The first round of the playoffs

For the Capitals, the first round of the playoffs doesn’t start next week, it ends tomorrow night.

Since the trading deadline, the Caps have faced, if not an insurmountable climb, then certainly an uphill one just to make the “final eight” in the East. Theirs has been – to employ an NCAA basketball tournament analogy – an 18 game “play-in” round that started at the trading deadline. And that round ends tomorrow with the Caps taking a 13-4-0 record into what amounts to an elimination game.

While some (certainly not Matt Cooke, who saw what Edmonton did a couple of years ago) might argue that such a long slog wears on a team and renders it spent for the Stanley Cup tournament, it is just as plausible that the white-hot crucible in which they’ve played has readied the Caps for the sort of tense, hard-fought, don’t-take-a-shift-off sort of grind that marks the two months of Stanley Cup play.

What sort of team do the Caps take into the elimination game and, hopefully, the next round? Well, the first order of business is to dispel a widely-held (even among many Caps fans) myth.

Myth: The Capitals are a weak defensive team.

Truth: The Capitals have allowed a total of 33 goals in the last 17 games – 1.94 goals per game. They have been especially strong at even strength, allowing only 17 non-empty net, even strength goals – one a game. Four of those came in a single game – the 5-0 shutout in Chicago on March 19^th. Whether the stinginess is a product of Cristobal Huet’s arrival; the light going on over the head of some young defensemen like Jeff Schultz, Shaone Morrisonn, or Milan Jurcina; a product of the next progression in team development (now that they seem to have mastered Bruce Boudreau’s offensive system); or just plain luck, the fact is that this is a very good defensive team.

Here is another way to look at it…the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils are the top defensive teams in the East (2.31 and 2.35 goals per game for the season, respectively). The Rangers have allowed 32 goals in 16 games since the trading deadline (2.00/game), the Devils 41 in 16 (2.56).

Here are some other things to ponder…

Consistency...There is what is embedded in that 13-4-0 record…in 51 regulation periods of hockey, the Caps have “won” 21 periods and “tied” 21 others. They have lost only nine periods of hockey in 17 games. They haven’t lost a period of hockey since the first period of their 3-2 shootout win in Carolina on March 25^th. That’s 14 consecutive periods of hockey without a loss.

A rising tide lifts all boats…That Alex Ovechkin has raised his game as the season reaches its climax is not exactly news. But it’s had a curious effect on the rest of the club…they’ve come along for the ride. Consider the following table…

Yes, Ovechkin has ramped up his goal scoring – a quarter of a goal a game since the trading deadline. Well, so has the rest of the team. They are keeping pace by adding another quarter of a goal a game to account for the rest of the Caps’ 0.50 goal a game improvement on offense. Ovechkin might be the star, but he’s not a solo act.

The Caps do not come about their 13-4-0 record by way of fluke or by virtue of a mere “hot streak.” They have been consistently good over the last 60 games – 36-17-7 (a 108-point pace). They have improved on that in the 17 games…for the Capitals, what has amounted to the first round of the playoffs. And they’ve done it with solid, consistent, often dominating hockey.

A TWO-point night!...Caps 4 - Lightning 1

…and one to go.

In a game that was several separate and distinct games, the Caps ground out a 60-minute, 4-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning that started oddly, took a boring turn, had some nervous moments for the home crowd – on the ice and on the scoreboard, paid homage to the virtues of persistence, and then got stupid, courtesy of a gutless coach whose tough guy act has gotten stale.

In the first act of this production, the Caps looked to run the Lightning right out of the building, after the Lightning popped the home team in the nose with a goal at 39 seconds. Filip Kuba swatted in a loose puck that Cristobal Huet could not find at the top of his crease, and the lively crowd settled into a hushed, nervous silence.

The Caps then proceeded to outshoot the Lightning, 17-2, over the next 11:22, culminating in a goal by Alex Ovechkin – his 64^th of the season – that gave him the all time single season goal scoring record for left wingers (Luc Robitaille previously holding the record at 63). The goal was not a signature wrist shot, it wasn’t a deke and a roofed backhand, it wasn’t a one-timer…it was a crash-the-net, poke-at-it, two-cushion bank shot off both Kuba and Alexandre Picard, and behind goalie Karri Ramo. Years from now, it will be described as an end-to-end rush.

That goal might have taken the starch out of the Lightning. It had a different effect – the Caps seeming to go into a shell after the tying marker. For the next 35:49 from the tying goal and well into the third period, the teams split a total of 26 shots evenly, none of them finding the back of the net. The excitement – and not the sort Caps fans wanted to comtemplate – came when Ovechkin dipped to one knee to block a shot. He took the drive off the outside of his right knee and skated off. After testing his leg during a stoppage in play, he turned down the tunnel and was not on the bench for the last minute of the period. It wasn’t a good sign.

However, Ovechkin came out for the third, and as it turned out, would not suffer the most noteworthy injury. 6:45 into the period, as Vincent Lecavalier was skating up ice abreast and inside of Michel Ouellet in front of the Lightning bench, he was hit firmly by Matt Cooke. Lecavalier was rocked backwards and into Ouellet, upon which Lecavalier fell to the ice awkwardly. He was down for several minutes, not moving from the fetal position in which he found himself. He was eventually helped to his skates by the trainer and teammates, skating off with assistance and unable to straighten up. It appeared to be an injury to his right shoulder.

Less than a minute later, Jussi Jokinen tried to answer the question, how many times can I cross-check their star until I get called for it? After several attempts at abusing Ovechkin, he was whistled for a penalty. 24 seconds later, Ovechkin made the Lightning pay, taking a cross-ice feed from Mike Green at the top of the left wing circle and snapping a wrist shot over Ramo’s blocker, leaving the goalie to turn to a teammate and just shrug in resignation…there wasn’t much he could do about it.

Boyd Gordon provided additional insurance with a nice backhand lifted over Ramo with 3:17 left. It was a nice reward for some hard work he did in the corners just before darting to the net to convert a rebound of a shot off the stick of Matt Bradley.

Tom Poti ended the fun with a 140 foot lob down the ice that settled softly into the empty Lightning net with 1:08 to go.

Then things got stupid. John Tortorella, who seems to have tried to adopt the “Tony Montana” school of coaching in the years since he coached the Lightning to a Stanley Cup, announced to the Caps in the final minute, “you wanna #@$& with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friends!”…upon which Doug Janik took a run at Tomas Fleischmann, and Junior Lessard squared off with Matt Bradley (who abused Lessard rather severely). Janik was whistled for roughing and a misconduct, Lessard went off with his fighting major, and Nick Tarnasky and Jason Ward were sent off with misconducts of their own for good measure. 37 minutes in penalties to make a point, with the object of the exercise presumably having been…Tomas Fleischmann? Tortorella said after the game, "It's good stuff as far as after Vinny and the stuff at the end of the game as far as trying to help one another out."

Uh, yeah…whatever. Good luck with that lottery thing.

As far as the numbers go, the noteworthy ones at the top are minutes. Kudos to Steve Eminger for stepping in for injured Shaone Morrisonn and giving a good account of himself in his nine minutes of ice time. It might not have been a lot, but if he’d made a mistake our there – considering the stakes in this game – he’d have been fitted for goat horns right quick. And to Jeff Schultz, who ended up skating more than 23 minutes, playing the “I got your back” role Morrisonn usually plays for Mike Green.

Tom Poti registered a season-high six shots on goal. He finally scored on the last one.

Matt Bradley…two shots, an assist, three hits, a takeaway, a blocked shot, and a fight. He was a busy fella for his 13:43.

Boyd Gordon looked like he was wearing a tinted visor…he wasn’t. It just looked like he had a bruised…uh, face.

Say what you want, but Karri Ramo probably deserved better than to go 0-2-1 against the Caps this year. He had a superb game tonight, keeping the Lightning in it with top-notch saves on Matt Cooke, Eric Fehr, and Ovechkin, among others, and giving up only a single goal while getting shelled with 20 shots in the first period.

Necessity being the mother of invention, Mike Green was more or less forced to log 2:10 in penalty killing time tonight (the injury to Morrisonn giving birth to the necessity). Why is that noteworthy?...he’s averaging 20 seconds of penalty killing time a game this year.

No Cap had a losing record in the circle tonight (33 wins in 54 total draws – 61.1 percent).

Matt Cooke had six hits tonight. He was a heat-seeking missle on the forecheck tonight, forcing the Lightning into quicker decisions than they might otherwise have liked to take.

Can you tell the stakes are high?...Milan Jurcina digging after a puck sliding down the ice, then diving and sweeping it away from a Tampa player deep in the Caps’ end…Matt Bradley laying out to block a drive…Ovechkin taking one off his knee…

…although there was some comic relief…Cristobal Huet stepping out far from his crease to try to play a puck, falling down not once, but twice on his way to the puck. He thought better of the exercise and returned to the familiar embrace of his crease.

…and Karri Ramo doing something similar, darting out to try to play a puck as it was sliding into the corner…looking up, not finding a trapezoid…and thinking, “this is not good,” letting the puck go by and avoiding the penalty.

Mathieu Darche was an equal-opportunity loser in the faceoff circle. He was 0-for-7, failing to win a draw against four different Caps (Fedorov, Laich, Backstrom, and Gordon). Jeff Halpern wasn’t much better…1-for-8.

Oh, and if yo're wondering, the waving off of the Brooks Laich goal was the right call (sure, you can say that now...the Caps won)...Tomas Fleischmann pushed the defenseman into the goaltender, creating an opportunity for Laich.

The Caps can now finish anywhere from sixth to ninth. If Boston beats Ottawa in regulation tomorrow night and loses to Buffalo in regulation on Saturday, the Flyers do no better than split their remaining two games against New Jersey (tomorrow) and Pittsburgh (Sunday), and the Caps win on Saturday, the Caps finish sixth. We won’t discuss the “ninth-place” scenario…

Put more simply…”win, and you’re in…probably…we hope.”

…and one to go.

It's time...

...for the return of...

RALLY PIGEON!!!

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Lightning, April 3rd

Ever watch the movie, “Field of Dreams?” In it, there is an exchange between our hero, “John Kinsella” and his partner-of-sorts, “Terrence Mann,” that goes like this…

Kinsella: "There comes a time when all the cosmic tumblers have clicked into place...and the universe opens itself up for a few seconds to show you what's possible."

To this, Mann responds incredulously...

“Oh my God…you’re from the sixties!”

Well, that’s what immediately came to mind when the final horn sounded last night in the Penguins 4-2 win over the Flyers. The cosmic tumblers have clicked into place, making it possible for the Caps to seize a top-eight spot with a win tonight against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

We’re just not of a mind that it’s “destiny” or “cosmic tumblers,” or any of that sixties or new-age crap. The Caps still have to go out and win the damned game.

And that brings us to today’s lesson…the difference between “expect” and “assume.”

The Peerless “expects” the Caps to win…why?

Well, the Caps are better…



…but not so much that there isn’t danger in this game. Tampa has – over the course of the season – had the better special teams play, and that could be a factor of no advantage to the Caps. But that brings us to the recent play of these teams. Let’s look at the last ten…



Again…the Caps have the better record – by far – but not so much that the path isn’t dangerous. Tampa Bay has had – again – the superior special teams play.

There is also the mysterious case of Vincent Lecavalier. Last summer, Lecavalier had an arthroscopic procedure on his wrist to clean up some “loose ends.” Well, maybe – as an article in the St. Petersburg Times by Damian Cristodero suggests – there is more. Certainly his numbers suggest something wrong. Looking at Lecavalier’s production by month…

…he had almost 28 percent of his points (through March) in November, after which he was 24-28-52, -23 through March 31st. Clearly, something is wrong for his production to have dropped off so markedly. But even with that, however, there is danger in this game. Lecavalier has had a fine career record against the Caps – 24-27-51, -4 in 51 games, and he’s 4-7-11, -2 in seven games this year. He is still a dangerous commodity.

Speaking of this year, there is still the matter of the diminutive one – Martin St. Louis…3-5-8, +1, in seven games. And, Jeff Halpern is 10-8-18, +4 in 17 games since joining the Lightning. Tampa might be wounded, but they certainly aren’t dead.

As much as, if not more so, than the game against the Hurricanes on Tuesday, the Caps have to stay out of the penalty box. If they do that, it is reasonable to “expect” a win.

Just don’t get into the idea of “assuming” a win. Teams out of the playoff hunt still play for pride and an opportunity to play “spoiler,” and that kind of motivation should never be taken lightly. If you assume…that Tampa will come in unmotivated, tired (after losing to Carolina last night, 6-2), hampered by playing another road game (they are 11-22-6 on the road)…that the Caps are somehow destined to win, that they need merely show up, that Ovechkin will score, that Huet will repel all the shots, that the grinders will grind, the checkers check, the defenders defend…well, that’s the stuff of which disappointments are made.

It’ll be another scarlet tsunami at Verizon Center tonight, no doubt, and the Caps have come too far to let things slip away now. A win would vault them into no worse than seventh place (ahead of Boston, by virtue of having more wins), and into sixth (ahead of Ottawa, by virtue of having taken the season series) if the Senators lose in regulation at Toronto this evening. Those are the stakes – mighty high indeed -- but the Caps have earned their shot at it. We expect them to take advantage…

Caps 5 – Lightning 2

Mosesvechkin

"...lift thou up thy hockey stick, and stretch out thine hand over the ice, and divide it: and the hockey team of Washington shall go on to the playoffs through the midst of the sea of fans dressed in red."




ok, ok...it's a bit much.

My, but how far they've come

The Caps stand on the brink of a return to the playoffs. They have played at a 107-point pace since Thanksgiving. They are 9-1-0 in their last ten games. Simply put, they are -- right now -- a good and dangerous hockey team.

Not bad for a club that was all but an expansion team that headed into the lockout. Consider this comparison...the team that took the ice on the last day of the 2003-2004 season and the squad that took the ice last night against Carolina:

These rosters come from ESPN.com, and it looks as if they missed someone in that final game of 2004 (maybe it was Alexander Semin), but you get the point. Looking at that 2004 season-ending roster, how many of those players do you think could have dressed for the Caps last night?

A TWO-point night: Caps 4 - Hurricanes 1

"M-V-P"

“Cris-to-bal”

“Nine-ty points”

“Let’s wear red!”

Pick your chant. Chances are it will apply. The Caps beat and beat on the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-1, to climb within a tie-breaker (total wins) of the visitors in the Southeast Division standings.

Red…was everywhere. If it wasn’t a Caps jersey, it was a Red Wings jersey…or a Red Sox “Schilling” t-shirt…or a woman we saw who was in red from head to toe (even her shoes). I’m guessing TV really couldn’t capture it, but the red effect was pretty amazing.

20-somethings for 20-plus…five players logged more than 20 minutes. Four of them – Mike Green, Alex Ovechkin , Nicklas Backstrom, and Jeff Schultz – are 22 or younger. Youth be served.

Young guns…Green, Ovechkin, Semin, Backstrom…19 of the Caps’ 39 shots. More like a Thompson submachine gun, if you ask me. Green had eight. In the radio post game, Steve Kolbe noted that Green told him when he stepped on the ice tonight, he was “juiced.” No kidding.

Ovechkin…he scores goals, but he also checks the replay while in the middle of a scrum (he was checking out the replay of a glorious save by Cristobal Huet while mixing it up with some Hurricanes players), and he leads cheers (as was the case when he was shown on the big screen sitting on the bench, waving his hands to get fans to cheer louder). A multi-tasker.

Speaking of Ovechkin…a goal, six shots, five hits, two takeaways…oh, and he won his only faceoff. Yup, a multi-tasker.

Good luck charm…The Caps are 16-0-1 when Jeff Schultz records a point.

Peter Laviolette…what shade was he wearing on his face after the Semin goal?…we’re thinking somewhere between crimson and Venetian red. What, not enough dives…oops, penalties called your way tonight, big guy?

4:36…total time Carolina spent on the power play, with no goal scored. On the power play, Carolina is a formidable team (eighth in the league coming into the game). Even strength?...beatable.

Balance…ten players shared 12 points. Each of the top three lines scored a goal, the occasionally-maligned second line getting a pair.

Eight…different players for Carolina took minor penalties, and that doesn’t include the bench minor, two minutes for blowing a gasket.

Eric Staal came up pretty small…no points, two shots, lost 10 of 19 faceoffs (Boyd Gordon and Sergei Fedorov won eight of nine of their draws against Staal). Or maybe it was just that he got so little support…

Three Stars…Huet, Fedorov, Cooke…trades are lookin’ pretty good, eh?

Unhinged…Carolina took nine minor penalties in the last two periods…think maybe they could see their season in danger of slipping away before their eyes?

Five…teams are now within two points of one another. Four will make the playoffs. If you’re thinking of a surprise team to slip out of it, watch Ottawa (1-4-1 in their last six games). They lost to Montreal tonight, 3-0, and finish up against Toronto and Boston. Think Toronto wouldn’t like to shove an ice pick in the Senators’ ear? On the other hand, if the Senators finish where they are right now – sixth – and the Caps overtake Carolina…

Has Alexander Semin ever played a game where he launched his body at opponents more often? He was credited with three hits…it seemed like more.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaah…Hey, Luke DeCock (aka, “Lord Stanley”)…you want some cheese to go with your whine?...

“Hurricanes coach Peter Laviolette was irate at the sequence of calls in the second period that saw Ovechkin go essentially unpunished for his run at Staal — and that was before Bret Hedican was called for roughing for a mild shove behind the net after an Ovechkin hit.

“Certainly, that sequence raised some legitimate questions about star treatment for Ovechkin.

“Now, did Staal embellish his collision with the boards, as the Capitals' broadcast apparently claimed? They showed a slo-mo replay that those who saw it said made it look like Staal leaped backward into the boards.

“But in any case, Ovechkin skated from the top of the faceoff circle to the goal line and left his feet to hit Staal. And the issue wasn’t whether Ovechkin deserved a penalty — he did — but the fact that Wallin picked up a penalty out of the scrum while no Capitals player did.

“A laughable third-period goaltender interference penalty on Ryan Bayda after he was checked into Huet by Mike Green aroused no reaction from Laviolette, who had clearly given up any hope of getting a call at that point.”

Wise beyond his years…

“I have never seen the building like that. It was great to see, and I hope the fans here enjoy it, but as a group, collectively, we haven’t done anything yet.”

-- Mike Green

Five…sellouts in the last nine home games, none of which has been attended by fewer than 17,189 (and that was the 10-2 “Boston Massacre”).

Luc Robitaille…move over, you have company at 63.

Bobby Hull…the last left winger to win the Hart…in 1966. Brett wasn’t yet two years old.

35-17-7…Bruce Boudreau’s record with the Caps. That’s a 107-point pace over 82-games. The 77 points the Caps have earned since Thanksgiving are exceeded only by one team in the East – Pittsburgh.

There’s one chant left, one that will have to wait for another day, but perhaps you should start practicing…

“South-east Champs!”

Three Games, Three Teams

The math is coming into focus more sharply…

If the Caps win out, that is, get six points to reach 94, either Boston or Philadelphia must be held to no more than two points in their last three games. In that instance, the Caps would finish with 94 points and their closest pursuer with 93.

So, when was the last time either of Boston or Philly achieved only two points or fewer in three games?

Boston: Well, it’s not that long ago. March 16-22 they played the Caps and a home and home against Montreal, losing all of them, two of them in a shootout. They also did it shortly before that – March 9-13 – losing all three games to Ottawa, the Rangers, and Tampa Bay, one of them in a shootout (to the Rangers). March 3-6 they lost all three games to the Caps, Florida, and Toronto, one of them in overtime. While Boston has righted their ship lately, somewhat (3-0-2 in their last five games), they seem at least a decent candidate to give up the points. Boston finishes as follows:

At New Jersey
At Ottawa
Buffalo

Philadelphia: The Flyers are in a similar boat. They lost three in a row to Toronto, Boston, and Pittsburgh (please note that last one), March 12-15. It was the last three of a four-game slide, the first of which was an overtime loss to Toronto. Before that, though, you’d have to go back to February 19-23 to Ottawa, San Jose, and Florida (two of them in extra time – one overtime, one shootout). Those three losses were at the end of a ten-game winless streak. The Flyers finish as follows:

At Pittsburgh
New Jersey
Pittsburgh

Meanwhile, Carolina can earn no more than three points in their last three games, providing the Caps win out. When did they last find themselves in that situation? Well, they’re in the midst of one right now. In their last three games, during which they are 1-1-1, they lost to Tampa Bay in regulation and to Washington in a shootout, while beating Atlanta. Before that, though, the Hurricanes haven’t been in a three-points-in-three games situation since February 18-21, when they beat Atlanta, but lost in regulation to New Jersey and in a shootout to Boston. Carolina finishes as follows:

At Washington
Tampa Bay
Florida

It is interesting to note that Caps fans could be subjected to one final torture…Game 82 of the Flyers’ season -- in Philadelphia against the Penguins – is a Sunday afternoon game, the Caps’ season having been completed the previous evening. If the Caps are hanging on that game as the make-or-break contest of the season, there will be no more ardent Penguin fans anywhere than the red-white-and-blue.

Sometimes, life is irony, thickly sliced on toast.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs Hurricanes, April 1st

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Today being April Fool’s Day, we will dispense with the usual elaborate hoax, except to entertain you with one version of the top 100 April Fool’s Day hoaxes of all time.

No, we’re going to bring you a different kind of foolishness…the sort that passed for predictions early on in this season. First, Terry Frei of ESPN on the post-season hardware…

Hart Trophy

East: Crosby; Jaromir Jagr, Rangers; Eric Staal, Hurricanes.
West: Daniel Sedin, Canucks; Thornton, Sharks; Jarome Iginla, Flames.

Who wins: Yeah, Sedin might be a reach, but after all those earlier seasons of underachievement and waiting for confirmation that the twins were worth the trouble, and with the Canucks likely to be the class of the Northwest this season, Henrik and Daniel stepped up in 2006-07. His placid demeanor works against Henrik, but with his brother's set-up help, he's on the verge of completely breaking through.

If Iginla figures out that being a leader and wearing the "C" doesn't have to mean trying to literally fight all the battles and retains his edge without being knocked off his game, all under new coach Mike Keenan, he can be the best player in the league.

But that's a big maybe.

Having Chris Drury and Scott Gomez around can't do anything but help Jagr, and Staal will have to leave his toga in his locker to be effective.

It's Crosby's trophy to lose. The Art Ross Trophy is a cold numbers game, and Crosby remains the favorite there, as well. So, fully recognizing this isn't stepping out on a limb, I'm going to pick Crosby for both.

Daniel Sedin??? His numbers this year are positively Jagresque...and that is not a Hart-stopping compliment. See anybody missing from that summary? Next, also from ESPN, we have the Bard of Steubenville, himself, John Buccigross on where the Caps would finish…

14. Washington Capitals

The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part

-- "The Waiting" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

The Capitals should be better than last season. That won't be difficult as Washington won only 28 games, the second fewest in the NHL. And with the additions of Michael Nylander, Tom Poti, Viktor Kozlov and rookie Nicklas Backstrom, the Capitals will score more and improve a poor power play. But those five will do little to improve the Capitals' defense, which is what they will need to start thinking about the playoffs.

The key for a team like the Capitals is getting off to a good start and giving their young guys and Kozlov purpose in their strides. I agree with what the Capitals are doing by going with their young players. The team is giving its youngsters ample opportunity to grow, while simultaneously continuing to acquire top-level talent with high draft picks. This past summer, the Caps drafted big defenseman Karl Alzner, who continues to improve in the WHL with the Calgary Hitmen. This season, Washington will either mildly surprise by reaching the postseason or get another lottery pick.

That being said, I do believe the Capitals have a shot at the playoffs and this 14th spot might be too low. If they can get their goals up to 250 and goals against down
to 250, they should be able to earn around 90 points. That will put them in the playoff hunt. Then, they can reassess come deadline time if they want to add some defensive help in an attempt to make a stronger playoff run -- as long as they don't give up top-end value.

Capitals fans should feel good about things. Their team is getting better. They made a great uniform change. And they can read some old Washington Capitals stories in a brand new hockey book called "Jonesy: The Improbable NHL Career of Keith Jones" available everywhere now.

Well, at least he flamed the Caps gently, sort of like, “Johnny’s such a sweet boy, but he’s a little slow, you know.”

Then we had a whole panel of ESPN types weighing in – at mid-season, no less – on the Hart Trophy…

Scott Burnside: With Sidney Crosby out for the next month and a half, this race is wide open. With the Flames looking like a playoff team and the Lightning and Thrashers not, we like Jarome Iginla to win narrowly over Vincent Lecavalier and Ilya Kovalchuk. Watch out for Canucks goalie Roberto Luongo to edge into the voting.

E.J. Hradek: I'm going with Capitals star Alexander Ovechkin. A.O. is going to lead Washington to its first playoff appearance since 2003. And he just might win the Maurice Richard Trophy as the league's top goal scorer, too.

Barry Melrose: My choice is Roberto Luongo. Without him, Vancouver wouldn't nearly be a playoff team. He is just the embodiment of the award -- most valuable player to his team. Not the best player, but MVP to his team. The Canucks have no scoring, so Luongo knows he has to win games 2-1 or 1-0 almost every night.

Point to Hradek…

And in the “We Have No Idea What to Make of This” category…there is Adam Proteau of The Hockey News…

3. Washington: Few think the Caps can be this good this quick. But that's what they said about Pittsburgh last season.
• Best possible conference finish: Third in East; Worst-case scenario: 10th in East.

15. Montreal: Habs have talent, but sorely lack size, grit possessed by genuine Cup
contenders.
• Best possible conference finish: Eighth in East; Worst-case scenario: 15th in East.

Last I looked, Montreal was second in the East, after trading their top goalie. But there is still the chance on that number three seed coming true.

Motto: Prognostifying is hard...don't try this at home, kids.

Speaking of the number three seed, here we are, home again, at last. After a 5-1-0 road show, the Caps return home to make their stand. Three games, six points. It hardly gets any simpler than that.

As for tonight, the opponent looks a little too much like the Caps, and we don’t mean the dominating role that red plays in the uniform. The Hurricanes haven’t lost consecutive games in regulation since February 2-5 (Pittsburgh, Nashville). They haven’t lost consecutive games in regulation to Southeast Division opponents since November 14-16 (Tampa Bay, Atlanta). They haven’t lost consecutive games to the Caps in regulation since January 21-March 25, 2006.

Tonight, Carolina can do all of that. And for the Caps to have any chance of winning the Southeast, that is precisely what has to happen – the Hurricanes must be beaten in regulation. Failing that, the Caps must have the two points to climb to within a point of idle Boston and Philadelphia.

We provided much of the background for this game here, when the clubs played last Monday in Carolina. With respect to the series played in Washington, here is how the Caps have fared:

Record: 2-1-0
Goals for/against: 8-4
Power Play: 4/15 (26.7%)
Penalty killing: 12/12 (100%)

Capitals scoring:

Alex Ovechkin: 3-0-3, even, one GWG
Michael Nylander: 1-2-3, -2, one GWG
Nicklas Backstrom: 0-3-3, -1
Alexander Semin: 1-1-2, +2
Mike Green: 1-0-1, +2
Boyd Gordon: 1-0-1, +2
Milan Jurcina: 1-0-1, -2
Tom Poti: 0-1-1, even
Shaone Morrisonn: 0-1-1, +1
David Steckel: 0-1-1, even
Viktor Kozlov: 0-1-1, +2
John Erskine: 0-1-1, even

While the Caps have had their difficulties in Carolina (the results of the last game – a 3-2 shootout win – notwithstanding), they have played quite well against the Hurricanes in Washington. Even in the loss, they played rather well, despite falling behind 2-0 in the first 15 minutes.

If you’re looking for a Cap to shine tonight, we’re thinking Alexander Semin is the guy to watch. 12-8-20 in 18 career games against the Hurricanes, with a goal and an assist in two games this season. You might expect (as if we don’t in most games these days) some production from Alex Ovechkin, too (16-12-28 in 23 career games against Carolina). In goal, it looks as if Cristobal Huet will get the call once more, and he’s been money against the Hurricanes, too: 4-2-0 (with one tie), 2.30, .931 career; and 3-1-0, 2.45, .924 this year against Carolina.

We’re going to go out on a limb, too…Milan Jurcina scored a goal in the home opener. He hasn’t had any since. He breaks the string tonight…

Caps 4 – Hurricanes 1

Baseball?...the best sport?...yeah, well...sez you.

For those of you with a political commentary bent, you are probably familiar with the commentary of E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post.

In this silliest of seasons in which the Republic is desperately trying to figure out who shall stand as the major parties' candidates for its highest office, E.J. takes a turn down another road in his "Precinct" discussion at the Post. He forms his thesis in a question...

To wit..."Is baseball the best sport?"

The baseball season dawns, a great thing for many of us. I disgree with my colleague George Will on many questions, but I love his baseball writing and his partisanship on behalf of the sport. "Baseball, which provides satisfying finality and then does it again the next day, is a severe meritocracy that illustrates the axiom that there is very little difference between men but that difference makes a big difference," he writes in a delightful column on the new season. (By the way, is that a conservative thought?) It's a risky question while so many are watching the Final Four -- though the four consist of four No. 1 seeds. (Is that a bad thing?) So please grapple with any of the questions offered in the course of this post, and the basic one: Is baseball the best sport?

Once upon a time, I would have answered in the affirmative. Baseball -- in its purest form -- is a remarkable combination of individual and group activity. A unique example of some of the most difficult skills to master in all of sport played at a leisurely pace that invites contemplation and reflection.

But that was then...

Today? No, it's not the best sport. The major league flavor of the sport is a bloated, corrupt, money-addled melodrama where as much news is made outside the diamond as on it, little of it good. It is played by too many individuals with too large a sense of entitlement, managed by too many individuals with too little imagination, chronicled by too many individuals with too little love for the game.

It still draws many -- millions, in fact -- to the stands, but perhaps more out of a sense of its grand history that its scandalized present.

Nope...even with the thrilling grand opening of Nationals Park last night, we'd still choose our "adopted" sport of ice hockey.

Skill? Hitting a round ball with a round bat, squarely, might yet be -- as Ted Williams professed -- the hardest single thing to do in sports. But we'd be hard to convince that the average major league baseball player is a superior athlete to the average NHL hockey player. While baseball requires superior hand-eye coordination, reflexes, speed and quickness, and occasionally strength, hockey requires these magnified. To that add "anticipation." Whether one thinks of it as "vision" or "hockey sense," the ability to think ahead quickly separates the hockey player from the baseball player.

There is the game itself. Both are played in the context of ever-changing geometries...the curve of a pitch, the ball played off the wall...a one-timer, the angling of a skater off the puck. But hockey is played at such a ferocious pace compared to that of baseball. Even in its slower moments, the pace of the action dazzles compared to the every-fifteen-seconds of action pace of baseball.

There is the aura of mystery that surrounds baseball that is more pretentious than it would admit. "Seamheads" who can spout obscure statistics as measures of a player's or team's effectiveness..."on-base plus slugging percentage"..."batting average with runners in scoring position after the sixth inning"..."quality starts"...the whole "Sabermetric" fog that separates the "real" baseball fan from the great unwashed. It has the clarity of pudding and divides its fans into the knowledgable and the not so.

Hockey is more egalitarian (although it is seems to be moving into its own "Sabermetric" dimension). Even the most casual fan can appreciate a big hit, an end-to-end rush, a cross-ice pass.

Once upon a time, baseball had personality. Dizzy, Pee Wee, Three-Finger, Big Train, The Scooter. It had players that dazzled on the field -- and off -- and did so leaving their own imprint of character (and they certainly were characters). These days? Players that aren't finding themselves as the subject of lurid tabloid stories suffer a cookie-cutter sameness...Alex Rodriguez is a sublime talent, and is (well, maybe) a pillar of the baseball community, but he has all the programmed personality of an animatronic display.

Hockey still has its odd balls. Goalies as a class could probably qualify (ok, you go stand in front of a net throwing yourself in front of 100-mile-an-hour pucks).

You, no doubt, could think of a dozen reasons why hockey is better. We'll boil it down to one. Baseball is the best sport one day a year -- Opening Day. Hockey has the Stanley Cup tournament...two months of unrelenting suspense and drama.

Case closed.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game...

Yesterday being a day without Caps hockey, The Peerless had a ticket to the Nationals’ home opener at Nationals [Corporate Name to be Selected Later] Park.

And what a nice park it is.

It does not have the instant charm of a Camden Yards with its distinctive warehouse façade looming in right field, or the scenic panoramas of PNC Park in Pittsburgh or AT&T Park in San Francisco.

But this is a ballpark that will age nicely and take its place in the roster of monuments this city has to offer.

We took Metro – the local subway provider – which was pretty much a given, given the predictions of the apocalypse with respect to close-in parking. The trip was pleasant – a train largely filled with Nats fans, even if it was several hours before the scheduled first pitch.

Upon exiting the train at the Navy Yard station – the closest to the ball park – the process of getting out of the station (which can be a chore even on a rush hour weekday) went as smoothly as one could hope, although the same might not be said of those in the escalator next to the one that I was riding, which was shut down in mid-transit, requiring a decent walk up the stairs.

The exit at Half Street (honest, there is a “Half Street”) was rather packed. For a moment, I thought of the “hot gates” of the movie, “300,” where hordes were funneled into a tight aperture of a path. But things went relatively smoothly, even when we arrived at the center field gate, where security was in force in anticipation of the arrival of the President for the inaugural “first pitch.”

The visual impression of the ball park was certainly not unusual for anyone who has been to Camden Yards, especially as one enters from the north end of Eutaw Street at that ball park. A pavilion empties into the lower seating bowl and playing field that are both below street level. It creates a sense of openness that one could never achieve in the multi-tiered donut of RFK Stadium. If anything, it reminded us a little bit of the Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, although Nationals Park is even more open in its concourses.

The concourses are wide, if oddly angled in places. The concession stands are numerous, although some could use additional space (the lines at Ben’s Chili Bowl and Five Guys were extraordinarily long, for example, even hours before the first pitch). For the record, we sampled the chili dog at the Hard Times Café. We’ll give it “three stars” (the bun didn’t hold up very well to the chili).

We were in the stadium long enough before the first pitch to be able to tour the entire circuit around each level. It has something of the look of an unfinished ballpark (especially the rest rooms, for some reason…maybe it was the concrete flooring), but not so much as we might have anticipated. The concourses provide fans with the chance to keep up with the action as they are largely open to the field, another significant departure from RFK. And, the concourses provide quite a panorama of DC, as one looks out from the stadium, from just about any vantage in the ball park. It isn’t a bad place to just take a stroll and look across the city, especially from the upper level.

Entering the seating area (our seats were in the 400-level), there was that sense of openness, but also one of being rather close to the action. The upper deck seems higher than RFK (owing to the suites below), but not so much that one feels detached from the action. But the attention-grabber was the scoreboard. It is all it was represented as being, in all its high-definition grandeur. In fact, it became a bit of a distraction at times, as one might have been drawn to it and away from the action on the field. As time goes on, we suspect this temptation will subside.

The seats were comfortable, as such things go, wide enough for those of us of a certain age (and gravity-challenged physique), and angled to the action on the field. The only problem was not architectural, but climatological – it was cold. Temperatures were in the 40’s, and there was a bit of a breeze up top, which made the choice of hooded sweat-shirt and gloves a wise one.

We will not belabor the details of the game, which you no doubt have already read or heard about. The President threw out the first pitch – a fitting occurrence, no matter one’s opinion of his tenure. The teams struggled with the offensive aspects of the game, and when things reached their climax, Ryan Zimmerman’s walk-off home run was a fitting end to the inaugural game.


This being a “late” game (an 8:15 start), Metro seemed to have caught a break. Since this is, after all, Washington, the stands started emptying around the sixth inning as folks tried to beat traffic in anticipation of the work day the following day. So, by the time the game ended, just after 11:00 pm, the stadium was probably filled by what was more likely the sort of crowd that will be more common. Good thing…as fans filed out of the center field gate, they were funneled into that Half Street pass, which made the half-block walk to the Navy Yard station rather slow. Slow though it was, it moved steadily, and once at the station, it was of little problem to get through the fare gates and to the trains (would that a rush hour experience be as smooth on a regular basis). The trains were moved along – as one filled and left the station, another took its place. Generally, at least from our experience, Metro passed this test rather well.

The test of the ball park isn’t Opening Night – all ball parks look like palaces in that first blush of a first-ever game. And what glitches there were seem less “systemic” than merely a result of the “newness” of the ball park, where people have to find the game-day routines that work for them. The test will be in May…and June…and July, when that first blush wears off. But we think this ballpark will fare quite well in that regard. The Nats have hit a home run with Nationals Park.

photos: Drew Hallowell/Getty Images

Bourquevechkin!

Chris Bourque had quite a night for himself at Giant Center in Hershey. He had four goals for the Bears in a 5-2 win over the Hamilton Bulldogs. He is the fourth player to accomplish the feat in the AHL this season.

Grant MacNeill also had a goal -- his first in the AHL.

And Hamilton?...last year's Calder Cup champ?...at the Bears' expense? Well, they've taken it in the teeth lately, going 0-10-2 in their last dozen games.

Long Distance Haymakers

Well, if they couldn't play much against one another, the four teams battling for the last three playoff spots in the Eastern Conference (including the Southeast title) have been throwing haymakers at one another from long distance, looking at their respective records since March 1:

Whoever gets in will have earned it.

A TWO-point night: Caps 3 - Panthers 0

End o’ the road...

And what a road trip it was. It was the first time the Caps won five games on a road trip since 2001-2002, when they won five games of an eight game trip in March 2002. You’d have to go back to February 2001 to find a road trip where the Caps earned more points (11 of 12 available points in a six-game trip).

By any standard, this trip was a wild success. The capstone to it all was a 3-0 whitewashing of the Florida Panthers tonight, eliminating the Panthers from the post season and leaving the Caps still within striking distance of several teams – Carolina, Philadelphia, Boston, and the New York Rangers. The Caps are still mathematically capable of climbing as high as fourth, New Jersey currently occupying that spot five points ahead of Washington.

Tonight’s game might be characterized by the word, “workmanlike.” A team having spent five games away from home, even if the “road trip” was broken into two pieces, might be excused for being a bit leg- and jet-weary in the sixth and last game of that journey. Add to that an ice surface that had the look of pea gravel for the way the puck was rolling and jumping around, and it made for a difficult circumstance for the visitors.

It looked as if all these things might conspire to leave the Caps short tonight, and it looked a bit disconcerting when the teams skated off at the first intermission in a scoreless tie. It was more frustrating in that the Caps had three power plays, although one was shortened by a penalty of their own, and another shortened by the end of the period. Still, despite adequate man-advantage situations and outshooting the Panthers, 10-6, the Caps couldn’t find the back of the net.

Frankly, we thought it a case of too much one-on-one, individualistic activity. There was little in the way of crisp passing attempted, let alone completed. Too often, a Cap was caught trying to weave around a Panther defense that seemed to want to clog the middle with five defenders.

As sluggishly as the Caps played in the first, it almost got worse in the first minute of the second period. While shorthanded, Josef Stumpel picked up a loose puck near the Panther bench and skated in alone on Caps goalie Cristobal Huet. Stumpel angled in and tried to beat Huet over his glove, but Huet was up to the task, getting enough leather on the puck to turn it aside. The play might have had a different ending had Rostislav Olesz not more or less given up on the play, choosing to trail Stumpel into the zone rather than jump into the play to make it a two-on-none.

The save appeared to wake the Caps up. Two minutes later, Viktor Kozlov circled out of the right wing corner with the puck. He chipped it to Brooks Laich, but the puck was knocked back to Kozlov, who turned and rifled the puck past Panther goalie Tomas Vokoun to give the Caps the lead.

Now it was Florida’s turn to look lethargic. With just under ten minutes left in the second, Alex Ovechkin had the puck behind the net. With all eyes – including the five Florida defenders, it seemed – fixed on him, Ovechkin found Nicklas Backstrom steaming unimpeded down the slot. Backstrom’s drive was blocked on a fabulous save by Vokoun, but it only delayed the inevitable.

As the clock was winding under five minutes to go in the second, Ovechkin won a battle for the puck with Nathan Horton in the corner. Ovechkin skated out along the boards, leaving the puck for Kozlov, who returned the puck to Ovechkin skating toward the goal line. Ovechkin snapped a pass across the crease to a left-alone Mike Green, who wasted no time depositing the puck behind a helpless Vokoun for a 2-0 lead.

Ovechkin closed the scoring in the third, taking advantage of what looked like a spent Panther team. When Kozlov carried the puck to the Panther net, only to be turned aside by Vokoun at the doorstep, three Panthers failed to locate the puck at their feet. Ovechkin peeled it away and wristed the puck past Vokoun before any of the Panther defenders could react.

The selection of the stars of the game was a curious thing – the goal scorers being picked – although the curiosity was more in the order than of the players selected. We’d have had Kozlov as the number one star and Ovechkin as the third star. We would have reserved a spot for Cristobal Huet, who made the pivotal play of the game – the stop on Stumpel, after which everything else unfolded.

If you’re looking for one of the great oddities of the game, it is in who was on the ice for the Panthers for each Capitals goal...

Skrastins, Weiss, Booth, Horton, Johansson
Skrastins, Weiss, Booth, Horton, Bouwmeester
Skrastins, Weiss, Booth, Horton, Bouwmeester

...stopping the Caps’ top line might have been in the game plan for these guys, but that isn’t the way it turned out. The top line went 2-3-5, +7. They had 14 of the 33 shots, and when Mike Green’s five shots are added, there were almost two thirds of the shots accounted for.

There were a few other bouquets to pass around in this one...

Eric Fehr might not have shown up on the score sheet, but it was not for lack of effort. In a little less than nine minutes, he managed three shots (one of which required a fine stop by Vokoun to keep out ofthe net) and three hits. He was battling all night behind the Florida net.

Donald Brashear had three hits in eight minutes and looked as if he was engaging in a non-stop yap-fest with a couple of the Panthers.

Tom Poti had a couple of assists, a couple of hits in 22-plus minutes.

Jeff Schultz had a “Jeff Schultz” kind of game...unnoticeable, and that’s a good thing. Two hits, a blocked shot, plus-two, and no goals scored on his watch.

At this point, given the timing of the last three games, one would have to conclude that Huet will get the last three starts. 8-2-0, less than 2.00 GAA, save percentage over .930. It would be hard to give him a seat at this point.

For the Panthers, who is it skating in that #12 jersey? It might look like Olli Jokinen, but it doesn’t look like Olli Jokinen. Perhaps the announcers had a point when they said Jokinen hasn’t been the same since his skate sliced open Richard Zednik’s neck. He’s 4-8-12, -11, in 20 games since that night (including tonight)...not Jokinenesque.

Nathan Horton – the second leading goal scorer and overall scorer for the Panthers – had no shots on goal...none.

Kamil Kreps, heretofore a “Cap killer” this year – also had no shots on goal...none.

There weren’t a lot of hockey cognoscenti who would have thought the Caps would still be in the playoff race as they anticipate playing their 80th game on Tuesday. But here they are, two points out of a playoff spot. They still need help. Someone has to beat the Flyers at least once; twice would be better. Same for the Bruins. The Caps have to beat Carolina and get help to win the Southeast. But the Caps have done their part. If they do it, they will not have backed in, not with the last month-plus they’ve had – 12-4-0 in their last 16 games. They’ve put themselves in a position to make some noise if they should get into the playoffs, but the getting there will make for one helluva week on the way. With all apologies to the Nationals and their new ball park opening this week (we’ll be there tomorrow night), the Caps making a stand at home is the big story this coming week.

He's a-leavin' on a jet plane...well, maybe

The New York Daily News reports that Jaromir Jagr might be of a mind to scratch his itch to play in a city in which he "has been unabashed in his affection for..."

No, Caps fans, not Washington...no, Pens fans, not Pittsburgh.


Omsk

That's right, Omsk...the one in Siberia.

John Delapina reports for the Daily News...

Next week, Jagr will get the chance to lay the groundwork for just such a return - or, at least, continue a dialogue that never has been interrupted - when he meets with Anatoly Bardin, the new general manager for Avangard-Omsk of the Russian Super League.

Bardin is flying to New York this weekend. And according to his team's Web site, "The main objective of the visit are the negotiations with the Czech forward Jaromir Jagr of the Rangers about his possible return to the 'Vanguard.'"

We're guessing that option thing is dead.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Panthers, March 29th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Well, here we are, at the end of the road…the last of the six game trip, the last road game of the regular season.

And tonight, it’s the Florida Panthers to close the road show. And to get a take on this one, we looked up one of the world’s great investigators…Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Inspector?...Inspector!

“Ehm sorree…Eh was on ze pheun…”

Ze pheun?

“Yes…ze pheun…ze pheun…I was taking a call on ze pheun...I am ze famous Inspector Clouseau, et yerr service.”

Also known as zee Ping...uh, the Pink Panther.

“I hate zat nemm...and who are yeu?”

The Peerless Prognosticator…

“We zeem to have too much pee here…”

Pee?...

“yes, pee…Pink Panther Peerless Prognosticateur.”

Oh, ok, I get it…now, about the Panthers, what can you tell us Inspector?

“Ah…more pee…well, zey are a ‘ockey team…”

I KNOW that…that’s what we do here…hockey.

"I zee...and what deu yeu deu?"

What do I do?

“Yes, yeu deu…”

Well, I have this blog, you see.

“Block?...are yeu aware zat a block is a deadly weapon in ze hands of an eggzpert?”

Not ‘block’…blog…web log…an online site to write about…oh, never mind…now, about the Panthers...

“A large cat, nehtive to ze Florida area…”

No, the hockey team…

“Zey train panthers to play ‘ockey?”

No, you twit! The panthers are the mascot for the Florida hockey team.

“Do zey know it is not legal to keep panthers?”

They don’t have actual panthers, it’s the name of the hockey team…

“Zhouldn’t zey have a hockey name, like ze ‘bucks?’”

Bucks?

“bucks…ze little rubbehr bucks…”

The Florida Pucks?...we’re getting nowhere here…

“Zo, zen…where are we going?”

We’re going to get to the contest…and what the Caps have a chance to do here is not only climb to within a tie breaker of Boston, should Boston lose in regulation to Ottawa (Boston would still be in eighth by virtue of having played fewer games), the Caps can put the Panthers out of their misery with a win in regulation.

This will not, however, be an easy task. Florida brings two pieces of history into this game that suggest a difficult night. First, despite having lost their last two, the Panthers are 8-2-1 in their last 11 games. Here’s the breakdown:

Record: 8-2-1
Goals for/against: 28/18
Power play: 8/43 (18.6%)
Penalty killing: 39/43 (90.7%)

Over the last 11 games, the Panthers have done it with defense, which harbors its own problems, but we’ll get to that. 18 goals in 11 games (1.64/game) is remarkable, especially in that it represents more than one goal per game less than the Panthers’ season figure (2.68). And while they’ve had the benefit of playing some teams that have been offensively challenged from time to time (Boston, the Rangers, Atlanta, a slumping Lightning team), they’ve also managed to hold the Hurricanes and Penguins in check, too. And that brings us to goaltending and…

That would qualify as pretty solid. It’s had to be. The Florida offense – with those 28 goals (2.55) are slightly off their already only 20^th ranked average for the year (2.60). There is the good and the bad to that offense. First, the good…it’s been balanced among the top scorers in the last 11 games:

Olli Jokinen: 3-6-9, -4
Nathan Horton: 5-3-8, +7
Stephen Weiss: 3-3-6, +6
David Booth: 3-4-7, +7
Brett McLean: 4-8-12, -1
Rostislav Olesz: 3-2-5, -2

That’s 21 of the Panthers’ 28 goals spread across six players. OK, the bad…no one seems to be stepping up to lead the offense to the next level. One would think that being on the brink of elimination would raise some games (Jokinen comes to mind). Whether a slump, squeezing the sticks too tightly, missing Richard Zednik (still the 7^th leading scorer, having missed 24 games this year and out indefinitely with the neck injury suffered against Buffalo)…whatever. The margin of error that the offense is leaving for its defense and goaltending is too thin to sustain.

And cracks have started to show. In each of the two games the Panthers have allowed more than two goal in these last 11 games, they lost in regulation – the last two games, in fact, to Tampa Bay and Atlanta, neither of which have had much to play for lately.

But that is the last 11 games, none of which have been played against Washington. And that brings us to the second piece of history. The Panthers have been a fang in the side of the Caps all year. In fact, the key word for the season series, from the Caps’ perspective, is “frustrating.” Here is the breakdown of the series through six games:

Caps’ record: 2-3-1
Goals for/against: 14/15
Power play: 5/25 (20.0%)
Penalty killing: 22/25 (88.0%)
Record in one goal games: 1-2-1

You’ll note that one-goal game record. In fact, in the other loss – a 4-2 loss in Florida on February 15^th – the Caps gave up an empty netter in the last minute for the final margin. So close…so far (kind of like the standings at the moment). Here is how that same group noted above has fared against the Caps in six games (unless otherwise noted) this year:

Olli Jokinen: 3-2-5, +1
Nathan Horton: 1-1-2, +2
Stephen Weiss: five games, 0-2-0, +1
David Booth: 2-1-3, +2
Brett McLean: two games, 0-0-0, even
Rostislav Olesz: four games, 1-0-1, -1

There isn’t a scoring line that comes screaming off the page, but it has been just good enough to frustrate the Caps often enough. In fact, if there is one player to watch, it would be Kamil Kreps. He’s 3-1-4, +3, against the Caps this year. He also has two game-winning goals against the Caps, his only two game-winners this year.

As for the goalies, Vokoun has been the goalie of record in all six games, going 4-2-0, 2.31, .930. One would expect he’ll get the nod once more this evening.

The Caps lost ground to the Flyers last night in another of those infernal three-point games, losing in a shootout to New Jersey. The Caps are now three points behind Philadelphia for seventh in the East, two points behind Boston for eighth (the Bruins holding a game in hand). Boston hosts Ottawa tonight.

So, the pressure is still on. The Caps have responded well to it…well, fairly well. Shoot, let’s just say well, because the only thing that matters, no matter how it is accomplished, is earning two points each time they take the ice. And the Caps have done that in 11 of their last 15 games. We think they’ll make it 12 of 16 to make the upcoming home stand the most meaningful in years.

Caps 3 – Panthers 1

Maybe it's coincidence...

...maybe not, but since the trading deadline, here are your Caps:

Record: 10-4-0
Goals for/against: 45-31
Power play: 15/58 (25.9%)
Penalty killing: 46/60 (76.7%)
Record in one goal-games: 4-2-0 (including extra-time games)

Sergei Fedorov: 1-7-8, -5 (58.6% on faceoffs)

Matt Cooke: 2-3-5, +1 (in 13 games, compared to 2-5-7, -11, for the guy he replaced -- Matt Pettinger -- in 56 games)

Cristobal Huet: 7-2-0, 2.03, .922 (no games with more than three goals allowed)


Has what transpired at the deadline, perhaps, if only by coincidence, kick-started others to a higher level?...

Alex Ovechkin: 13-12-25, +16 (one hat trick, two game-winning goals)

Viktor Kozlov: 3-6-9, +15 (12 of 14 games on the plus side)

Matt Bradley: 4-2-6, +3 (a game-winning goal and perhaps a higher level of pestitude)

Nicklas Backstrom: 5-11-16, +13 (two game-winners)

Brooks Laich: 7-4-11, -1 (one game-winner, nine games at least 50% on draws)

Olaf Kolzig: 3-2-0, 2.27, .912 (only seven even-strength goals allowed)


Chemistry, a balanced recipe, whatever...we're just sayin'

A TWO-point night: Caps 4 - Lightning 3 (OT)

When a team is down a goal with the clock winding down under five minutes to go in the game, its playoff hopes bleeding into bad ice, and they come back…not just to steal a point, but to win in overtime, it is tempting to say that there is a sense of destiny about that team.

We are a bit more pragmatic than that. The fact is, that team just wasn’t very good.

The Capitals – clearly the better team for long stretches of play last night – clawed their way off the St. Pete Times Forum ice with a 4-3 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Lightning last night. It wasn’t pretty.

There was a curious lack of urgency in the Caps’ play for the first 45-50 minutes, or about the time it took for the Lightning – with nothing to play for but an opportunity to play spoiler – to take a 3-2 lead.

Tampa Bay had a rather simple game plan to deal with the Caps’ firepower, especially its top line…keep things to the outside. If the ESPN shot chart can be believed, they largely succeeded.





More to the point, they kept the top line quiet, mainly by keeping them above the faceoff dots in their shots. Here is the spread of the top line of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Viktor Kozlov:

And what that meant is that other players, in the end – literally, as it would turn out – had to step up.

Sergei Fedorov…watching this guy is like watching an old actor conjure up solid performance after solid performance. He might not have the spellbinding talent of years gone by, but his professionalism and moxie accumulated through years of experience in these situations shines through. While shorthanded, he marked Vincent Lecavalier in the Caps zone, forcing the Lightning center to pull up, then to lose his balance in coughing up the puck. It squirted to Brooks Laich, who fed the puck back to Fedorov gliding through the neutral zone. Fedorov tried to drop the puck for Laich as they entered the Tampa Bay zone, but the puck was poked away. Fedorov collected the puck once more, and with two Lightning defenders paying more attention to him than to Laich, he threaded a pass between them to Laich closing in on the Tampa Bay net. Laich flipped the puck over goalie Karri Ramo’s right pad into the net, and the Caps had a lead, largely due to Fedorov’s virtuosity.

Fedorov also authored the game-tying goal late in the third, as he has on a number of occasions, by winning a key offensive zone faceoff. He did so by beating Tampa Bay center Craig MacDonald with a spin move off the faceoff, giving him a chance to pass the puck, more or less, to Alexander Semin at the top of the right wing circle. Semin fired the puck in one motion past a late-to-react Ramo, and the Caps were breathing again.

Crisotbal Huet…he did not have his best game as a Cap, but he made several top notch saves to keep the Caps in it. He was especially hard on Lecavalier, who had four shots in the contest – three of them of the sort requiring Huet to make sparkling stops. The Lightning center was left on a couple of occasions staring into the ice or gazing into the rafters in frustration.

Brook Laich…sure, he had the goal – his 20th of the season – and he had an assist, too, but he was also 7-for-11 in the faceoff circle and had an otherwise pretty solid game.

Matt Bradley…had a goal that was odd, to say the least, mostly because of how much time and space he was accorded in getting it. Tom Poti edged down the left wing side and let a shot go. It hit a Lightning stick and popped into the air. Bradley, standing with his back to the net at the edge of the left wing faceoff circle, reached up, caught the puck and dropped it at his feet, stepped out to collect it on his stick, spun, and fired it past Ramo. He could have used some help, though, in his post-goal celebration…he looked as if he was struggling to extract his stick from his posterior regions…ouch.

Tomas Fleischmann…well, if David Steckel is out (4-2-6, +4, in six games against Tampa Bay this year), then Fleischmann will do as a Lightning-killer. Fleischmann’s game-winner in overtime put him at 4-1-5, +1, in seven games against the Lightning this year. If the Caps should find a way to finish in the top-eight, his backing-up, falling-down, hurry-up-and-put-the-puck-on-my-stick-Brooks goal at 2:27 of the extra frame will be one of the highlights. Good thing, too…in the 60-minute portion of the game, he wasn’t making a case for being a top-six forward.

Nicklas Backstrom…he might not have had a productive night on the scoresheet, but he was spotless in the circle, winning all five draws. Part of the trick over a long season is in doing the other, little things, when the goals and assists aren’t coming. Backstrom does that as well as anyone could expect for one so young. It’s even more amazing in that Backstrom has now played more than 30 more regular season games than in any of his previous seasons.

In case you were wondering, Alex Ovechkin played every second of Caps power play time last night – all 4:05.

On the other side, it’s no fluke that the Halpern-Ouellet-Darche line has been the most productive one lately for the Lightning. They were the best the Lightning had to offer last night.

Did Martin St. Louis dress last night? It was perhaps the quietest performance by the diminutive one in his career against the Caps…one shot, -1 in 23:39.

Oh, and nothing beats watching John Tortorella blow a gasket yapping at the referees from the bench (especially when, in fact, he had a point…Mike Green didn’t bust a gut to retrieve a puck that was called icing, which led to the Caps tying goal off the ensuing faceoff). Small consolation, but we suspect the Florida Panthers might smile at the thought, too.

Dan Boyle…we noted yesterday his getting whacked in the head by a teammate’s skate in practice. We didn’t know it would be prelude. On the game winner by Fleischmann, Boyle was sliced in the neck by Mike Green’s skate. It might have been worse – much worse – had Green’s skate not first grazed Boyle’s sternum. Boyle things up in tidy fashion, with respect to his own season, but perhaps that of his team as well…"Just a miserable year. What else can happen?"

We’re pretty much down to nine teams jockeying for eight spots. Buffalo – in tenth – would have to make up five points with five games to play…not good arithmetic. The Caps are that ninth team, still two points out of a playoff spot. But the possibilities multiplied with the win last night. The Caps find themselves only two points behind three other teams. All of those teams – Carolina, Philadelphia, and Boston – have a game in hand on the Caps. But the thing is, the Caps continuing to win puts added pressure on those teams to win that game in hand, and with multiple teams in that situation, the chances that all of them will succeed diminish.

The Caps have been in “playoff elimination” mode for a couple of weeks now. As sphincter-tightening as such situations are, there is no better preparation for what lies ahead, if they could just get into the top-eight. If the Caps were a team no one might have wanted to play in the first round in the first place, they are that much tougher for having been hardened in the grind of this road trip, one on which they are now 4-1-0. There is one more to go on this swing, and while we’d like to see the Caps play better than they have in the last two games – both settled in extra time – we’re also pragmatic in another sense…

Two points is two points.

What they're saying in...Tampa

"Players are scared of him. People don't want to hit him. If you're trying to stop someone from scoring and you're scared to bump into him because you don't want to end up on the highlights getting run over by him, it makes him pretty hard to defend.''

-- Tampa Bay forward Jeff Halpern on Alex Ovechkin



"If I wasn't wearing my helmet...''

-- Lightning defenseman Dan Boyle, after being kicked in the head by teammate Andreas Karlsson's skate during Wednesday's practice.



"I make no bones about it, I'm not crazy about the organization. I don't mind that at all. It looks good on 'em.''

-- Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella, speaking about the Florida Panthers after his club defeated them, 3-1 on Tuesday.



"We have to do more evaluation.''

-- Vincent Lecavalier on the condition of his left wrist, which could keep him out of the World Championships



"I'll play hard [Thursday], that's for sure. I might have a little extra care about what goes on in that game."

-- Halpern, on playing his former club tonight.