Photo courtesy of WashingtonCaps.com
That'll do, boys...that'll do.
That'll do, boys...that'll do.
Showing posts with label Senators. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Senators. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
Gameday Preview: Caps vs Senators
Who: Washington Capitals vs. Ottawa Senators
Where: Verizon Center
When: Tuesday, January 15, 7:00 pm
Broadcast Info: CSN, 3WT Radio; Sportsnet, Team 1200
Media Notes:
Caps' Website
Sens' Website
NHL.com
Washington Post
Washington Times
First, a mini-rant against whoever writes the AP previews for these games:"The Ottawa Senators are the best team in the Eastern Conference, but they've hardly looked like it against the lowly Washington Capitals."
The Caps are not "lowly". They're near the bottom of the league, yes, but they are only a handful of points out of eighth place and within reach of almost every team in the conference. Plus...lowly has been done. Find a new word. Rant complete.
So this is one of those games that is really a crapshoot, a game of "what ifs" and "if onlys" and "who knows".
To start, the Caps have played three games against the Senators so far this season. In none of them were they expected to win. In all of them they came away with two points. So you have the fact that the Caps know they can beat this Sens team combined with the fact that Ottawa is not about to let the "lowly" Caps sweep them without a fight. Interesting dynamic right off the bat.
Then you have the injuries on both sides and potential returning injured players on both sides. For the Sens, they recently suffered a major blow with the loss of Dany Heatley to a separated shoulder. However they'll get Patrick Eaves back after the right winger missed 24 games with, oddly enough, a separated shoulder. On the Washington side, the Caps are still missing Brian Pothier, out with a concussion, and it looks like they will continue to be without Clark after he reinjured his groin in Sunday's loss to the Flyers.
After that there are any number of factors. Ray Emery in net for the Sens is always a bit of a wild card, and Brent Johnson, who will probably give Olie the night off, keeps things interesting in his own right. The Sens are playing their third game in four nights, the Caps have more rest under their belts with just one game in the last five days. Ottawa hasn't lost four straight in DC nor have they been swept in a season series since the mid-90s. Both teams are coming off of disappointing losses on Sunday.
The one thing that seems to be certain is that games between these two teams never seem to be boring. All three have had at least 5 goals in them, with the two teams combining for 23 goals in the last two games alone. Each game one team has had a strong period and then the other team responds with a strong period of their own.
Whatever it is about the Sens that brings out the best in the Caps, let's see more of it.
Hell, let's bottle it and douse them with it before every game.
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Happy New Year!
There's no better way to ring in the New Year than with a dominant win over the East's best team, and the Caps accomplished that feat with flying colors.
Saturday saw the Caps and the Sens duke it out in a defensively shaky performance that saw fourteen goals scored, seven in the third period alone. But yesterday's game was all about team toughness - both mental and physical.
After falling behind quickly by two, goals which were both results of poor defensive plays, the Caps roared back with four first period markers of their own to take the lead. They weathered a third period Senators storm without two of their big minute guys, Semin and Poti. They scored their first five on three goal of the year. They got goals from all areas of the lineup, including Viktor Kozlov's long awaited fourth tally. And they sweep the home and home series against a team no one thought they could beat.
In the first five minutes the Caps looked outplayed, outclassed, and disinterested. You can't give up two quick goals to guys like McAmmond and Neil who, as important as they may be to the Senators lineup, are not renowned for their scoring. It would not have been strange to see the whole Caps bench slump in despair.
But immediately after the second Sens goal Boudreau tossed out the top line of Ovechkin, Backstrom and Kozlov. They danced around the Ottawa defense, passing and weaving through players to set up the perfect play - Backstrom to Kozlov to the back of the net. Follow that up with a dazzling scoring chance by Pettinger, a quick four on four goal by Nylander that caught Gerber napping, and a quicker and more beautiful goal by Mike Green...and the Caps never looked back.
There were some great things about yesterday. First of all, the crowd was big and loud and draped in red, a rarity that hopefully won't be a rarity much longer if the team keeps this up. The Caps continued to prove that they can come back from a deficit and they did it against a team that had only lost four times when scoring first. They got a balanced attack from the top three lines and a handful of points from the blueline. And they got strong goaltending from Olie, who has really raised his game over the last few nights despite the number of goals allowed.
It's easy to say that Ottawa might have underestimated the Caps the first time they lost. The second win was an old-fashioned shootout that saw neither team playing their strongest defense and the Caps squeaking out an eight goal victory. Three wins in a row and maybe the rest of the league will start to take notice - this Caps team is a punchline no longer.
Of course, that doesn't mean the Ottawa Sun has to try and learn their names, right? Figure out what's wrong with the following quote:
The Senators figured out a way to silence Alex Ovechkin yesterday. Next time, they better come up with a plan to also contain Boyd Gordon.
A 24-year-old who entered the day with 10 goals in 161 NHL games, Gordon had his second and third of the season against an Ottawa team that turned in its second straight abysmal performance.
The information about Boyd Gordon is correct, obviously - 24 years old, 10 goals in 161 NHL games, blah blah blah...and he did have a two-point night. But I doubt Ottawa will look back at this game and think, "Huh...we should have shut down that Gordon kid." Good work, Ottawa Sun. That's almost as good as the moment on the NHL Network last night when Neil Smith talked about "Mike Laich".
...who?
Anyways.
Washington jumps right back into action Thursday night, hitting the road with their first visit to Boston on the season. They'll face a Bruins team that just snapped a six game losing streak and is hungry to get back into the top eight - they need to carry over the confidence from this home and home series to steal two points at the Garden.
That's a two-point night and a Happy New Year indeed!
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Wild Win for Caps
The old sports adage says that the best offense is a good defense...last night's game was more an exercise in the opposite, with fourteen goals between the two teams and the Caps having to "squeak out" an 8-goal win.
The Caps have been getting a lot of scoring support from secondary sources and defensemen, but every now and then it's nice to see the stars break out with an offensive juggernaut. It is, after all, why they are stars in the first place.
As everyone knows by now, Ovechkin had four goals - his first four-goal game of his career and, with an assist, his first five-point game as well. On top of that we got two goals from Nylander, a goal and two assists from both Backstrom and Semin, and two assists from Green.
It's easy to look at a game like this and say that the goaltenders shoulder most of the blame. Eight goals on thirty shots won't do much for Gerber's save percentage; neither will six on twenty-two for Kolzig's. But most of the goals came more as a result of defensive breakdowns, lucky bounces and power plays - in fact out of the fourteen goals there were probably only one or two total (including Gerber's behind-the-net gaffe that led to Semin's easy wraparound) that either goalie could be blamed for.
It's hard to go over every goal, every mistake, every penalty in a game like this. Fourteen goals, two hat tricks, twelve minor penalties, a fight, a penalty shot...it's exhausting just writing it. What we can take from a game like this are a few things.
One, the Caps have proven once again that they can hang with the elite teams in the league. Sure, they allowed Ottawa to almost climb back in after taking two three-goal leads and three two-goal leads. Sure, they gave up six goals. But they scored eight of their own and never looked outclassed doing it.
Two, this win moves the Caps into 14th place in the conference. That may not sound great, but it is the first time they haven't been dead last since November 8th. Almost two months. With just a two point lead over Tampa it's not a solid grip by any means; on the other hand, they're sitting five points out of the top 8 and only eight points out of the division lead.
So the Caps finish out 2007 on a high note and, more importantly, have completed their very difficult December schedule with a stunning 7-3-3 record. That's 17 points in 13 games, a sign that the Caps are very much on the right track. The next test of course will be making a real push to get back in the thick of the race, starting with a rematch against the Sens on New Year's Day. If they can use this game as a jumping off point and pick up some momentum, things are going to start to get interesting.
Photo courtesy of AP/Canadian Press
Friday, November 09, 2007
The Aftermath
It's always fun after a win up in Canada to see what is being said, if only because it tends to get a lot more coverage than it does down here. It's that much more fun when the Caps, a lowly 15th place team, top the Sens, the mighty 1st place team. (Not to pick on Sens fans too much, because I like Ottawa. Just not for the next 24 hours or so.)
Here's a quick rundown of all the press clippings...
Do you get the sense that everyone is as surprised as we are?
On that same note, here's a little local flavor, just for fun:
On that same note, here's a little local flavor, just for fun:
And finally, here are a couple of great snippets from the Ottawa Sun's game story:
- "So, the starting goaltender of one team didn't make himself available to the media yesterday while the star forward of the other team took the time to go into the hallway - in his underwear - and read a couple of lines of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas for a feature TSN does each year. Alexander Ovechkin read the lines at least a half-dozen times, laughed while doing it and when he was thanked by Brent Wallace of TSN, replied "No problem." And you wonder what makes a guy a pro."
- Backstrom on his goal: "If it hit [Emery] in the head," said Backstrom afterward, "I'm sorry."
- "[F]ormer NHLer Bob Probert was outside the Caps dressing room after the game. He introduced himself to Ovechkin. The star walked away and asked somebody, "Grobert? Who's Grobert?"
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Last Place: The Ultimate Rope-a-Dope
You have to think that the Senators were coming in to this game feeling pretty good about themselves and their odds of winning. They had won eight straight games, a franchise record. They were playing the Caps, a team with the worst record in the East, in a building that has plagued the Caps for years and against a goalie that the Sens love to torture.
Every paper in Canada, every pundit with a microphone, every fan has been gushing about how fantastic they've been to start the season - and it was well-deserved, let's not kid ourselves. The Caps were not supposed to win. No one thought they were going to win.
Someone forgot to tell the Caps.
From the opening faceoff, where Olie made a breathtaking save nine seconds in, to the final buzzer, the Caps never let up. This was a perfectly played road game - they shut down the flow in the first period, never letting the home crowd get into it. They continued their pressure in the second, a period that traditionally has tormented them. They threw in the knockout punch in the third. And just like that, the Senators' winning streak and the Caps' losing streak are both over.
There were, as is often the case in a win like this, stellar performances up and down the roster tonight. Kozlov was dominant, with a pretty goal and two assists. Ovechkin added a goal and an assist of his own, Nylander had two assists, Fleischmann capped off what had to be his most impressive game this season with a very nice goal...and congratulations to Nicklas Backstrom who gets the GWG on quite possibly the ugliest goal I've ever seen, his first NHL goal.
Then there is the big man between the pipes, Olie Kolzig. Spectacular when he had to be, steady the rest of the way, and giving up only one goal that was really unstoppable (and quite beautiful). He is the anchor of this team and its always nice to see him rewarded for continuing to do what he has done night in and night out this season.
If you had to find a turning point tonight, it would probably be the prolonged 5 on 3 the Caps killed off halfway through the second. Not to say they hadn't been playing well before that, because they had - but when one of your penalty killers loses his stick and sacrifices the body and then stays out there, it tends to give the team a lift.
And say what you will about Hanlon's coaching prowess lately; it was a brilliant move to take a timeout and rest the PK unit, which then went out and finished the job in style. Four minutes later Viktor Kozlov broke open the scoring, two minutes after that Backstrom got the game-winner, and that was all the Caps would need.
There is the potential for people to say that the Sens took the Caps lightly, and maybe for a little while that was true. But you have to think that after goal #2 they maybe caught on to the fact that this Washington team wasn't going away - and yet they never stepped up. The Caps kept the momentum going and just dominated good portions of the game, and there were times when Emery (who looked great tonight despite the outcome) was all that was holding them in.
Terrific job by all the boys to really do something no one thought they would do - take down the mighty Sens. If this doesn't give them confidence going forward, nothing will! Time to turn this win into a winning streak, starting with the Bolts on Saturday...
On an admin note, I'll be out of town starting tomorrow but will hopefully be checking in occasionally throughout the weekend. As always my esteemed colleagues on the blogroll will be more than happy to fulfill all your snark-filled, Caps-centric needs.
Gameday Preview: Caps vs. Senators
Who: Washington Capitals vs. Ottawa Senators
Where: Scotiabank Place
When: Thursday, November 8, 7:00 pm
Broadcast Info: CSN+, 3WT Radio; A Channel
Media Notes:
Caps' Website
Senators' Website
NHL.com
Washington Post
Washington Times
Globe and Mail
Ottawa Sun
Ottawa Citizen
Emery gets another shot...against the worst team in the league
Boston Globe (Ottawa is a scary, scary team...boo!)
StarPhoenix (The Senators are killing hockey)
If there was ever a mismatch of teams for a Thursday night battle, this would be it. The Caps are coming off their fourth straight loss, their ninth in the last eleven, while the Senators made franchise history by brushing aside the Leafs on Tuesday for their eighth straight victory.
The good news? There is very little pressure on the Caps to win this one. If they go into Scotiabank Place tonight and limp out with yet another loss, it will be bad but not unexpected; "better" teams have tried and failed to unseat the Sens this season.
Even better news for the Caps is that Ray Emery is in net - not that he's not a decent goaltender, but it's hard to say whether he has completely recovered from that offseason surgery on his wrist. Last week his team had a five goal lead going into the third against the Thrashers and blew it, scraping out a 6-4 victory after the dust had settled.
And the mighty Sens, while still a force, look to be waning just a bit. Their 5-1 victory against Toronto aside, they played a home and home against the Bruins and barely managed a win, going all the way to the shootout in the second game.
Now the bad news. Clark and Semin continue to be out, Poti is playing but not at 100%, the Caps have scored just three goals in the last four games...and the Senators are still a very scary team.
No one in the NHL is quite as sharply dressed as Ray Emery. Earlier this week we raided Emery's closet and gave the Ottawa superstar goalie some time to describe his style:
"Here's my casual look - hot sunglasses, polo shirt, just enough skin so you can see my tats...it's the perfect outfit for strolling through the airport or punching out other motorists. For the goalie on the go."
"My gangster suit. I love this look, the pin-stripes are very slimming and I think the spats give me something a little extra. The cash is just a little joke, I keep it in my closet like that. I try to wear this as often as possible but for some reason people get nervous around me in it...especially when I carry my violin."
"Now this is a classic. Powder blue with ruffles? CLASSIC. Never goes out of style. Perfect for weddings, bar mitzvahs, hanging out with friends. I love it."
"Everyone has that one special outfit for the holidays, right? This one is mine. I'm telling you, the ladies love a man who can ring a good bell...if you know what I mean."
"I don't wear this one as much just because the head tends to cover up my gorgeous face. But I still love it. It's brought to you by the letter H...for HOT."
"This one...well, I dress like this when I want to look like a real goalie. You'd be amazed how much respect I get when I wear that mask..."
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Preseason Ends Strong Despite Loss
It's hard to really count tonight's loss as a loss - in fact it's hard to say that about any of the four games the Caps have dropped. There were very few times in this game where the Caps looked outmatched, outplayed, or even as though they were trailing. There were little issues, obviously, and every time a mistake was made the Senators seemed to capitalize.
But there's no shame in falling 2-1 when you were the better team on the ice for the majority of the game. (I say that now when the games don't matter...check back with me if they drop one like this during the season.) The Caps not only had more shots than the Senators but they had more chances, more flurries and more time in the offensive zone with the puck. If this is what a puck possession team looks like, sign me up.
There were good things and bad things about this game as there always are, but tonight really is about the end of preseason rather than the result of one game. The final meaningless match is in the books and the Caps have finished with a very respectable 3-4-1, a record which doesn't even show the remarkable improvements this team has made heading into the regular season.
- Every game was won or lost by one goal, so even when the Caps lost or gave up a lead they managed to hang in there with teams that many people are picking to finish above them this year. And yes, I'm counting Friday's 7-5 comeback win as a one-goal game - an empty netter with 2 seconds left, as nice as it was, doesn't count in my mind (sorry, Stecks).
- The Caps have cut way down on the number of shots allowed, shaving an average of almost 10 shots per game off their numbers and limiting their opponents to less than 20 shots in four of their last five games.
- Opponents have been limited to 2 goals or less in four of the seven games, including two of the losses. Toss in a healthy bit of firepower from the top two lines when things start clicking and more of those losses should start to turn to wins.
So now some things to think about as we head into a few days off with the roster deadlines looming:
- Dave Steckel, although not as strong in his final game as he has been his last two or three outings, continues to be in the mix. He seems ready to make the transition to the NHL and has proven, if belatedly, that he deserves to be up here in some capacity. If he does stay it will likely mean a trade or a demotion to the AHL for either Laich, Sutherby, Bradley or Clymer.
Say what you will about these guys but I personally love what each of them brings to the team and the way they play. Throw in the fact that each one has had a pretty good camp and this gets downright tricky, so I'm not even going to try to decide who should stay. GMGM will make the best decision for the team, I'm sure.
- Our goaltending tandem has put together some good performances this year, but at times Brent Johnson has seemed to be a little stronger in net. Just something to worry think about...although I'd expect Olie to get back into his old routine any day now. At 37 he just has a little more rust to shake off than he used to. I hope.
- Some of our young prospects are no longer prospects and we're starting to see the development of guys like Mike Green, Tomas Fleischmann, Chris Bourque, Kyle Wilson, and numerous others. Should injuries or illness strip this team down at any point this season I'm feeling much more confident in the ability of depth players and callups to fill the void and carry the team through. And that's really all you can ask for.
- According to Tarik, Jeff Schultz has secured a roster spot and was told by the organization to get a place to live and a car. So not only does that surprise the hell out of me, but it makes things even more interesting going down the stretch for guys like Erskine, Green and Eminger. Yeah, because we needed more excitement...
Check back tomorrow night for news and pictures from the Caps Care Classic golf tournament. And naturally if Ovechkin picks up a golf club I'll try to get video.
...is it Friday yet?
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