Thursday, December 20, 2007

Gameday Preview: Caps vs Canadiens

Who: Washington Capitals vs. Montreal Canadiens
Where: Verizon Center
When: Thursday, December 20, 7 pm

Broadcast Info: CSN, 3WT Radio; RDS, CJAD

Media Notes:
Caps Site
Habs Site
NHL.com
Washington Post
Washington Times
TSN.ca
Montreal Gazette

The NHL's idea of a funny, funny joke is to schedule all four Caps-Habs games over the course of about a month. Thanks, guys. So the next thirty-odd days shall be known as "the time when CC went crazy", although my loyalty will always lie first and foremost with the Caps.

After kicking off the season red-hot, the Habs have cooled off significantly and have fallen to 6th in the conference. Meanwhile the Caps have turned things around and are 7-4-1 in the last 12 games since replacing Hanlon and will look to continue their resurgence on home ice.

Special teams always seem to be a factor in the new NHL, and tonight will be no different. The Habs come in with the number one power play in the league - the Caps, fueled by the efforts of Dave Steckel, Brooks Laich, Quintin Laing and others, have kicked their penalty kill up to 16th best. Still, the Habs' ranking is not just a fluke and they are extremely potent with the extra man. The Caps will need to be very disciplined and take advantage of 5 on 5 play as much as possible.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go hide under the covers until it's over.

5 comments:

Young HF29 said...

CapsChick if you decide to emerge from under the covers(you can do it! be brave!), be sure to pop in for some open thread comments, we'd love to have you visit

http://fourhabsfans.blogspot.com/2007/12/bring-on-ugliness-capitals-game-preview.html

Dan, Jr. said...

Yeah, that game brought me down a little. For the most part the Cap's played well. But, there just wasn't any spark. I found it hard to come up with a good post after that one. Unlike some recent ones with the likes of this excerpt:

'Shortly after that, play was stopped for a bit when Lundqvist stopped a hard Alexander Ovechkin shot with his nether regions. That slapping noise you heard at the time of impact, was every man in the arena slamming his "pads" together.'

http://juniors-eyes.blogspot.com/

DMG said...

unless the shot totals have been revised, the Capitals outshot the Candiens 37-21, so if they didn't have any spark Montreal must have been DOA

Victor said...

sixteen turnovers. hoo, boy.

Dan, Jr. said...

DMG - They had their chances & they outshot the Habs. But, most of the shots were from a distance. Other than a few players like Green & Ovechkin, who was driving toward the net? Laing was blocking shots like usual. Maybe it was the disappointment in me talking about spark. Anyway, I'm just hoping for better luck Saturday.