Hump Day Ponderings

- I'm sure everyone knows by now that Nicklas Backstrom has officially signed with the Caps and was introduced to the local media Monday afternoon. I was still out of town for that one but I did catch him on Washington Post Live yesterday and was pretty impressed.

Not with WaPo Live - holy crap, is that show booooring...

Anyways, Backstrom is obviously not going to be the flamboyant, spotlight-grabbing player that Ovechkin has been since day 1. You could tell he was nervous, but he was poised and modest, with a fair grasp of English to boot. Not a bad pitch out at RFK this weekend, either - did anyone make it out to the ballpark who can report back?

This is an exciting time for Caps fans, so naturally the local mainstream media is completely ignoring it - I won't babble on about how unjust that is because as usual the boys at OFB beat me to it (and naturally did a better job than I would have...). NBC4.com did post their coverage on their website - a nice 2 minute segment with interviews and photo ops that you can see here. Check it out if you need a little MSM hockey fix.

- The Bears continue their AHL madness by taking a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals...on the other side of the bracket, we have the Hamilton Bulldogs going up 2-0 in their series against Chicago. I don't want to jump the gun here, but a potential Calder Cup Final between the Baby Caps and the Baby Habs?

Beautiful.

- So it looks like we have a few days off before the big show commences Monday night: Sens vs. Ducks, for the whole enchilada...

East vs. West...

US vs. Canada...

Former Capitals assistant coach vs. Former Capitals coach...

Once crappy expansion team vs...well, once crappy expansion team...

Of course, this means we have at most seven hockey games left until we are plunged into a summer of darkness. Boo.