Whew. And we're back. I'll tell you, there's nothing like a heartbreaking first round loss to the Flyers followed by a soon-to-be heartbreaking second round loss to the same damn team to almost make a girl lose her mojo, scrap it all and take up the NBA.
So...how 'bout those Wizards, huh? Huh?
Okay, no. I have no idea what's going on with the Wiz these days and honestly I couldn't care less, despite my desire to just turn the lights off on this hockey season and hide away until September. It hasn't gotten bad enough for me to turn to basketball, not yet at least; and I'm guessing since Dan Steinberg is still blogging furiously, the Wizards are still alive.
Bully for them.
Don't get me wrong - there is a lot to celebrate right now. Take the fact that the Caps weren't even supposed to make the postseason in the first place and yet ended up winning their division. Take the fact that they clawed their way back from a 3-1 series deficit and made it all the way to overtime in game 7 before succumbing to the Flyers. Take the fact that Ovechkin, Backstrom and Boudreau all find themselves up for major NHL awards - all of which are deserved.
Take the fact that waiting in the wings of an already young, talented club are young, talented prospects with names like Karl Alzner, Sami Lepisto, Andrew Gordon, Mathieu Perreault, and Semen Varlamov.
Yes, there is a lot of good in the world for Caps fans, and I, like all of you, would do well to remember that. Because as we sit on the verge of a potential Flyers-Penguins Conference Final...it's sometimes hard to believe there is any good in the world at all.
Despite the pain, there is still hockey going on - and some pretty exciting hockey for that matter. Sure, all four series are flying by and we could be seeing one of the shortest second rounds in recent memory. But don't let that fool you, none of these series (save for the Wings-Avs series, which admittedly I haven't watched much of) have been easy. There have been a lot of one-goal games, a lot of overtimes, a lot of clanking posts and reviewed goals and nail-biting final seconds. It's been a hard fought second round, as it should be.
Hey, if the Avs and Rangers remember how to play hockey for one night we've got ourselves a foursome of 3-1 series heading down the stretch. And doesn't the time seem ripe for a team to pull off the oh so rare feat of being down by that margin...and coming back to win it all? The way this postseason is going, it's not out of the realm of possibility.
Some thoughts so far:
- Montreal's problem isn't their goaltending or their lack of discipline at inopportune times or their inability to create traffic in front of Biron...it's all three. If that sounds eerily familiar to you, you're not alone.
- Every time Daniel Briere sneaks in from behind the net to score a goal a baby cries. Would someone just put a big bell around his neck already?
- The Rangers with Sean Avery have proved to be a tough if not quite tough enough foe for the Penguins. Without him? Tee time's at 8:30 tomorrow morning, boys.
- Marty Turco has worn the "choker" moniker, rather unfairly, for years now. Guess what - he's mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. He's the Cheap Seats favorite among all goalies named Marty, that's for sure.
- Is Colorado still playing?
- Steve Begin blocked a shot with his midsection last night and when he got to his feet and hobbled to the dressing room., he was booed. You stay classy, Philadelphia.
- Two games in a row now Patrick Marleau has picked off a cross-ice pass from Sergei Zubov, taken it down ice and scored a shorthanded goal. The Stars may be an infinitely better team with Zubov in the lineup, but I think everyone would agree he needs to stop trying that pass.
- Say what you want, but no coach does the wry "are you kidding me??" smile better than Guy Carbonneau.
- Where have you gone, Joe...Thornton?
- The Pens have the potential to do something no team has done in almost twenty years, and that is sweep the first two rounds. My question for you is this - since they came against a weak Senators team and an elderly Rangers team, does that make them more or less ready to face whoever survives the Habs-Flyers series?
- Speaking of which - irony comes in many shapes and colors, but right now it's wearing a hideous black and orange jersey. You have to think that after essentially throwing the last game of the year to draw the Sens in the first round over Philly, the last thing the Pens want to do is face the juggernaut Flyers in the Conference Finals. Should that happen...I will laugh.
Through my tears, of course.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
So Much to Say
Friday, October 12, 2007
Streak Ends at Three
This has the potential to become a very doom-and-gloom recap so I'll keep it short...if only to appease the little voice in the back of my head that's saying "it's just one game" over and over again.
What a fiasco. It's never a good omen when your team takes a penalty off the opening faceoff, and it was basically downhill from there.
Good
- Ovechkin gets his 100th career goal - congrats to Ovie on such an amazing accomplishment, even if it did come in a loss.
- Olie looked pretty sharp, stopping 38 of 41 shots to hold the Caps in a game they had no business being in. Period.
- Jagr didn't score a goal. He had some assists, sure, but no goals. I'm counting that as a positive in a game that had so few positives.
- The Caps got a little better as the game went on. And I mean that in a completely relative sense.
- The last 5 seconds of the 2nd period.
- A few other notable performances were those by Matt Pettinger, Mike Green, and........nope. I'm out. 4 players showed up tonight, eh? That might have been part of the problem.
Bad
- The entire first period, minus Ovechkin's goal.
- The Caps came into this game having taken only 12 penalties through three games and yielding no goals while being a man down. They limp out again having taken another 7 and giving up all three goals. Makes you realize just how much you miss someone like Boyd Gordon, doesn't it? His absence was palpable.
- ...everything else after Ovechkin's goal.
I don't know. This one was just...long. And boring. And awful. After two straight jaw-droppingly good games and a scrappy come from behind win, it was frankly a little shocking to see the Caps come out flat and stay flat all night. Some of it can be blamed on injuries, sure - without Gordon in the lineup you have to shuffle the regular formations, bump Steckel up, bring in Sutherby, adjust the penalty kill, etc. But did his injury create some sort of mass amnesia among his teammates that rendered them unable to remember what playing hockey looked like?
Let's hope they rebound, and fast. The Sabres may not be quite the threat they once were but as Atlanta found out yesterday they can still score, and if the Caps' offense continues to be as anemic as it has been we could have problems.
No gameday preview for tomorrow - enjoy the game, everyone.
Update: As further proof that my NHL world must remain balanced (and that none of my teams can ever win in the same night) the Flames earned their first win by beating the Stars in overtime. Go Flames!
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Blueshirts Lacking the Green?
- One of the biggest splashes in the free agent market this offseason was made by, who else, the New York Rangers. Signing first Scott Gomez and then Chris Drury was a bold move to be sure, but the jury's still out on whether it was a smart one.
With these two signings the Rangers' salary, pre-arbitration, was inflated to $39,711,310. Still under the cap, so no problem, right? Wrong.
There is this tiny nagging problem that four of their cornerstone players remain unsigned: Brendan Shanahan, Sean Avery, Marcel Hossa, and Henrik Lundqvist. (Prucha was the fifth, but he re-signed today, terms undisclosed.) The remaining cap space is just enough to cover Lundqvist at $5 million, Avery at $2.5 million, Hossa at his qualifying offer, and Shanahan at $2.5 million plus cap-exempt bonuses.
Lundqvist is in the best position to negotiate, arguably being the biggest reason for the Rangers' success in the postseason this past summer, and could file for arbitration before tomorrow's deadline.
Raise your hand if you think any of these guys, particularly King Henrik, is going to settle for these amounts after the numbers thrown at Drury and Gomez. No one? Me neither. Now raise your hand if you think Shanahan is as good as gone. Everyone?
Me, too.
- In other Rangers-related news, the Devils have stolen away Lundqvist's backup Kevin Weekes, signing him to a $1.375-million, two-year contract. I guess all this really means is that Clemmensen is on his way out and the Devils will now overpay someone different to ride the bench for 79 games a year. Good plan.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Lost Players Find Homes
Day 1 of the "Free Agent Frenzy" has come and gone, and we've all had time to process the moves that were made or not made as the case may be around the NHL.
Some thoughts...
- Let's deal with the biggest issue on everyone's mind - no, we didn't sign Gomez or the gruesome twosome from Buffalo. Uh...did people actually think we were going to? The prices and length of term for those three guys who, I'm sorry, are grossly overrated, would have put the Caps in a financial and contractual bind and prevented them from moving forward with extensions for our youngsters in the coming years. They're good players, sure. Are they worth $6-7 million a year until the end of time? Absolutely not.
What's more, we all knew those were the kinds of dollars and contract lengths being tossed around for any one of those centers, and had we signed any of them there would have been cries of "overpaid!" coming from every corner of CapsNation. Now I'm well aware that I've repeated time and time again how much I love Chris Drury and wanted him here. But not for five years at just over $7 million a year, no thank you. And now that he's donning the hated blueshirt, my love and respect for him has just taken a serious hit. Sorry, Chris, but you can't be the heart and soul player for a team that has neither heart nor soul. Good luck with Satan Jagr...
- As always I took a spin around the Caps online world to get a feel for the verdict on yesterday's action, and while I was pretty impressed (and frankly surprised) with how positive many people seemed to be, to the rest of you I have to say one thing: quit your whining. Look around at the deals being made all day yesterday, huge dollar amounts flying left and right, lifetime contracts being doled out...then look at the fantastic job that GMGM did.
He got us a puck-moving defenseman who can, wait for it, quarterback the power play. He locked him up for four years at $3.5 million per year, maybe a tad overpaying but definitely low considering the market. Maybe not a number one defenseman, but still top four and all in all a good pickup. Then he went out and got a guy who has played with Ovechkin, who put up career numbers last year, who at just 30 is still in his prime, and who can fill the need for a skilled right winger. Price tag? Two years, $2.5 million. Voila.
That's filling two holes that needed to be filled with relatively little risk involved, particularly with Kozlov. If either doesn't work out, a 2 or 4 year deal is much easier to move than a 6-8 year contract...we know that all too well. So that's $6 million tied up in two pretty decent players, leaving tons of cash left over to go after one sexy center, whoever that may be...I know who I want.
- Back to the Poti deal - this is a guy that I actually wanted to see here the last time he was available and the more I think about it the better I feel about this signing. People are complaining that he's sometimes prone to defensive mistakes. Guess what? He wasn't brought in to be a Scott Stevens or even a Brendan Witt. He was brought in to do exactly what he does, play the point, boost the offense, and occasionally shut down the other team's scoring.
The organization has quite a few youngsters who will, in time, fill that stay at home d-man position. Jeff Schultz leaps immediately to mind, as does Shaone Morrisonn. Big bodies, young players who will grow into their role, and the only way to let them do that is to actually give them experience doing just that. It may continue to be a little bumpy along the way, but let's face it - how much worse could it really be? And in the meantime you get a guy with playoff experience, a guy who knows a few of his new teammates, a guy who can pick up some badly needed points on the power play...I say well done, McPhee.
- The Rangers are really bugging the crap out of me, I'll say it right now. It's not that I thought Drury or Gomez would come here because I honestly didn't, as I mentioned before. It's the sheer audacity they have in resuming the game I like to call "New York big bucks franchise tries to buy a championship" (See Steinbrenner, George.) Last season I found myself occasionally praising the team I loathed for getting away from all that crap and trying to build through the draft and acquisitions based more on character and ability than on name alone (around Jagr, sure, but still...) Flash forward to yesterday: they sign Drury and Gomez, the two biggest names of the UFA frenzy. They're going to lose Nylander, they just lost Ortmeyer...and they're back to square one. Of course, they still don't have any defense to back up their "firepower", so at least we can hang on to that lovely thought.
- What the hell are the Flyers doing? I'm no expert in the ways of building a winning team, but to me it doesn't seem wise to lock up a handful of second-tier players to huge long-term contracts the year after your worst season in franchise history. To me this looks like the desperate act of a franchise trying to quickly win back their fans. Newsflash to Snider and Holmgren: Philly fans are fickle. Sure, the trades and signings that got done yesterday may make the Flyers an infinitely better team...it could also blow up in their face. As a former division rival, am I the only one who is hoping it's the latter? If that makes me a bad person, I don't care. Too many long nights surrounded by fans in orange and black will make a person bitter.
(I will say that I do like the idea of Briere going somewhere I already hate - makes it easier to continue my own personal loathing of the evil little hobbit.)
- Winners of the first day: Colorado. Wow. Locking up Smyth and Hannan (who went for a lot less than I thought he would) augments what already was a pretty decent team...hey, any team that can make Andrew Brunette into a consistent scorer gets my vote. With Joe Sakic continuing to produce and lead in a way that only he can and now these two new additions, this Avs team is going to look pretty darn scary come the fall.
- Bizarre Award: Pittsburgh. They've already locked up their geriatric duo, Roberts and Recchi. So what's next? Go find a 35 year old defenseman whose best days are behind him to...to what? Increase the average age in the locker room? Okay, sure. Then they pick up Petr Sykora (you know, the "good" one), who has never really lived up to the hype that surrounds him. Just ask Devils fans. Throw in the addition of a new backup goalie after spending this year praising the hell out of Thibault's performance, and rightly so, and you've got one strange, strange day on the market for the Pens.
- The Caps really were the best team in the division at improving their roster after their moves yesterday. Granted, they had more work to do than the other four teams who all either made the playoffs or really sat just on the cusp at the end of last season, but still. No Cup winner out of the Southeast Division this season? What's that all about? Let's take a brief gander around the Southeast:
- Tampa: Signed Michel Ouellet to a two-year deal. Respectable point totals, but the guy couldn't score consistently on a line with Sidney Crosby. Please. I may not like Sid the Kid very much but I hear he's a pretty decent passer...
- Carolina: Agreed to a two-year deal with Jeff Hamilton. Again, I'll say...who?
- Atlanta: Signed Eric Perrin, formerly of the Bolts, to a two-year deal. Not necessarily a bad signing, just kind of...meh. Signed Todd White to a four-year deal. Again, not necessarily bad, just...meh. And they lost their silver bullet, Jon Sim, to free agency. Oops.
- Florida: Signed Richard Zednik (2 years), Brett McLean (3 years) and Radek Dvorak (2 years). I'm sorry, I do love him, but Zed? Suckers. The other two are space-fillers at best, and with Bertuzzi and Roberts departing at the deadline they have very little grit. Of course they did swing that Vokoun deal at the draft, which fills a very urgent need in net and signals the end of Eddie "the Balding Eagle" Belfour's reign of terror, so that's an upgrade.
So now we sit and wait for the rest of the UFAs to go their separate ways, with many eyes suddenly and bizarrely on the Michael Nylander situation but also focused on *shudder* Alexei Yashin. The Caps are still looking for a top line center and I'll bet GMGM has been very busy today trying to lock one up as soon as possible...stay tuned.
Update: Per Japers' Rink (and courtesy of an alert commenter) it looks like my Nylander dream, like so many of my Caps-related dreams, has come crashing back to earth with a resounding thud. A second radio station is claiming Nylander has signed a 4 year deal with the Oilers. No confirmation from TSN as yet, but this is twice now that we're hearing word out of Edmonton of a deal - three times and I say we move on to...*sigh*...Yashin. I guess. Sure.
