Friday Roundup/Kings 5, Caps 2

[AP Recap - Game Summary - Event Summary - WashingtonCaps.com Postgame]

The Caps won't make any excuses for this loss, but it was clear that they were tired and that injuries are catching up a bit. But hand it to Bruce Boudreau and his assistants - they resisted temptation and kept everyone's minutes manageable, with only Tom Poti (24:12) and Alex Ovechkin (21:56) playing more than twenty minutes. That shift management should pay off on Saturday night.

To the recap:

• The Caps were badly outplayed in the first period, being out-shot 12-3 (more on that in a second), out-hit 18-11, and, of course, out-scored 1-0. Brent Johnson kept it tight, and was only beaten on an unlucky deflection out high.
• Back to first period shots on goal, check out where those three - all off the stick of Alex Ovechkin - came from. And note that all three were on the power play, meaning that in 16 minutes of five-on-five play, the Caps had saved by ZERO shots on goal. There's no number of injuries that excuses that number. It was at the 8:54 mark of the second period when the Caps finally got their first even strength shot on goal.
  
• Was David Steckel motivated playing against the team that drafted him? Whatever his inspiration, he had a strong game.
• It's no wonder Dustin Brown had 10,000 hits last year - the in-house scorer at Staples apparently has a pretty generous definition of what constitutes a hit.
• Nicklas Backstrom quickly atoned for choking on an open net on a five-on-three by depositing a beauty of a Viktor Kozlov pass. By the way, Kozlov is playing perhaps his best hockey as a Cap of late.
• I love Carrie Milbank as much as the next guy (ok, maybe more), but are they really still running the Carrie/Barry Melrose ad?
• A third period 2-on-1 notwithstanding, Jarret Stoll has mastered the ol' Sergei Berezin give-and-go (you give to me then go to hell - I'm shooting), eh?
• Related: Brooks Laich, without a stick, is a more valuable hockey player than Stoll with one. With a stick around the crease? Money.
  
• Michael Nylander and Chris Clark continue to stink, for the most part, but don't take my word for it - ask Corsi.
  
• Heading into the third period, the Kings had a 2-1 lead and were 5-0-0 when leading after two periods, while the Caps had the third-best "trailing after two" winning percentage in the League. Something had to give... unfortunately, it was the Caps' success.
• Eric Fehr needs to be willing to go to the high-traffic areas, or he'll be headed back to the press box as soon as the team gets a little healthier.
• Thanks to a pair of empty netters, AO ended the game minus-3 after taking the League's plus/minus lead. Then again, who cares about plus/minus?
  

So it's off to San Jose for another tough road test. More later.

Elsewhere 'Round the Rinks:

Could the Blues be a Nylander destination?... Bruce Boudreau: "proven".... Rank your Hart Trophy candidates at the quarter pole.... After the reaction you all had to the Boudreau post earlier this week, I thought better of posting this "Green out for the year" link.... A nice article on the Bears' Rookie Line.... The New Jersey Rockets press release on John Carlson's contract signing (h/t sk8).

Thursday Roundup/Caps 6, Ducks 4/Gamenight: Caps @ Kings

[AP Recap - Game Summary - Event Summary - WashingtonCaps.com Postgame - AP Preview - WashingtonCaps.com Preview]

It's late and I'm tired (or it's early and I'm tired - take your pick), so here's your abbreviated recap, to be continued in the comments:

• Alex Ovechkin is quite good (but that was one stupid interfernce penalty in the third).
  
• So was Jose Theodore, for the most part, especially in the second period (11 shots faced, 11 shots stopped).
• The power play was fantastic, too, with good traffic and bombs aplenty from the point.
• I know that official scoring varies a bit from arena to arena, but this stat tells you much of what you need to know about the first two periods - the Caps had 28 shots on goal, three attempted/blocked shots and two missed shots (Anaheim was 16/4/10 over the same span). Basically, the Caps had their way with the Ducks in the O-zone when the game was still in doubt (and beyond - the Caps won nearly all the one-on-one battles, as exemplified by David Steckel's third period tally).
  
• Speaking of which, apparently the Honda Center, at 5-2 Caps, showed a traffic report on the Jumbotron. Perhaps that's a normal SoCal thing. Perhaps it's because they knew the game was over.
• And how on earth can Mike Green get killed by Chris Pronger for all to see with around 6:30 left in the first period and have it take Joe B. and Craig until the beginning of the third period to mention it to their viewers? Dude was only fifth in the League in total ice time per game - you'd think they'd have noticed his absence (maybe on one of the Caps power plays in the interim). Note: Tarik was on it quick and says it's his shoulder.
  
• Nice Ryan Whitney impression by Steve Montador, spearing AO in the yambag. Considering what the stripes were calling up to that point, letting that one go was horrible... but not as bad as Montador ducking Donald Brashear (repeatedly) when it came time to answer for his stick work. He must have been waiting for his three-time dance partner Matt Bradley to challenge him.
  
• Jeff Schultz was on the ice for three Ducks goals. Tyler Sloan had a pretty poor game himself, and Tom Poti had the team's worst Corsi Rating (and was on the ice for three Anaheim tallies). But kudos to John Erskine for a relatively (emphasis on relatively) good game - the rest of the D was pretty brutal, as detailed, though losing their minutes leader goes some of the way to excuse the effort.
• Ryan Getzlaf... still better than Eric Fehr.
  

So the Caps get an enormous and convincing (third period notwithstanding) win to start a brutal road trip.

As for tonight's match up, I dunno... read Vogs and the AP preview and keep coming back during the day to check the What We're Reading sidebar for more pregame updates - I'm spent. But I will note this interesting scheduling quirk - in the next five days, the Caps will visit the only three teams against whom Ovechkin hasn't scored a goal. Don't think that he doesn't know that.

Elsewhere 'Round the Rinks:

The Alexes are The Hockey News' pick for the League's best pair of teammates.... Needless to say, this is sweet (and comes in a number of different sizes - very well done, bilspacecadet).... Jeff Schultz as a fantasy hockey option? Now I've seen it all.... Peerless gets a nice shout out in the New York Times - does that make him a sissy liberal?

Getting Ready For Russian Heritage Night

Alex Ovechkin, Alex Semin, Sergei Fedorov and Viktor Kozlov will be warmly received when they hit Hollywood on Thursday night (and I'm not just talking about Calabasas resident Alyonka Larionov's reunion with AO), as the Kings host Russian Heritage Night at Staples Center.

Catching up with three of the Capital comrades this afternoon was LAKings.com's Heidi Androl. Have a look:
H/t Kukla's Korner

Ducks/Kings: Brunch At O2 Arena

OK, so it doesn't have nearly the ring or cachet that "Breakfast at Wimbledon" does, but at least we don't have to listen to Bud Collins. The 2007-08 NHL season begins in England later this afternoon (12:00 pm ET), and hockey fans in the U.S. have fingers crossed that Center Ice is up and running by then. (Sunday's game 2 will be carried by Versus.)

The typical lede in the local press has been hockey as curiosity. (Indeed, the BBC ran a story on Thursday titled, "NHL Circus in Town".) Some of the highlights:

From the BBC,

Two-time NHL All-Star, Todd Bertuzzi said: "It's something different to start the season. We'd usually be over in the US preparing so this is different and exciting."

Makes one wonder what Bertuzzi quotes ended up on the cutting room floor.

From the IHT,

"We're cross-town rivals, and we really don't like each other," Kings coach Marc Crawford said.

King's coach doing his best Don King.

From the The Guardian,

No game loses more in the translation to television than that played by 200-pound men skating at up to 40 miles an hour, laden with body armour, chasing a disc of vulcanised rubber and using a combination of balletic skill and basic thuggery as the tools of their trade.

"Laden with body armour"? What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen right wing?

SkyBet likes the Ducks in game 1, and so do I I do not. And I like the over under of 6. At 16/1, I'm also taking, "Celeb and pro dancer meet on show [Dancing with the Stars] and marry by end 2008."

Caps Trade Heward To The Kings

The Caps have sent Jamie Heward to the L.A. Kings for a conditional fifth round pick in 2007 2008.

The Rink has obtained this exclusive video of Heward at National Airport, headed for his flight out of town:

H/t to Snktimoniuz on the vid.

Friday Roundup/Caps 4, Kings 3 (OT)

[NHL.com Recap - WashingtonCaps.com Postgame Coverage]

Two point nights are so much more enjoyable than one point nights - far more than twice as enjoyable, in fact (but, interestingly enough, not quite infinitely better than zero point nights). Despite an awful first period in which they managed only five shots on goal (and no shots in goal), a marginally-better second period shot-wise (seven), and a better-yet third (ten shots on goal), the Caps managed to pull out a 4-3 overtime win against the Kings. If that shot pattern held, incidentally, and the game went 20 periods, the Caps would have had 214 shots on goal in that last frame. Now that would have been impressive.

Some thoughts on the game:

• If all I have to do is suggest the team trade a guy in order to get him going, then I suggest they trade Matt Pettinger and Richard Zednik next. Even with his big game, though, Dainius Zubrus did miss a gaping open net late in the second.
• I really like Boyd "Muffins" Gordon. Almost "buy-a-jersey" like, but not quite. Yet. He led all Caps in ice time and deserved every second he got.
• The Kings sure do dive a lot, and the referees seemed to encourage it by buying in. A pox on your house, Don Van Massenhoven.
• I'll resist (for now) the urge to say that Jamie Heward is terrible and instead say that he's had a string of pretty terrible games dating back to last season. How he finished last night with a plus-two rating is a mystery to me.
• On a somewhat-related note, why isn't Milan "Jerky" Jurcina getting more power-play time?
• Two shots and no hits for Alex Ovechkin, but he finished the game with a helper and a plus-three rating. I'm not sure yet how I feel about these numbers. Actually, I am sure - with a "normal" game out of AO, the team wouldn't have needed overtime to win.
• Anze Kopitar was as advertised - very impressive (and with his size, smoked visor, and rushes down the left side, reminded me of someone, but I can't quite put my finger on who). How he slipped to 11 in the Cheater Draft of '05 is beyond me.
• The Kings' goaltending was also as advertised - awful.
• Aaron Miller must be the slowest skater on the planet, as he made The Donald look like Apolo Anton Ohno (minus the soul patch) on one race for a loose puck.
• At one point during the game, "Capitals Salute The Military" night became an uncomfortable mash-up of the volleyball scene from Top Gun and an evening at Pete Townsend's house when "Flex Cam" made an appearance and males of all ages started shedding clothing.
• Big night in the dot for the Caps, who took 62% of the night's draws (Zubrus and Gordon were both right at 62% and Brooks Laich was all the way up at 78%).

Elsewhere 'Round the Rinks:

• When are people going to learn not to mess with Stephen Colbert (and Saginaw, for that matter)?

Daily Awards

• Hart: Ray Whitney (3G, including the game-winner, A, +3, 7 SOG)
• Ross: Ray Whitney, Slava Kozlov, Marian Hossa (3 points each)
• Norris: Ryan Whitney (2A, +2, 3 SOG, 2 blocked shots)
• Vezina: Martin Brodeur (25-save shutout win)
• Richard: Ray Whitney (3G)
• Calder: Joey MacDonald (L, 29 saves on 30 shots against)
• Aiken: Jose Theodore (3 goals allowed on 11 shots against in just 20 minutes of work)

Thursday Roundup/Gamenight: Kings @ Caps

[NHL.com Preview - WashingtonCaps.com Pregame - Official GDT]

I've always liked the Kings. As a wee lad, Luc Robitaille was my favorite non-Cap. I had the "Hockey Night In California" poster with Wayne Gretzky in his white and black home sweater and shorts, barefoot on the beach hanging on my wall. I rooted for a mulleted-Barry Melrose's team to beat the Habs in 1993. And years later, the Kings gave my little brother a job that he kept for just under two-and-a-half years, which I believe to be a family record for Gen-Xers.

Fast-forwarding to the here-and-now, I like Alex Frolov, Anze Kopitar, Lubomir Visnovsky, Michael Cammalleri and Dustin Brown from the current Kings' squad, a team that I like even more since they traded away Sean Avery earlier in the week (I guess we'll have to wait an extra two days to see him in person not backing up his tough talk and stick-work).

All that said, the Kings can rot Thursday night when they visit the V.C. The Caps need a win and they need to score some goals - not necessarily for a playoff run, but for the team's collective psyche and perhaps for individual players' condfidences (I'm thinking of three players in particular who could use a goal or two, and they all wear numbers ending in "8"). One of those players (guess who), however, doesn't seem to be having any trouble with his confidence:

Asked whether he could guarantee a goal against the Kings, [Alex] Ovechkin joked: "I can't say 100 percent that I will score goal. But I can 99 percent."

The Kings, quite frankly, stink on ice. 78-year-old netminder Sean Burke has maybe perhaps possibly temporarily solved the team's goaltending woes, but as a team they still don't score a lot of goals, give up way too many, don't kill penalties and are absolutely putrescent away from home, where they find themselves on Thursday night in the middle of a five-game, ten-day road trip. And just how long has Sean Burke been kicking around the NHL? Well, the last time the Caps beat the Kings in Washington, Alex Ovechkin was 12-years-old. Burke, on the other hand, was finishing up his tenth year in the League.

But a win for the Caps in this inter-conference bout won't come easy (they never do). As usual, the Caps need to play hard, they need to be smart, but most of all, they need to be:

Daily Awards

• Hart: Henrik Zetterberg (2G, including the game-winner, A, +3, 5 SOG, 56% faceoffs won)
• Ross: Henrik Zetterberg, Ryane Clowe (3 points each)
  
• Norris: Adrian Aucoin (GWG, +2)
  
• Vezina: Patrick Lalime (34-save shutout win)
• Richard: Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Vanek, Jonathan Cheechoo (2G each)
• Calder: Ryane Clowe (3A, +1)
• Aiken: Ed Jovanovski (0 points, -3 in 4-2 loss)