Monday, February 25, 2008

Monday Roundup

Rather than recap a couple of tough weekend losses - one more gut-wrenching than the other - I thought I'd use this space today to promote a good cause, namely a fundraiser for the Wilson High hockey team.

The long and the short of it is that Wilson is D.C.'s only public high school with a varsity hockey team and following the loss of their coach last winter to pneumonia, the program is on the verge of being dissolved (more details can be found over at OFB).

In an effort to help out a little bit, a group of bloggers (led by OFB) is hosting a fundraiser this coming Friday night at Clyde's of Gallery Place. For $10 a head, you can help out a great cause AND have a good shot at some great prizes (including items signed by Caps and Hershey Bears players).

So come on out for a good time, a good cause and maybe, just maybe, a Caps win.

Elsewhere 'Round the Rinks:

Happy 22nd Birthday to Jeff Schultz.... Don't go over to Mirtle's site and vote on who should win Coach of the Year (he blamed me for Alex Ovechkin running away with the Hart in his last poll).... "Major bonus points" for Caps fans.... Finally, one year ago today we recapped a Caps/Devils game (how 'bout that?), noted a silly trade rumor from a silly rumor-monger, and looked at the market values of Dainius Zubrus and blueliners.

Daily Awards
  • Hart: Teemu Selanne (3G, 2A, +3, 2 SOG)
  • Ross: Teemu Selanne (5 points)
  • Norris: Marek Malik (G, A, +2, 2 SOG)
  • Vezina: Ilya Bryzgalov (35-save shutout win)
  • Richard: Teemu Selanne (3G)
  • Calder: Jonathan Toews (3A, 2 SOG)
  • Aiken: Patrick Lalime (L, 5 goals allowed on 25 shots against in 48:38 of work)

10 comments:

Abhinav said...

Was it just me or did the Devils get away with "drawing some penalties"?

The Poti high-stick was just Zajac grabbing Poti's stick and hitting himself in the head with it. The Lepisto hook looked like whoever he was "hooking" was just holding onto his stick.

Grasping for an excuse I guess...

Anonymous said...

I agree Rage, Lepisto shouldn't have got the penalty but the Devil player should have got two minutes for holding the stick. The play was right in front of me and the NJ player had a death grip on Sami's stick. As for the game, I'm going to disagree with the general consensus and say this was a good point. Yeah, the Caps outplayed NJ for most of the game, but that wasn't Kari Lehtonen in the opposite goal. Brodeur is arguably the best goalie in the game today. Honestly, who didn't think that when NJ scored their PP goal that Brodeur would shut out the Caps for the rest of the game? I almost got up and left because I just couldn't bear to watch what I thought would be another 19 minutes of futility. So, maybe they should have won, but more likely they probably should have lost. And I think that's what the focus should be this morning. That they fought back and got the tie.

JP said...

If I'm not mistaken, the NJ player that locked up with Lepisto was Zubie. And yeah, terrible call.

Also, even though it obviously thwarted a great scoring chance, the hockey fan in me had to admire Brodeur's poke check on Green. Marty was/is so, so good.

Anonymous said...

In the NJ papers, Brodeur is saying that was one of the best games he has ever played. That should give you an idea of how good he was ad, conversely, how good the Caps were. Despite what Tarik says, that was a good point yesterday.

Unknown said...

This game was a remarkable turnaround from the disaster we witnessed in Carolina. Despite giving up the extra point, the Caps looked like the better team for most of the game. I agree with those who give credit to Brodeur. He was by far the best player on the ice yesterday.

That being said, I also think the crossbar/post was the difference for the Caps. We hit it at least twice, and when the Devil's hit it, it gave them the choice rebound for the game winner.

Paul Nichols said...

After this weekend from hell, the sad thing is that we've lost 5 of the last 6 against our own division. As that moron says in the Dodge commerical "That can't be good".

Arrgh.

Paul Nichols said...

I should have added the "says" in there... oops. Must be some of that publik skooling I had...

B8ovin said...

I can't see how Sunday's game can be described as anything but a great effort. We outplayed every Devil on the ice except Brodeur, we lost on a fluke rebound in OT having picked up a point, we got shafted on a few penalties, and still boosted our performance from Saturday night by 100%.

If we HAVE to have low points: Flash seems to be melting the closer he gets to the net; Erskine is playing like less talented Witt and that is bad in so many ways; we are quickly closing in on a goalie controversy.

Anonymous said...

Explain to me why it is worse to have one line gelling (Ovie-Kozlov-Backstrom) than no lines at all gelling?

I can't believe we are getting pwned by the lousy Southeast.

Anonymous said...

Why was the weekend hell? Because we are slowly seeing our P-off hopes dashing away.

But I'll take Sundays OT loss anyday compared to Saturday's choke in Raleigh. We outplayed the Devils except for Marty, and he was typical Marty.

Carolina sucks.