Great Old Patrick Division, Winter Classic | Comments (4)


Winning Streak Stays Alive for Capitals: “We’re Getting Our Mood Back,” Says Brouwer

By Elisabeth Meinecke 4 January, 2012

It’s so much nicer to evaluate games when you’re winning.

That’s the situation the Capitals find themselves in now after last night’s 3-1 win over Calgary, which extended (to 4) their longest winning streak since they put together 7 at the beginning of the season.

Yes, since that 7-game run, they’ve changed some of their coaching bench. And yes, they’re playing a new system. But Capitals forward Troy Brouwer points out that at the beginning of the year, while the Capitals started off hot and beat those 7  teams, a lot of NHL clubs were still struggling to find their identity.

“At the beginning of the season, it’s tough. Teams are finding themselves. They’re finding how they’re going to play. Sometimes they have new players, new coaches,” Brouwer said. “We were able to come in and put a couple of really good games together.”

The Capitals went through their own identity crisis about a month later than several teams in the league. Now, finally, Brouwer feels the mood prevalent among the Capitals in that 7-game win streak returning.

“We’re getting our mood back that we had at the beginning of the year,” he said. “It was a lot of fun, obviously, to play in those first 7 games.”

When comparing that run of success to the current one, Brouwer talked about how the Capitals are taking care of their defensive zone more now. He also complimented the goalies’ performances over the past four wins.

Last night against the Flames, the Capitals did a lot of things correctly. Brouwer, for example, got traffic in front of the net and was rewarded for the subsequent body beating with a goal (he told reporters after the game that head coach Dale Hunter said if he didn’t get in front of the net, he wouldn’t be on the ice for the man advantage).  The Flames had only 19 shots on goal – the fewest the Caps have allowed under Hunter. Playing with 7 defenseman—since Mike Green returned to the lineup Tuesday (no points, one penalty, and even on the plus-minus)—didn’t appear to cause any wrinkles in the Capitals’ plans either. The game included a perfect penalty kill and two power play goals for the Capitals, one coming from Alex Ovechkin.

“We’re just starting to play together as a group. We’re getting excited to play each game –coming to the rink, everyone’s enjoying themselves and having a good time, but at the same time put[ting] in the work,” Ward said, though when asked if the excitement or feeling of playing as a team was lacking before, he said he couldn’t really pinpoint what made the Capitals slide after winning 7 but added that they had needed to “get back to just honest hard work at both ends of the ice.”

Ward – who had five fewer shifts Tuesday but whose average shift length during the game jumped by about  16 seconds—also said Ovechkin’s strong play in the past few games is also helping his teammates.

Ward agreed when asked if winning seems to make the game simpler, or, as he said it, slower.  Brouwer had a slightly different twist.

“You make it simpler. When you are winning, things come easier. You’re not forcing things. Maybe in the Columbus game [Dec. 31] when we were coming back, we were trying to force a few plays, but it ended up working because we had some good pressure, no turnovers, stuff like that, “ Brouwer said. “When you’re losing, it’s tough to try and play that simple game. You want to do a little bit more than you maybe should.”

Filed in Alexander Ovechkin, Joel Ward, Troy Brouwer, Washington Capitals | Comments (2)


Caps Remain Hot Against Flames: Washington 3 / Calgary 1

By The OFB Team 3 January, 2012

Filed in 2 Points, Calgary Flames, Washington Capitals | Comments (0)


One Last Comeback for 2011: Caps 4 / Blue Jackets 2

By The OFB Team 31 December, 2011

Filed in 2 Points | Comments (0)


Size, of Body and Heart, Matters — Especially in 2012

By pucksandbooks 31 December, 2011

Instructive moment: Rangers’ captain Ryan Callahan, made captain at so tender an age partly out of his affinity for playing December hockey games like they’re game 7s in May, blocked a John Carlson slapshot at the point the other night, and the selfless sacrifice led to a Rangers goal in transition seconds later. The block was one of four Callahan recorded in the game’s opening 20 minutes. Among a few members of the Capitals’ commentariat  on Twitter then there was expressed something tantamount to censure of Callahan, for, I guess, what was deemed a reckless lack of self regard: were he to keep it up, the tweeters lectured, Callahan would again find himself shelved with injury come spring.

A devoted worshiper at the Church of Old Time Hockey, and imbued with resounding cynicism, I couldn’t help but think: We in D.C. have become so saturated with soft, perimeter play by our hockey players — most especially in spring — that it shouldn’t be surprising that some observers here find Callahan’s impression of William Wallace . . . so alien. One interpretation of the perpetual scratching of Jeff Schultz is that the Capitals’ new head coach thinks like I do.

An alternative interpretation of Callahan’s gallantry could go something like this:  That motherf*cker is damned tough to play against, and for the past couple of seasons, the talent-challenged Rangers have well reflected their captain’s grit and determination, by decree of their head coach, and given more talented clubs a real run for their money (especially in spring). Ryan Callahan is one hell of a captain. He will be one hell of an American Olympian captain as well.

Today, that talent gap with the rest of the East for New York has been closed quite a bit, and for me it’s no coincidence that playing inspired, finish-your-checks hockey the Rangers reside at the very top of the conference. Soon, they’ll get their best defenseman in the lineup (Marc Staal), for the first time this season, making them even tougher to play against. The Rangers are built the way serious contenders are — from the net out, big and brawny, with an unmistakable net-clearing ethos in front of the net, and mobile and skilled on the blueline. Served the Bruins rather well last spring.

Perhaps before we criticize another team’s captain and his teammates for excessive sacrifice and courage we ought to see to it that ours is within driving distance of the Viking, Alberta, meter of toughness and tenacity.

The Washington Capitals of the past five years haven’t exactly been known for the selfless sacrifice of their bodies for the betterment of the team, for finishing their checks. In fact, especially in spring, they have fairly earned the reputation of being a team that’s easy to play against, one that comparative lunch pale squads want to draw in the postseason. To state the obvious: there is today no Capitals player quite like Ryan Callahan, and there hasn’t been for some years. Once upon a time, though, there was. The good news is that the former Capitals’ captain is now behind the team’s bench. There, he’s attempting to change a country club culture.

He needs time — cultures, of course, aren’t changed in a week or a month.

Almost certainly, he also needs more Patrick division bodies. More on that in a moment.

Speaking of instructional moments, HBO’s ’24/7′ this month is again affording more stark relief for Capitals fans insofar as how the rugged East comports itself. Watching the intermission exhortations of John Tortorella and Peter Laviolette is not far removed from listening to the warrior words of William Wallace. At their conclusion I find myself clutching my abdomen on my couch to make sure no Rangers or Flyers stick blades make their way through the TV screen at me, and necessarily I’m reminded of the contrast Dan Bylsma brought with our guy on last year’s series (“Hit Green.”).

George McPhee hired Dale Hunter because he believed him to be the best possible coach for the Capitals at the present moment, and part of that formulation perhaps included his conviction that Hunter could be the architect for revamping both the style and ethos of the club. My guess is that Coach Hunter is taking inventory of the roster he has and will report rugged shortcomings to the GM in short order.

The arrival of 2012 really brings a demarcation moment for the Washington Capitals. To posit any plausible playoff success next spring the Caps necessarily will have to get past the pesky and gutsy and supremely sacrificing Rags, the larger and skilled Flyers and Bruins. I’m not sure that as comprised the Capitals would be favored in any series. But 2012 also brings Washington’s return to the reconstituted Patrick division. The Capitals of the past five years have been assembled to compete quite well in the softer Southeast. In the next calendar year the hockey for the guys in  red necessarily gets rougher and tougher.

Looking ahead to 2012 and beyond, there is cause for concern. When you inventory the Capitals’ prospects holdings at Hockeysfuture, with an eye toward who among just the top 15 qualifies as a North American forward prospect tipping the scales at at least 6 ’0, 180 pounds (hardly power forward in stature), the calculation is stunning: zero. Then for fun take a look at the size of the prospect holdings for the Rags, Flyers, Pens, and Devils — and just in their top 10. The Rangers are awaiting on reinforcements like Chris Kreider (6 ’2, 200), J.T. Miller (6 ’1, 198), and defenseman Dylan McIlraith (6 ’4, 215, nicknamed the Undertaker). Philly, ravaged by injury this season, has already received notable contributions from young, big-bodied North Americans like Brayden Schenn and Sean Couturier. The Pens have Eric Tangradi (6 ’4, 232), Dustin Jeffrey (6 ’1, 205), Robert Bortuzzo (6 ’3, 196), and Brian Strait (6 ’0, 200) in the pipeline. From the development perspective, we’re coming to the Patrick rechristening party next season with jockeys.

I still suggest that in hindsight it was right to draft the likes of Brian Sutherby, Nolan Yonkman, and Joe Finley. Things didn’t work out with them; injuries eviscerated their respective development. But the Capitals obviously have gotten away from drafting size and guile and grit, and beginning in 2012, they need it badly. Funny: The ‘New-look’ NHL at the top of the East these days rather resembles the old, in stature. The Capitals hold two first-round picks and potentially Colorado’s second-rounder next June. Those picks need to resemble NFL linebackers or safeties in size, and here’s hoping Dale Hunter — uniquely qualified to assess the attributes of top junior talent — is at the draft table for their selection, and subsequently their development.

Filed in Dale Hunter, George McPhee, HBO's 24/7, Jeff Schultz, Morning cup-a-joe, New Jersey Devils, New media, New York Rangers, Old Time Hockey, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, The Great Old Patrick Division | Comments (6)


Ovi Rattles the Sabre: Washington 3 / Buffalo 1

By The OFB Team 30 December, 2011

Filed in 2 Points, Alexander Ovechkin, Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals | Comments (0)


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