The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Devils, November 14th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

For the second time in a week, the Caps play a back-to-back series. Last weekend, it was the Florida Panthers as the foil in both; this weekend, it’s the Minnesota Wild and the New Jersey Devils. Last night the Caps got the weekend off to a good start with a 3-1 win, but tonight Washington moves up a weight class when they visit the Devils in Newark. The Devils are putting together quite a season of their own with a rec—

“Not so lou-u-u-u-ud…”

Good heavens, who are you?

“I’m Doug.”

“I’m Wendy.”

“We’re the Whii-i-i-i-ners.”

Obviously. And what brings you folks here?

“We want to see a ho-o-o-o-ckey game.”

Well, you’re in the right place. So what line of work are you in, Doug?

“I own a bui-i-i-isness.”

It sounds like you’re not doing too well.

“No… we make loo-o-o-ots of money.”

You have a lot of customers?

“Lo-o-o-o-o-o-ts of them.”

So you should be pretty happy.

“But they send me nasty e-e-e-e-e-emails.”

“And they complain about every little thi-i-i-i-i-ng.”

“And tell us what to do-o-o-o-o….”

Do you get a lot of these e-mails?

“What’s the di-i-i-i-ference?”

So let me get this straight. You have a business that has a lot of customers, you’re making money, and you’re hung up on some e-mails from customers?

“But they’re not n-i-i-i-i-ce.”

Maybe you’re not cut out for that particular line of business. Ever think of jumping into something else?

“Well, we were thinking of buying a ho-o-o-ockey team.”

What-ever.

As for the object of the exercise, the Caps will drop into Prudential Center having lost only one game in regulation in the last month (10-1-3). This, however, will be a test. A big one. Not only are the Devils on quite a run of their own (10-1-0 since losing to Atlanta on October 16th), but the Caps sustained another injury last night and will do without the services of Mike Knuble, who broke a finger and will be out for 3-4 weeks.

These two teams are not the top two teams in the East for nothing, as the numbers will show:



In the 10-1-0 wave the Devils are riding they have outscored their opponents 29-16. Only once has a team scored more than two goals against them – a 4-1 loss to Buffalo. Seven times in those 11 games the opponent was held to one or no goals. If the Minnesota Wild were in the midst of finding their “inner Lemaire” over the past couple of weeks leading up to last night’s game, the Devils are the real deal. It is as if Jacques Lemaire – returning this year to the team he once coached – hasn’t missed a beat from those teams he coached in the late 1990’s in the Meadowlands.

But it all starts with Marty. Martin Brodeur is 8-1-0 in his last nine decisions in goal. Along with the win-loss record, he has a microscopic 1.39 GAA over those nine decisions and a save percentage of .942. For his career, Brodeur has made the Caps his personal chew toy, compiling a 35-12-4 record with a goals against average of 2.11 and six shutouts. And, as if he needs any more motivation, he is still hung up on 102 career shutouts, one behind the all-time leader, Terry Sawchuk.

The Devils don’t score a lot, but they score enough. They get more than enough from Zach Parise, who comes into tonight’s game with a three-game goal-scoring streak (3-3-6). The six points he has in his last three games has pulled him into the top-ten in league scoring (9-12-21). He has four goals against the Caps (4-9-13) in 18 career games, but he doesn’t have any in either of the two games against Washington so far this season.

It’s one thing for Zach Parise to come into a game with a three-game goal scoring streak. He has three straight 30-plus goal seasons, including 45 last year. Scoring goals is an important part of what he does. But David Clarkson? He has 35 goals for his entire career (187 games), three of them coming in the last three games, including the game-winner in a 3-1 win over Anaheim on Veterans Day. In three seasons covering ten games against the Caps, Clarkson has three goals – one scored in each season, including this one (Caps fans will hope the pattern holds, which would keep him off the score sheet).

That brings us to “Game-Over Greene.” No, we did not spell that wrong. Defenseman Andy Greene is tied for the league lead in game-winning goals by a defenseman. OK, so it’s two goals, but that is two more game-winning goals than Mike Green, and the three goals Greene has overall matches that of the Caps’ Green. The three goals for Greene is already a career high. He had those two game-winners in the last three games (in wins over Pittsburgh and Ottawa). But here is something else you might watch for with Greene on the ice. Of the nine goals the Devils have allowed in the past seven games, Greene has been on the ice for five of them.

Keys:

1. 19 for 60. It goes without saying that winning generally requires a 60 minute effort. But that is never truer than when the Devils are the opponent. Games are generally close (the Devils are (8-1-0 in one-goal games, the best winning percentage in the league), low-scoring (in the 10-1-0 run the Devils have scored more than three goals three times), and settled late (the Devils have five wins when giving up the first goal and are tied for second in wins when trailing at the second intermission). As patient as the Caps were last night with Minnesota, they will need even more against the Devils from the entire roster.

2. Pass on the soft serve. Last night, Semyon Varlamov allowed one goal, but it was one that even he admitted was, in his words, “an easy goal.” The Devils don’t allow enough goals themselves to provide a margin of error allowing the goalie to give up the softie.

3. 100. Bruce Boudreau sits at 99 wins as coach of the Capitals (99-44-19). Let’s not have to write that he’s stuck on 99…

This, as they say, could be a preview of a matchup in May. What is worrisome is that if it is a preview, the Caps have come out on the short end of both games the teams have played to date this season, each by a 3-2 margin (one in a Gimmick). Whether it is Semyon Varlamov or Jose Theodore in goal tonight, he will have to be on his toes to turn that result around. Do we think that will be the case? What do you think?...

Caps 3 – Devils 2

A TWO-point night: Caps 3 - Wild 1

When you are the team that has your opponent by 11 points in the standings, and the opponent is traveling overnight to play the second game of a road back-to-back, you’re supposed to win. That doesn’t make it easy, it just makes it expected. The Capitals met expectations in beating the Minnesota Wild tonight, 3-1. It was a game that was decided in the first period in an odd sort of way, given that the game was scoreless at the first intermission. Consider the following…

6:59
12:05
12:58
13:41
14:47
15:08
16:16
16:22
16:23
16:24
16:25
16:30
16:33
17:25
18:06

Those are the official time elapsed marks for the Capitals’ shots on goal in the first period. Three shots in the first seven minutes, followed by three in the next two minutes, followed by seven in a 17 second span. From the 9:25 mark of the period until the 17:04 mark, the Wild were held without a shot on goal. The Caps had 12 consecutive shots at Wild goalie Josh Harding in the meantime. It was the equivalent of a series of body shots that took the starch out of the Wild, tenderizing them for what was to come.

It wasn’t as if the Wild lacked for effort. We noted tongue-in-cheek in the pregame that the Wild had discovered their “inner Lemaire” in recent games. Well, yeah. It might as well have been their old coach, Jacques Lemaire, still pacing behind the bench. In the first third of the first period the Wild clogged the middle, forced the Caps to the side walls, prevented any diagonal stretch passes, and forced the Caps to send the puck deep without any momentum when the Caps could get the puck in at all.

The trouble is, the clock caught up to them. Try as they might to continue playing such a disciplined system, the legs of the visitors were not cooperating. And frankly, neither was the ice, which had the appearance of looking pretty bad. That only compounded the Wild’s endurance problems.

What that meant was that if the Caps could keep pressing with an honest effort, if they could be patient enough to keep pressing, even as Minnesota was frustrating them in the neutral zone, then the Caps would eventually have the advantage of rest and skill to break the Wild down.

Even then, it wasn’t easy. Washington outshot the Wild by 16-6 in the second period, and one might have been forgiven for thinking that the avalanche of goals would come in the third after that onslaught. But while the Caps had a lot of chances in close, the puck simply would not behave long enough for a Cap to swat it into the goal with Harding trying to peer around legs and sticks to see where it went. The teams went to the second intermission tied 1-1 on goals by Cal Clutterbuck for the Wild and Mike Green for the Caps.

What all of that meant was that the Wild had hung around long enough to make things very interesting in the third period. Brian Pothier notched a goal two minutes into the third to give the Caps the lead (making them 19-for-19 in terms of holding a lead at some point in a game), but the Wild had four shots on goal in the first five minutes of the period. The matter was hardly settled. Minnesota kept up as much pressure as they could and managed 14 shots in the final period overall. But at that point it was Caps’ goalie Semyon Varlamov’s game, and he was sharpest in the third period. You had the feeling it would take either a fluky bounce (not out of the question in Verizon Center) or a penalty to get Minnesota the equalizer. The Wild didn’t get that bounce, and the Caps played a disciplined period.

Other stuff…

- Green’s goal was his first power play goal of the season. Last year he had 18. He thanked the media after the game for pointing out that this was his first this year (he probably knew).

- Counting Gimmicks, Varlamov has stopped 66 of the last 69 shots he’s faced. Although, truth be told, the one he let in tonight off the stick of Cal Clutterbuck looked very stoppable. Other than that, though, he was sharp as a Bowie knife.

- And what is it with Clutterbuck... two games against the Caps, three goals.

- Another game, another injury. Mike Knuble will be out 3-4 weeks with a broken finger he suffered when he was pushed into the net by a Wild defenseman off a scrum in front. It could have been worse. Knuble almost went head first into the center post it the back of the net.

- Martin Havlat had the quietest eight-shot game you could ever imagine. I didn’t remember his even being out there.

- David Steckel abused the Wild at the dot – 15 up and three down. He won each of his 11 defensive zone draws taken. A virtuoso performance in one of the little things that matter, yet often don’t get noticed.

- We were scratching our heads over this one… you’re killing a penalty, and at your own bench you take a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty. How does that happen?

- If you discount Knuble by virtue of his playing only 4:47, only one Caps skater finished the night without a shot on goal (Shaone Morrisonn).

- In basketball, some guys make behind-the-back passes because they can, not because it’s the right play. Same thing in hockey – sometimes guys get cute because they can. But there were half a dozen or so instances tonight when the behind the back pass was the right play to make to free the puck from the edge and get momentum the other way.

- Is it me, or had Tomas Fleischmann really graduated into being not a guy who plays hockey, but a hockey player? He fought for pucks along the boards, he took hits to make a play, and he threw his body around with more abandon than I can ever remember.

- And speaking of throwing his body around, consider… Cal Clutterbuck is listed as 5’11”, 213 pounds and is built like a fire hydrant. Mathieu Perreault is generously listed as 5’10”, 174 and would not look out of place in the intermission mites game, size wise. But there was Perreault in the corner, fighting for the puck with Clutterbuck, shoving him off the play, and skating out with the biscuit. Forget the assist he had to get to 1-3-4 after five games (even if the assist was gorgeous). He is going to be very hard to send back down, even if it is for his own long-term good, just based on his compete level.

- It might not have been the smartest penalty to take – a retaliatory cross-check by Nicklas Backstrom right in front of a referee – but it is a signal of the further development of Backstrom. There is no “back down” in Backstrom. There is a nasty little edge growing into his game. One might quarrel about whether it was worth it, but last year, Backstrom probably just takes the abuse. Two years from now, he probably clubs the guy and manages to do it in a subtle way.

- If you look at Chris Clark’s line on the score sheet, you might think, “eh…” Four shots on goal, a hit. But we’re thinking there are a few of the Wild who will have visions of him in their sleep with all the harassing he was doing and crashing the net.

- That is the first time the Caps have won a game scoring fewer than four goals in almost a month (October 24th, 3-2 in overtime against the Islanders). Might not seem like much, but an ability to win close ones when the pucks aren’t flying into nets at both ends will be good to have in the spring.

If water drips on the rock for long enough, the rock yields. That was pretty much how the 60 minutes went. The Wild were probably a bit off from the travel, the Caps were rested with a day off after a home game on Wednesday, and the Caps just kept pressing with an honest lunch pail effort. Eventually the Wild cracked. Big nights with lots of sirens and flashing red lights are more entertaining for a lot of fans, but wins like this can be just as satisfying.

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Wild, November 13th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

My, but this season is zipping by quickly. We are almost to the quarter pole of the regular season, and there are times like these, as the hustle and bustle of the holidays is about to descend upon us, that we wish we could forsake the supersonic pace of life and just take the bus. Like an old friend of ours who happens to be in town for tonight’s game between the Minnesota Wild and the Capitals at Verizon Center. Coach Madden, it’s been a long time.

“Hey, Peerless, it’s great to see ya."

So how’s retirement treating you these days?

“Well, I spend a lot of time playing Madden NFL 10 on my Nintendo ‘why.’”

I think that’s pronounced “we,” coach.

“We, why, what the hell…”

So what brings you to town for a game between the Caps and the Wild, Coach?

“Oh, I’m an old Minnesota boy, Peerless.”

No kidding…

“Oh, yeah… we moved to California when I was a youngster, but I was born in Austin.”

Where is that, exactly, Coach?

“Well, you take 270 north this way –fwip!- then you pick up 70 going west like this -schwip!- …then you do a little spin to I-76, hit the hole here when you pick up I-80 –bonk!- then it’s clear sailing until you get to Chicago, then you hit off right tackle up I-90 past Madison and LaCrosse, then you do this little zig-zag toward Iowa, and THWAP!... you’re in Austin.”

We’ll take your word for it, Coach. So what are you looking forward to tonight?

“I can’t wait to see that guy they call ‘Honey Chicken…”

“Honey Chicken?’….Oh, you mean Alex Ovechkin. He’s out tonight…”upper body injury.”

"That’s too bad. Whenever I hear his name, I think of that honey dipped chicken we get on the bus when we’re on a trip… that’s good eatin’, Peerless."

Well, from the looks of you, you’d know a lot about good eatin’.

“Heh-heh-heh… you’re right there, Peerless, but then again, I’m from Austin.”

I don’t get it, Coach.

“Know what our town’s nickname is?"

What?

“Spamtown.”*

Well, let’s hope that the Caps don’t play like processed and cooked pork shoulder and ham products tonight, just because the Wild are dead last in the Western Conference. It’s been a difficult start to the season for the Wild, as the numbers indicate…


But the Wild are also owners of a modest two game winning streak and are winners of four of their last five outings, having found their inner “Lemaire.” That would be a reference to the only coach the club knew until this season – Jacques Lemaire – who now patrols the New Jersey bench and was a purveyor of the defense first, second, and always style of play. Going into last night’s play – Minnesota was playing the Lightning in Tampa – the Wild allowed two or fewer goals in four of their previous five games (all of them wins), and that includes a 2-1 win in Pittsburgh against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

In this five-game run leading up to last night's game the Wild are led in scoring by Mikko Koivu (2-4-6, +4). Given that Koivu leads the team in scoring (5-11-16 in 17 games), this isn’t unexpected. But next in line in this five-game run are Marek Zidlicky (2-3-5, +2) and Kyle Brodziak (3-1-4, +1). These three have seven of the 15 goals scored by the Wild in those five games.

But if you’re looking at history, look no further than the player with one of the great names in the sport – Cal Clutterbuck. He has only one career game against the Caps, but for him it was memorable. He has the only two-goal game of his 92-game career in a 4-3 Wild win over the Caps in November 2008. He’s likely to make a bigger impression, so to speak, in the physical aspects of the game. He leads the team in hits with 50 in only 12 games.

There is a certain itinerant quality to the Wild roster. The well-traveled group includes a few players who have had some success against the Caps. Andrew Brunette – a former 7th round draft pick of the Caps – has abused his former employers to the tune of 8-5-13 in 19 career games. He is also the Wild’s second-leading scorer at 7-5-12 in 17 games.

Owen Nolan, who has been around the NHL block a few dozen times, has logged more time against the Caps than any player on the Wild roster – 34 games. In those contests he has 11 goals and a dozen assists.

Martin Havlat hasn’t played in the East since he left the Ottawa Senators after the 2005-2006 season, but in 13 career games against Washington he is 6-12-18, plus-12. The trouble is, that was then. Going into last night’s action he was 2-6-8, minus-12 (that is not a misprint) in 15 games, tied for the second worst plus-minus in the league.

The worst would belong to Brent Burns, who is minus-13 so far, which would put him on a pace to go minus-63. Burns is coming off a year that saw him miss the last 19 games of the year with post-concussion symptoms). He has been slow out of the gate for the Wild so far, although he does have three assists in this latest 4-1-0 run by Minnesota.

In goal, the question will be whether the Wild will use Niklas Backstrom in both games of the back-to-back. In any case, one should probably count on him to get the start tonight. And if you’re into patterns, consider this. Backstrom allowed four goals in a 4-3 loss to Nashville on October 28th. Then he had two good outings, allowing a total of three goals. He followed that up by allowing four goals in a 5-2 loss to Vancouver. Then he had two good outings, allowing a total of four goals (note: last night he allowed four goals, if you include the Gimmick...this is not good news if he starts tonight. That and the fact he is 11-1-2 against the Southeast in his career). In two career games against the Caps, he is 1-1-0, 3.50, .870.

Keys:

1. Focus on five. If there is a persistent theme for the Wild it is their difficulty at even strength. Their 28th place ranking in the league’s 5-on-5 list goes hand in glove with the fact that the Wild have only two players on the plus-side of the ledger (Cal Clutterbuck and John Scott). The Wild have four of the bottom 13 players in the league in plus-minus. The Caps are the top 5-on-5 team in the league. Do the math.

2. No peeking. This is the first of a back-to-back for the Capitals, who will travel to New Jersey on Saturday. The double whammy lurking for the Caps is that this isn’t a team they see much of so that they can get a book on them (added to the fact that this is a new coach with a new system), and the Wild – on paper – are very much a struggling team, even with their recent run. The exasperating tendency to play hot and cold within the same game could bite the Caps.

3. Vitamin C. Nicklas Backstrom – the Backstrom in this game with the “C” in his first name – is quietly putting together quite a season. He is on a 100-point pace, and after a six-game “slump” in which he had only one assist, he is 2-9-11, plus-2, in his last eight games.

This should be straight-forward. Play their game at even strength, put in an honest effort, collect two points. It’s never straight-forward, is it, Coach?

“Well, if you start here, then cut over here like this, -SCHWAP!- then dart back this way and curl around like this, -bonk!- you’ll end up here…”

Caps 4 – Wild 2



* We’re not kidding about that.

A TWO-point night: Caps 5 - Islanders 4 (OT/Gimmick)

Answer the following multiple choice question…

“The Agony and the Ecstasy” is:

a) A 1961 novel by Irving Stone
b) A 1965 film directed by Carol Reed
c) The 2009-2010 season to date authored by Alexander Semin

OK, it’s a trick question. They’re all true. Fans were treated to “The Full Semin” tonight as the Caps struck with lightning early, got thundered shortly thereafter, stormed back in the second, weathered a tying goal in the third, and… well, we’re out of weather analogies. The Caps finally put this one to bed with a Mega-Gimmick (11-round) 5-4 decision over the New York Islanders.

As for Mr. Semin’s night, he wasted no time putting his mark on the proceedings, taking a feed from Brendan Morrison, skating over the Islander blue line, and rifling a slap shot over goalie Dwayne Roloson’s glove for a 1-0 lead a mere eight seconds into the game. After the Islanders shook that off to take a 2-1 lead in the next 5:02, Semin had the puck on his stick in the Islander zone as the clock was ticking toward the seven-minute mark of the period. He stick-handled past one Islander, then another, then… he was plastered by Trent Hunter, and the puck squirted to Sean Bergenheim, who took the puck the distance, roofing the puck over Jose Theodore’s stick to give the visitors a 3-1 lead. That goal ended Theodore’s night with three goals on five shots in 6:54 (that’s a GAA of 26.09, by the way).

Semin was hardly done, because he who taketh also giveth away, then taketh again. And with the Caps having crawled back into the game on a Tomas Fleischmann power play goal late in the first period, Semin found a void in the Islander coverage on another power play while Mike Green circled around the Islander net. Green came out the other side and slid the puck to Semin, who taketh the shot and snapped it past Roloson to tie the game.

And still he wasn’t done. In the third period Semin had seven shot attempts, five of which were on goal, and it could be said that every one on goal required a superior save by Roloson to keep Semin from getting his hat trick.

With all that, though, Semin was probably not only not the best player on the ice tonight, he wasn’t the best Russian. That would go to Semyon Varlamov, who stepped between the pipes when Jose Theodore’s mates did a lot of standing around and watching in those first six minutes and 54 seconds, leaving him to fend off only two of the five shots he faced.

Varlamov was, in a word, “spectacular.” He turned aside 25 of 26 shots, the only one to elude him being a roof shot by Trent Hunter on a power play that clipped the crossbar on its way in. Then, he allowed a tally by Jeff Tambellini to open the Gimmick phase of the game, whereupon he slammed the door in the visitors’ faces thereafter, stopping nine straight attempts. That allowed Chris Clark to be the thinking man’s Gimmick participant in the 11th round of the trick-shot competition. Rather than try to deke left, deke right, and dipsy-do on deteriorating ice, he skated over the line, took a couple of steps, and snapped the puck over Roloson’s glove. All that was left was Varlamov trying for his tenth straight stop, this time against Mark Streit. The Islander defenseman tried a wrist shot on the blocker side, but Varlamov held his ground, and the game was – finally, mercifully – over. Varlamov stopped 35 of 37 shots in hockey and trick shot phases of the game.

Other stuff…

- Semin had 11 shots on goal. Yes, that is a career high.

- The Caps had three players winning ten or more draws – Brendan Morrison (10-of-17), Nicklas Backstrom (10-of-16), and David Steckel (11-of-17, eight of nine against players not named “Tavares”). But it was the loss of a defensive zone draw by Backstrom that was followed three seconds later by Mark Streit’s power play goal.

- We said Milan Jurcina would be a key, and wouldn’t you know it, he almost was… and not in a good way. It was his boarding penalty taken right after the Caps had just killed off a penalty that led to Trent Hunter’s game-tying goal with 2:08 left in regulation.

- The two goals for Semin ends a six-game goal scoring drought.

- Mike Green had two assists. If you’re keeping track, that’s 13 points in his last 12 games (2-11-13).

- That’s four straight games in which Chris Clark has recorded an assist. That would be a career high.

- Count us among the disappointed that Rob Schremp didn’t try some wacky trick shot in the Gimmick. It’s not like he’s been shy about it in other venues.

- In the “you always miss the shots you never take” file, that was some no-look flick of the wrist by Eric Fehr for the goal that gave the Caps a 4-3 lead in the third period. He would say in the post-game radio show that he was trying to get the puck to a teammate on the back side of the play.

- Jon Sim… no goals, stuffed in the shootout. Yes, the spell is broken.

- Mike Green does things other than shoot the puck and skate 200 feet. Two hits, three takeaways, three blocked shots.

- Only two skaters for each team did not record a shot on goal. For the Islanders, the guys drawing blanks might be expected – defensemen Andy Sutton and Freddy Mayer. For the Caps, it was forwards Quintin Laing and Mathieu Perreault.

- Laing was not credited with a blocked shot, but we could have sworn we saw him get a sliding block on a shot from the top of the Capitals’ zone.

- And Perreault might not have recorded a shot on goal, but he had what would have been the prettiest pass of the night if it could have been converted into a goal.

- The Laich-Morrison-Semin line had 17 of the Caps’ 41 shots on goal. They were busy.

- 40 minutes… no penalties. 20 minutes… three penalties. –SMACK!—

- 18 games, 18 games in which the Caps have had a lead at some point in the game.

- Note to Caps fans… if a player has two goals in the hockey portion of the game, and he gets another in the Gimmick? IT’S NOT A HAT TRICK! Stop throwing hats. It's embarrassing.

- I spent the whole game thinking to myself, “I wish I had the concession on Brendan Witt’s hair conditioner.” He was back to his old ways… four hits, three giveaways, minus-1.

- Andy Sutton… one hit in almost 24 minutes? He should get more than that by accident skating off on a line change.

The Islanders are one of those teams that is going to make a team like the Caps look bad. They don’t have the skill to trade haymakers with the Caps, they know it, and they play within themselves as a result. If you think their having taken the Caps to three extra time games in three meetings is an exception, they’ve done the same thing to Pittsburgh and Boston this year, too, losing in a Gimmick in each instance. In fact, eight of the Islanders’ 18 games (after which they stand 6-6-6… cue the Twilight Zone music) have gone to extra time. That they are 2-6 in those games does nothing to dim the view that this is a team that will – eventually – be a very good one if the talent in John Tavares, Kyle Okposo (out for this one) and Josh Bailey develops, and they maintain the work ethic they displayed in the three games against the Caps so far.

The Caps deserve a measure of praise for coming back from a 3-1 deficit less than seven minutes into the game. At the same time, they still have the third period penalty problem to deal with. But on balance, it’s still better having the best record in the East tonight than any alternative.

Days of Honor

Today, Americans honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifices for a way of life we sometimes, too often in fact, take for granted. Yesterday, one of America's great institutions -- the United States Marine Corps -- celebrated its 234th birthday.

For those who have made their sacrifices for us, and for those who do so today, wherever they may be, thank you.

A PROCLAMATION

Whereas it has long been our customs to commemorate November 11, the Anniversary of the ending of World War I, by paying tribute to the heroes of that tragic struggle and by rededicating ourselves to the cause of peace; and

Whereas in the intervening years, the United States has been involved in two other great military conflicts, which have added millions of veterans living and dead to the honor rolls of this Nation; and

Whereas the Congress passed a concurrent resolution on June 4, 1926 (44 Stat. 1982), calling for the observance of November 11 with appropriate ceremonies, and later provided in an act approved May 13, 1938 (52 Stat. 351), that the eleventh of November should be a legal holiday and should be known as Armistice Day; and

Whereas, in order to expand the significance of that commemoration and in order that a grateful Nation might pay appropriate homage to the veterans of all its wars who have contributed so much to the preservation of this Nation, the Congress, by an act approved June 1, 1954 (68 Stat. 168), changed the name of the holiday to Veterans Day:

Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, do hereby call upon all of our citizens to observe Thursday, November 11, 1954, as Veterans Day. On that day let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom, and let us reconsecrate ourselves to the task of promoting an enduring peace so that their efforts shall not have been in vain.

I also direct the appropriate officials of the Government to arrange for the display of the flag of the United States on all public buildings on Veterans Day.

In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans' organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose…

Dwight D. Eisenhower
October 8, 1954

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Islanders, November 11th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

It’s Veterans Day here in Washington, and the Capitals are in the middle game of a three-game home set, taking on the New York Islanders. This being a holiday, when many offices have the day off, we might expect to see a number of groups taking advantage of the occasion to take in a hockey game. We met one such group in town to catch a hockey game…

Welcome to Washington. I understand you folks are from out of town to watch the game today, and you are…

“Michael Scott.”

Glad to meet you. And what group are you with?

“We’re from the Dunder-Mifflin Paper Company. In Scranton, Pennsylvania.”

Are you folks hockey fans?

“Not really… we have company tickets to Baby Pens games.”

That’s a shame, but you’re down here in force for a Capitals game. I would have thought you’d head out to Pittsburgh for a game.

“We’re closet Capitals fans. We can’t stand that Crosby kid.”

I can understand that.

“You know, on our way down here, I read some of your gameday stuff.”

I’m flattered…

“Well, I swallowed all your ideas. I'm going to digest them and see what comes out the other end.”

Well, Verizon Center has facilities for that sort of thing… I imagine your staff appreciates your bringing them down for an outing like this.

“Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not. I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked. But it's not like this, compulsive, need, to be liked. Like my need to be praised.”

Ok… I take it you’re doing pretty well in these tough times to be able to sponsor a trip for your staff.

“Yes, but what is the single most important thing for a company? Is it the building? Is it the stock? Is it the turnover? It's the people. The people. My proudest moment here wasn't when I increased profits by 17 percent, or cut expenditure without losing a single member of staff. No, no, no, no. It was a young Guatamalan guy, first job in the country, hardly spoke a word of English, but he came to me and he went ‘Mr. Scott, will you be the Godfather to my child? Wow. Wow. Didn't work out in the end. We had to let him go. He sucked. Sort of like Nylander.”

Hey! Nylander doesn't suck!

Well, what do you expect, they’re from Scranton. But the game they’re here to see will be the third installment of the four-game season series between the Caps and the Islanders. The teams have split the two games played to date, both of them going to overtime and both won by the road team. As if it needs saying at this point, the Islanders have outperformed expectations. At 6-6-5, they sit on the cusp of the top-eight in the Eastern Conference. Their numbers compare to the Caps as follows:


New York is 5-2-0 in their last seven games. In those seven games, 13 different players have the 22 goals scored by the Islanders, and 19 different players have points. While balance seems to have been the key, the Islanders have been led by the future and the past in this stretch. As for the future, John Tavares – last June’s top overall pick in the draft – is tied for the team lead in points in this 5-2-0 run (2-4-6, tied with Jeff Tambellini at 3-3-6). Tavares’ performance in these last seven games has catapulted him into a tie for the club lead in points (5-8-13, tied with Matt Moulsen at 7-6-13). If you are looking for a benchmark for Tavares’ performance so far, consider that he has 13 points in 17 games. Last year’s top draft pick phenom, Steven Stamkos, did not record his 13th point until his 32nd game.

As for the past, that would be Brendan Witt. For those of you not paying attention, Witt had a two-goal game, including the game-winner, against Edmonton on November 2nd. Those were goals 24 and 25 of Witt’s career, spanning 865 games. They broke a 92-game streak without a goal dating back to January 22, 2008, at Carolina. It was his first multi-goal game in the NHL and his first multi-point game since March 26, 2002, at Buffalo. He now has as many goals – two – as his more celebrated teammate on the blue line, Mark Streit. Why it is that the earth didn’t stop spinning on its axis as a result of this turn of events is a mystery.

Speaking of Streit, he is somewhat slow out of the box. After 17 games last year, on his way to a 16-40-56 season, he was 4-8-12. So far this season, he has only those two goals and five assists to go along with them. He has only one goal since opening night, but that one was the game-winner in the 4-3 overtime win over Washington on October 30th. In 13 career games against the Caps he is 3-6-9.

And now we ask, is the spell broken? In his first 21 career games against the Caps, Jon Sim had 11 goals and 19 points. He was “Jon Gretzky” against the Caps. But since joining the Islanders, Sim has but a single point – a goal – in five games against Washington. He has only one goal this season, back on October 10th against Boston.

You would expect that Dwayne Roloson would get the nod in goal for the Islanders. He is 6-2-2, 1.99, .921 against the Caps for his career and is 1-0-1 this year.

For the Caps it could be interesting in goal. Jose Theodore got both starts against Florida last weekend in a back-to-back series. He came into the season with a sparkling career record against the Islanders (14-9-1, 1.89, .936 and five shutouts). But in two appearances this year, he is 1-0-1, 2.96, .900. Semyon Varlamov has only two appearances in the Caps’ last eight games, but he might be saved for Friday’s game against Minnesota, the first of another back-to-back (the Caps play in New Jersey on Saturday).

Keys:

1. Respect. Six of the last eight games between these teams have gone into extra time, including four of the last five. Let not let the Islanders’ record fool anyone. Even though New York has not won any of the last eight games in regulation, they do have three wins in those last eight games against the Caps. And, there is that 5-2-0 roll they’re on coming into this one.

2. Win the battle of attrition. The Caps are missing Alex Ovechkin. Boyd Gordon is still out with a back problem. Mike Green and Jeff Schultz are dinged up and are questionable. The Islanders will be missing Doug Weight (out 4-6 weeks with the always mysterious “upper body” injury) and Radek Martinek (out for the year with a knee injury). They also count Trent Hunter among the injured (although he might return for this one), and Kyle Okposo has been laid up with the H1N1 virus. You would think the Caps’ superior depth would be a factor – it had better be.

3. Milan Jurcina. That’s right, Milan Jurcina. He had, statistically, a difficult game against the Panthers last time out as he was on the ice for all four Florida goals in a 7-4 win. But Jurcina has more points against the Islanders in his career (13 games, 1-4-5) than he has against any other team. And that minus-4 against the Panthers was only his second "minus" game of the year.

This game has the potential of having a team letting itself get all fat and happy after pounding five goals past Scott Clemmensen in the last 20 minutes of a 7-4 win over Florida on Saturday. But tonight’s opponent – the Islanders – has allowed only 13 goals in their last seven games. And the Islanders have played the Caps tough, not just this year, but going back to the 2007-2008 season. Four of the last five games have been one-goal affairs, and the fifth featured an empty net goal by Nicklas Backstrom in a 5-3 win. Don’t expect an early end to the competitive portion of this one…

Caps 4 – Islanders 3

In Good Standing

Casualty List

Today’s number… 74

Perusing the TSN.ca listing of injuries, that is how many players are identified as being on injured reserve. Only one of the NHL’s 30 teams has no player on injured reserve – the New York Rangers, but watching the way Chris Drury staggered off the ice the other night after taking Curtis Glencross’ shoulder to his head on his first shift in a 3-1 loss to Calgary, the “injured reserve” notation is probably a formality. Drury will miss some time.

120 players are on the injury list. The number of players on injured reserve range from the zero that the Rangers have to the six from Vancouver on the list. Montreal and Edmonton have five apiece.

Is this abnormal? Well, we don’t know, but with all the marquee players or critical cogs going down – Ilya Kovalchuk, Marc Savard, Johan Franzen, Sheldon Souray, David Booth, Andrei Markov, Shea Weber, Sergei Gonchar, Daniel Sedin, and Alex Ovechkin, among others, it sure has the look of the NHL’s version of a pandemic.

Is it merely the odd concurrence of events that might happen once in many seasons, or does it signal a fundamental change in the game that might lead to the sort of “injury report” that the NFL publishes on a weekly basis?

It hardly seems to matter. In a perverse way, the competitive balance of the league seems to be preserved in all of this – 13 teams have at least three players on IR, but there are disturbing elements, nonetheless. No fewer than a dozen players are reported injured from concussions or “concussion-like symptoms.” 15 more are listed with various breaks and fractures. 16 are listed as a result of various surgeries.

This is something that shows no indication of going away; more than 50 of the players on the list were added this month. As much as anything else going on down on the ice, this might be the biggest story unfolding in the NHL this season.

Russian History

There seems to be some uncertainty as to when Alex Ovechkin will return to the lineup. Ovechkin remarked in an interview with Dmitry Chesnokov that he will miss 4-5 weeks. The Capitals issued a statment disputing the validity of this report.

Whatever, it appears Ovechkin will be out a while longer, whether that is few games or a few weeks. Russian machine might not break, but it occasionally gets dinged. Does this threaten the Caps' playoff hopes? Probably not. The Southeast Division is stumbling badly out of the gate with three teams in the bottom four of the conference and another -- Tampa Bay -- that is hanging onto a top-eight slot by virtue of dragging games into extra time (no team in the East has more extra time, one-point losses).

With respect to making the playoffs, Ovechkin's absence might come back to haunt the Caps at some point, but we doubt it. We are, instead, reminded of another Russian -- Sergei Fedorov. Fedorov missed 61 games of the 1997-1998 season, not to injury, but to a holdout. That was the year that Fedorov was tendered an offer sheet by the Carolina Hurricanes that could have paid him up to $38 million, with bonuses. The Detroit Red Wings matched the offer, dressed Fedorov for 21 games of the regular season, then had the benefit of his presence for 22 playoff games that ended with a Stanley Cup.

The point is that how many games Ovechkin misses now is not as relevant as how he plays -- and how the Caps play -- when he returns. And, that he is healthy in the spring, in time for what Caps fans hope will be Russian history repeating itself.

A TWO-point night: Caps 7 - Panthers 4

It was an odd night at Verizon Ce-- down, boy. At Verizon Center as the Capi—DOWN boy. As the Capitals roared from behind in the – DOWN!

Seems Kanoobie is excited over what transpired at Verizon Center this evening as the Caps roared back from a 3-2 deficit to open the third period, outscoring the Florida Panthers 5-1 in the final 20 minutes to skate off with a 7-4 win that was not kind to goaltenders.

Mike Knuble tied his career best night with two goals and two assists for four points, Tomas Fleischmann continued his torrid pace after a late start to the season with two goals – he is now 5-2-7 in six games since his return – and Mathieu Perreault notched his first goal of his NHL career. Brooks Laich chipped in a two-point night of his own, and Brian Pothier had, in our opinion, a whale of a game playing the role of “Mike Green” moving the puck up ice.

It was an odd game that really started from the end of last night’s 4-1 Caps win, with the teams flying through the night to get to DC for the rematch 24-hours later. We would have expected more goals tonight than last night, and in the first period, it was looking as if we were going to be proven wrong on that score. Only a Mike Knuble goal from 18 inches off the left post from a nice feed by Brendan Morrison kept the period from being scoreless.

But maybe the 24-hour turnaround was working on the defensemen a bit in the second period, they having to generally skate more minutes, make the long change, and do a lot of skating backward and taking hits to move the puck. In any case, Florida made short work of the Washington lead to start the second, Michael Frolik snapping a rebound past Jose Theodore to tie the game.

After that it was a blur – eight goals 27 minutes. For the second period portion of it, Washington took a lead on a goal by Brooks Laich, and then Florida scored a pair to regain the lead 16 minutes into the second period. The teams skated off at the second intermission with the crowd, not booing, but certainly muttering about the state of things with a team trailing the Caps by 11 points in the standings taking the lead.

The Caps who took the ice in the third, though, were beasts. Mathieu Perreault got things started by pilfering the puck from Dmitry Kulikov, passing it to himself off the back of the Panther net, then stuffing it past goalie Scott Clemmensen’s left pad for his first NHL goal.



40 seconds later, there was Matt Bradley, in the “Matt Bradley Corner,” throwing the puck in front where Quintin Laing beat a lazy stick check by Bryan McCabe and flipped the puck past Clemmensen to give the Caps the lead.

Florida wasn’t quite done as Cory Stillman defelcted a shot from the point by Kulikov down and past Jose Theodore to tie the game for the last time at four apiece. Barely two minutes later, the tie was broken when Tomas Fleischmann took a feed from behind the net from Nicklas Backstrom and roofed the puck under the crossbar as he was falling to the ice.

Mike Knuble got his second when a shot from Shaone Morrisonn appeared to clip the inside of Knuble’s leg on the way through, changing direction just enough to elude Clemmensen. Flesichmann closed it out with his second of the game and fifth of the season.

Other stuff…

- Here’s a new one… the Quintin Laing Hat Trick… a blocked shot, a broken nose, and a goal. He ended the night with all three.

- Maybe the Caps should play with four defensemen more often. Milan Jurcina and Tyler Sloan had a brutal night. Jurcina was on the ice for all four Panther goals, and Sloan was out there for three of them.

- Mike Knuble’s other four-point game was also against Florida, back on Valentines’ Day 2003, when he wore the Boston colors.

- 13 skaters had points for the Caps. The only forwards without points tonight were David Steckel (not unusual) and Alexander Semin (not good).

- Semin is now 0-2-2 in his last six games with five minor penalties, including two more tonight, both (again) in the offensive zone. Maybe it has something to do with something Coach Bruce Boudreau hinted at in the post game – with Ovechkin on the bench, he doesn’t have anyone to talk to. Perhaps he’s just not relaxed out there.

- It was the best of worlds, followed by the worst, then the best for Dmitry Kulikov, who scored his first NHL goal, then coughed up the puck to Mathieu Perreault who scored his first, then he got the primary assist on the Cory Stillman goal that tied the game for the last time. Big night for last June’s 14th overall pick.

- The Caps wearing down the Panthers over the 60 minutes shows up in the final faceoff stats. There were 10 draws in the Caps’ end of the ice for the night, 22 in the Panthers’ zone.

- Brian Pothier had an assist, was plus-3, had a hit, three takeaways, and a blocked shot. He sampled the defenseman’s buffet rather enthusiastically.

- Shaone Morrisonn had a similar game, numbers wise – an assist, plus-2, three hits, three blocked shots.

- Things could have gotten dicey right after that Knuble goal to open the scoring. You don’t want to give up a goal on the next shift. The Caps didn’t. But taking a penalty in the offensive zone isn’t a whole lot better. That one’s on the captain, who took such a penalty 21 seconds after Knuble’s goal.

- 15 Caps were credited with hits. Even Nicklas Backstrom had three. Of the three skaters who weren’t the surprise there is Brooks Laich. But he creates turnovers with just his steely gaze.

- Only one team in the East has fewer losses at home in regulation than the single loss the Caps have – Tampa Bay. Really... they haven’t lost a regulation game at home yet.

- With the seven goals, the Caps have taken over the top spot in team scoring in the league (3.76 goals/game). It was the most goals scored by the Caps since last February 1st against Ottawa in a 7-4 win. That was the first time they scored seven since a January 1st win over Tampa Bay… yes, by a score of 7-4.

- The Caps had 16 shots in the first 40 minutes, 16 in the last 20. Florida had 24 in the first 40 minutes, five in the last 20. Gotta shoot the puck to score.

- That’s three games in his last four in which Jose Theodore has allowed at least four goals. Oddly enough, he hasn’t lost a game in regulation in any of them (2-0-2, 3.72, .882).

It was entertaining, even if it assaulted the sensibilities of the old school fan. Florida didn’t get good goaltending, and their defense looked as if it was skating in oatmeal in the third period. The Caps finally showed off their depth, and the defense wasn’t as bad as four goals seems (Jurcina and Sloan picking this night to have the same sort of off night).

It is an odd quirk of the Bettman School of Standings Points that on the one hand, the Caps could have been said (as we did) to be on a three-game winless streak coming into this weekend. On the other hand, after two wins against Florida, the Caps have earned a point in 11 of their last 12 games (8-1-3).

Where you stand depend on where you sit… sit!... SIT KANOOBIE!!!

Arf!

End Game?

According to Bob McKenzie at tsn.ca (from his Twitter feed), Michael Mylander has been placed on waivers.

True? We have no idea. But if so, we can't imagine it would be done without a purpose.

Between injuries (Ovechkin, Green, Schultz), players moving from position to position (like Tyler Sloan), and personnel moves of the "maybe" sort (Nylander), this seems to be a busier-than-normal weekend in November, hockey-wise.

Oh, and there's a game tonight.

A TWO-point night: Caps 4 - Panthers 1

Wishes do come true.

And that is not always a good thing.

One wish coming true that falls on the good side is that the Capitals beat the Florida Panthers last night, 4-1, in the front end of a weekend back-to-back to end a three-game winless streak.

The wishes Caps fans might have to see Hershey defensemen Karl Alzner and/or John Carlson in the lineup could come true at the price of the loss of Mike Green and Jeff Schultz, both of whom were injured in the win. The injuries have everything covered, Green’s being described as an “upper body” injury, Schultz’ of the “lower body” variety. Add to that concern that Shaone Morrisonn could be facing a forced absence after boarding Kenndal McArdle in the third period, and the Caps could skate the second half of this back-to-back with half of their defenseman squad on the shelf.

But for the game, the stars were Jose Theodore and Brian Pothier. Theodore shook off two difficult outings – giving up five goals to Columbus and four to the Islanders – to turn away 28 of 29 shots. It’s worth noting that the Panthers were held to 29 shots. It is the first time the Caps have held an opponent under 30 shots since a 5-4 win against Atlanta on October 22nd. The Caps were 3-1-2 in the six games in between (two of the wins coming in extra time, as were two of the losses), and the one goal allowed was the fewest since a 4-1 win over San Jose on October 15th. But Theodore was solid throughout (“solid,” not great – there were a few juicy rebounds he left lying around, one of which led to a power play goal), especially early when he stopped all 12 shots in the first period, including a flurry in the game’s third minute of play in which Florida had several chances to get the opening goal with shots from in close.

Brian Pothier. In going 1-2-3 for the night, the Caps defenseman had his first multi-point game since December 15, 2007, and his first three point game since October 7, 2006. It was his goal on a power play slapper that gave the Caps insurance early in the third period . He added a couple of hits and a pair of blocked shots at the other end.

Other stuff…

- Mathieu Perreault did not get an assist on the Caps’ first goal, scored by Tyler Sloan, but he should have (in principle). He got the whole thing started, taking a pass at the center red dot, then curling down the right side and over the Panther line. He came to a stop just inside the line and found Chris Clark going down the left side. The puck got a piece of Pothier’s puck on the way through, but Clark collected it and found Sloan coming late down the middle as the fourth man on the rush. Sloan didn’t give goalie Tomas Vokoun a chance to react to the snapper he put on net, and the puck was in for the 1-0 lead.

- When Tomas Fleischmann uncorked a slapper from just inside the Florida blue line just past the four-minute mark of the first period, and the puck squeaked through Vokoun and started crawling toward the Panther goal line, only to be swept out of the crease inches from going over, we could not help but think… maybe one or two fewer scuffs of the clean ice by Vokoun at the start of the period, and a little less snow would have built up, and the puck would have inched over. We think weird things like that.

- Theodore also had a nice save on Rostislav Olesz on a breakaway chance in the second period.

- We liked that Brendan Morrison goal in the second period. Why? Because a younger player probably doesn’t take that extra half second to open up his stance to improve his angle and allow the goalie to go all the way to the ice before roofing the puck.

- Wish Mike Knuble could have finished that feed from David Steckel on a two-on-one down low against Vokoun. Steckel stripped Dmitry Kulikov of the puck inside the Panther line, then did a nice little curl of the puck through Bryan Allen to set himself up in the open to find Knuble streaking down the other side. Knuble just could get the extra six inches or so of lift on the puck to get it over the lunging Vokoun, who made a nice save, denying Steckel what would have been a great, well-earned assist.

- Pothier got his goal manning the Ovechkin spot on the power play and scored it in pretty much the same, if less electrifying, fashion… a one-time slap shot from above the left wing circle.

- Two things to note about the Pothier goal. First, watch the replay. Who is crawling over a Panther defenseman looking for a rebound?... Tomas Fleischmann. Strange world, ain’t it? Second, you might not know the name, “Michael Repik.” He’s the guy who took the roughing penalty that led to the Pothier goal. When he skated back to the bench after Pothier’s goal, his night was over. He did not skate over the last 13:04.

- One can’t say enough about the Caps defensemen in this one. Mike Green skated for only 2:44 before going down, Jeff Schultz for 7:27. Pothier and Tom Poti both logged more than 25 minutes. For Pothier, the 25:20 was the most time he’s logged since skating for 27:08 against Vancouver on October 26, 2007. For Milan Jurcina, his 23:12 in ice time was the first time he skated more than 20 minutes in a regular season game that didn’t end in extra time since December 20, 2008. With Green, Schultz, and Morrison gone, the Caps were left with only four defenseman for the last eight minutes of the game, Tyler Sloan moving back from forward.

- Here is what happened in that last eight minutes in which the Panthers were still in it at 3-1… Florida managed only two shots on goal. The Caps, meanwhile, blocked five shots. Five different players had those blocks – Jurcina, Pothier, Matt Bradley, Fleischmann, and Sloan. The Caps won four of six faceoffs. It’s worth noting that the of the four defensive zone draws in that sequence three were taken by (and won by) David Steckel. Steckel did not lose a defensive draw all night.

- Matt Bradley tied for the team lead in shots on goal? He had seven attempts and four on goal, you say? The odd things that happen when the big guy is out.

- Meanwhile, Alexander Semin had one shot on goal and five attempts in almost six-and-a-half more minutes that Bradley. At the moment, we get the feeling Semin is holding that stick a bit too tightly, in a manner of speaking. He needs something ugly to go in. The flair will come later.

- Accidental or whatever, you have to be more careful with a short bench than Shaone Morrisonn was in his hit on McArdle. The Caps are facing a number of teams in the next few games that have some trouble scoring, so if Morrisonn is to ride the pine for a game or so, it might not have quite the impact. But it probably wasn’t the smartest thing he’s done this week.

- What’s with the “red mallet” theme at Bank Atlantic Center? When the glass was knocked out, it was red mallet all around, none of which seemed to work… until the red sledge of death was unveiled. There’s a promotion night in there somewhere.

- The Caps had nine players with multi-hit nights. Even Mathieu Perreault was credited with one… on Keith Ballard, who outweighs Perreault by 35 pounds.

It was a solid, lunch pail, meat and potatoes effort. The Caps cashed in on opportunities, they had guys step up in terms of effort and production, they got solid goaltending. It was a fine road win for a team that is having to deal with injuries at key positions. We can’t wait to see what’s in store for tonight…

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- A "Two-Fer"...Caps vs. Panthers, November 6th/7th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

Tonight and tomorrow night, it’s the only “Super” back-to-back of the season for the Capitals. Games on consecutive days against the same opponent – the Florida Panthers. The Caps will visit south Florida tonight, and then the clubs will return to DC on Saturday to complete the twin-bill. So what about the Sunshine State? It’s sunny a lot of the time (but never at night), there are a lot of old folks there, and they have trouble counting votes. But what else do we know about this mysterious state? Glad you asked…

- A museum in Sanibel owns 2 million shells and claims to be the world's only museum devoted solely to mollusks.

- Niceville is home to the famous Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival celebrated the third weekend in October. Rats… and we were looking forward to some boggy bayou badness.

- Dr. John Gorrie of Apalachicola invented mechanical refrigeration in 1851.

- Miami Beach pharmacist Benjamin Green invented the first suntan cream in 1944. He accomplished this development by cooking cocoa butter in a granite coffee pot on his wife's stove. We're guessing the missus made really bad coffee.

- On May 20, 1970 Florida lawmakers passed and sent to the Governor a bill adopting the moonstone as the official state gem. Ironically, the moonstone is not found naturally in Florida...nor was it found on the moon. We're thinking it might be something that was surgically removed from Don Shula's tuchas years ago.

- Miami installed the first bank automated teller machine especially for rollerbladers.

- Plant City, the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World, holds the Guinness record for the world's largest strawberry shortcake – 827 square-feet, 6,000 pounds

- The city of Hypoluxo's name comes from the Seminole expression water all 'round -- no get out. In other words, a hockey rink.

- Fort Lauderdale is known as the Venice of America because the city has 185 miles of local waterways.

- Venice is known as the Shark Tooth Capital of the World. Collecting prehistoric sharks’ teeth has been a favorite pastime of visitors and residents of the Venice area for years. Funny, we would have thought Venice would be known as the “Fort Lauderdale” of the west coast of Florida.

- Florida is the only state that has 2 rivers both with the same name. There is a Withlacoochee in north central Florida (Madison County) and a Withlacoochee in central Florida. They have nothing in common except the name. What, Florida has so many rivers they need to start recycling their names?

(source: 50states.com... the wisecracks are ours)

Well, speaking of “two,” this is a two-fer, mainly because we’re lazy. The Caps will be taking on the Panthers in a pair of contests that have “we will crush them like a palmetto bug” written all over them. Why? Shoot, look at the numbers…


The Caps average a goal a game more than do the Panthers, give up a third of a goal less per game, have almost double the power play success (on a percentage basis), have a better penalty kill (although neither is especially good), and they can actually come back from giving up the first goal on those rare occasions when they do fall behind first.

You’d think these games would be over before the old folks head to bed.

Well, these are the Caps, and they are now nursing a three-game winless streak (0-1-2), while Florida has won three in a row. In doing so, the Panthers have outscored their opponents, 12-5 (not including the Gimmick goal that got the mini-streak started), and Tomas Vokoun has shutouts in each of his last two games – a 4-0 win in St. Louis and a 3-0 win over Carolina. Florida hasn’t done it with their power play, going 1-for-10 in the three wins. They have been light’s out on the penalty kill, though, skating off 11 of 12 shorthanded situations.

As far as threats go, you can start with Steve Reinprecht. Now that you realize he’s still in the league (after spending three-plus years in the desert… no, really – Phoenix), we can tell you that he has nine goals in 13 games. He would seem a lock to finish the year with a career high (that currently being the 22 he had, split between Calgary and Phoenix, in 2005-2006). He has five in his last four games, including a hat trick against Dallas on October 30th. We would tell you what his career numbers are against the Caps, but they would hardly be relevant. He hasn’t played a game against Washington since the 2003-2004 season (as a Calgary Flame -- one game, no points, six shots on goal).

Among the home-grown Panthers, Nathan Horton is coming in on a hot streak. His 3-7-10, even, for the season doesn’t look especially impressive. However, he is 1-6-7, plus-6 in his last four games. He is coming into this game with a 6-7-13, minus-2, career record against the Caps, but he’s struggled of late. In his last 12 games against Washington, he is only 1-2-3, minus-1.

One player the Panthers miss and will miss this weekend is David Booth. The object of an open-ice hit from Philadelphia’s Mike Richards on October 24th, Booth said yesterday that he expected to start exercising today or on Saturday. He has participated in no strenuous physical activity since suffering a concussion as a result of the hit. Last year, Booth was 2-3-5 in five games against the Caps.

One might have expected that the missing offense for the Panthers with Booth out would have been picked up by Cory Stillman, Stephen Weiss, and Rostislav Olesz among the forwards. As a group, they are 9-10-19, minus-9, for the season. Since Booth’s injury, they are a combined 5-3-8, plus-5, in four games. Along with Reinprecht’s five goals, they account for two-thirds of the 15 goals the Panthers have in their last four games.

On defense, the Panthers have been healthy. Six defensemen have played in all 13 games to date. One of them happens to be Dmitri Kulikov, the 14th overall pick in last June’s entry draft. It can be said that he’s struggled so far. He has four assists (only one in seven games since October 16th), and he has yet to finish a game on the plus side of the ledger in putting together a minus-9 rating.

Bryan Allen is in similar plus-minus territory, but under different circumstances. He was on the ice for five even-strength goals in a 7-2 loss to Carolina on October 9th. Since then he’s been relatively steady, going 1-1-2, plus-1, in his last eight games. It’s not bad for a guy who missed the last 80 games of the 2008-2009 season with a knee injury.

The Caps will also be renewing acquaintances with Dennis Seidenberg, who manned the blue line for Carolina for the last two years, plus 20 games of the 2006-2007 season. In that time as a Hurricane, Seidenberg was 0-5-5, even, in 12 games against the Caps.

In goal, it’s a tale of very different fortunes for Tomas Vokoun and Scott Clemmensen. Vokoun had a crummy start to the year. He won on opening night in Finland, a 4-3 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. Then, he went 0-7-1 in his next eight games, leaving him 1-7-1, 3.71, .906 after nine games. His problem was that he was facing a ton of shots – twice more than 40 and 55 shots in that season opener. It was no wonder he didn’t allow fewer than three goals in any of his first eight games. In his last two, though, he faced 34 and 32 shots, stopping all 66 of them for two shutout wins.

For Scott Clemmensen, it’s been as if he was still backstopping Marty in New Jersey. He’s been in three games so far with two decisions (2-0-0). His other numbers, though, are pretty grim – a 4.25 GAA and .866 save percentage. He’s given up seven goals on his last 40 shots faced over two games (.825 save percentage).

Keys…

1. Don’t make this a special teams game. The Caps should dominate this game at 5-on-5, given the respective efficiencies of the teams (Caps at 1.44 goals scored per goal allowed, Panthers at 0.71 goals scored per goal allowed). Florida has a terrible penalty kill (28th in the league), but the Caps’ power play hasn’t been great, and it isn’t better with Ovechkin out.

2. Keep Florida from getting shots on goal. The Caps are 4-1-1 in games in which they allowed fewer than 30 shots on goal, 4-2-3 when they don’t.

3. No blanks. The Young Guns had a pretty grim game against New Jersey, save for Nicklas Backstrom’s performance on face-offs. We’d hate to think that Ovechkin’s absence will expose them as “pop guns.”

In the end, these are two games that should not be especially competitive. But the Caps just haven’t been able to muster a full 60 minutes of effort against bottom feeders. They play these teams as if they are bored with the whole exercise. That means a couple of close ones, and maybe even some boos on Saturday. But in the end, the Caps are just too far above Florida on the skill scale…

Caps 3 – Panthers 2 (Friday)

Caps 4 – Panthers 3 (Saturday)

Meanwhile, Down on the Farm

The Bears have among the AHL league leaders:

Goals:

Alexandre Giroux: 7 (T-4th)
Andrew Gordon: 7 (T-4th)

Assists:

Alexandre Giroux: 10 (T-4th)
Andrew Gordon: 9 (T-7th)

Power Play Goals:

Andrew Gordon: 5 (T-2nd)

Power Play Assists:

Alexandre Giroux: 4 (T-9th)

Shorthanded Goals:

Steve Pinizzotto: 2 (T-1st)

Game-Winning Goals:

Alexandre Giroux: 2 (T-4th)

Plus/Minus:

Alexandre Giroux: +11 (1st)

Rookie Scoring:

John Carlson: 1-7-8 (T-9th)

Goals Against Average:

Jason Bacashihua: 1.00 (2nd)

Save Percentage:

Jason Bacashihua: .962 (2nd)

Shutouts:

Braden Holtby: 1 (T-4th)
Jason Bacashihua: 1 (T-4th)

A NO-point night: Devils 3 - Caps 2

Well… don’t blame this one on the absence of Alex Ovechkin.

Blame this 3-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils on some truly boneheaded plays and indifferent efforts.

OK, New Jersey scored a goal on a fluke off-the-shin-pad shot from behind the Capitals’ net by Brian Rolston. It’s hockey, it happens, deal with it. But the other two goals? Alexander Semin takes a hooking call in his own zone… New Jersey scores 19 seconds later on the power play. Brendan Morrison takes a hooking call in his own zone… New Jersey scores 46 seconds later.

Oh, did we mention that the Devils were two for their last 27 power play attempts over their previous eight games?

And as far as the offense goes, here’s all you need to know…

Nicklas Backstrom: 0-0-0, one shot on goal, three shot attempts
Alexander Semin: 0-0-0, three shots on goal, three penalties
Mike Green: 0-0-0, four shots on goal, not including the one he deflected into his own net

Not a good night to be a “Young Gun,” to be sure.

Other stuff…

The Caps allowed Nicklas Bergfors to double his goal total for the year, as it was Bergfors who scored the goals with Semin and Morrison in the box (Bergfors has one of those strange lines in the box score… two goals, five shots on goal, and nothing else – no shots blocked, none missed, no hits, no giveaways, no takeaways, nothing… he just skated around shooting pucks in 18:41 of ice time).

Morrison took his penalty at the 14:24 mark of the third period and didn’t see the ice again. Semin took his second penalty of the period at 16:03 and wasn’t on the ice for the final 1:47 of the game when the Caps were trying to get back into it. Maybe Coach has seen enough of the dumb stuff?

Different city, different scorer. Combined, the teams managed only five giveaways, seven takeaways, and 11 blocked shots.

“The guy they call ‘Lamborgreenie?’” Well, it’s apparently what the Jersey announcers call Mike Green, anyway.

Semin could have redeemed himself… he had Brodeur on the ice at his mercy in one instance, and he shot the puck into Brodeur’s elevated left pad. Later, with the clock winding down in regulation, he exited the box after a penalty and took a pass on a breakaway but shot wide.

New Jersey is a fine defensive team, but… Tom Poti, no shot attempts… Chris Clark, no shot attempts... David Steckel, no shot attempts… Quintin Laing, one shot attempt… Brendan Morrison, one shot attempt… Matt Bradley, one shot attempt… Milan Jurcina, one shot attempt… Shaone Morrisonn, one shot attempt… Jeff Schultz, one shot attempt. Not shots, shot attempts.

On the other side, there was Tyler Sloan getting a goal and recording three hits in ten minutes of ice time.

There was Mathieu Perreault looking like a fine call-up from Hershey in his first NHL game, getting assists on both Capitals goals and recording a pair of takeaways (half the number the Caps were credited with).

Tomas Fleischmann continues to make up for lost time, getting his third goal in three games with a spiffy wrister past the glove hand of Martin Brodeur.

Semyon Varlamov probably deserved better. One goes in off a teammate’s shin pad, another is a shot that picked the top corner, the third comes off a deflection on a power play that was the result of a silly penalty. He held his own against the guy at the other end of the ice.

As for the guy at the other end of the ice, it’s hard enough to beat Martin Brodeur when you play an error free game. He doesn’t let in many softies (although the goal by Sloan was borderline). But to take penalties in your own end late in the game, to gift wrap chances to a team that is offensively challenged and that was just plain incompetent on its own power play over the last eight games is just – or should be – unacceptable.

Alex Ovechkin is out. That isn’t a be-all or end-all excuse for being sloppy. Instead of filling the hole his absence created, the Caps dug the hole a little deeper.

The Devils, being the opportunistic sort of team they are, buried them in it.

The "Gifted" Paradox

People who look at the Washington Capitals’ lineup do so and see a collection of extraordinarily skilled players. Alex Ovechkin is the most prolific goal scorer of this generation. Alexander Semin might have a more complete set of skills than Ovechkin on both sides of the puck. Mike Green has called to mind faint comparisons with Bobby Orr and Paul Coffey as a puck-rushing offensive defenseman. Nicklas Backstrom is this generation's prototypical playmaking center with the ability to see passes the average player cannot see, let alone execute.

But there is that word… “average.” And suddenly another word comes to mind and the paradox often attached to it.

“Gifted”

In an educational setting, there are some students that by virtue of their innate intellectual abilities are deemed “gifted.” Generally they are categorized as such as a product of their respective “intellectual quotient” – the relationship of their “mental age” projected against their chronological age. We’ll leave the details to the experts in educational testing. The point is that for these “gifted” students whose mental skills are far advanced from students of similar age, a paradox often presents itself. Why do many such students often fail to achieve to a measure commensurate with their skill? Why does the child with the I.Q. of 160 earn a C- in chemistry, despite giving every indication that they can do the work with superior results?

For our purposes, why does the supremely skilled hockey player – far more skilled than other players of his age – often achieve for his team so much less than his “S.Q.” (or “skill quotient”) would allow, despite giving tantalizing indications that he can put in the effort and get the results that can earn for his team ultimate success?

Looking at the Capitals from my seat up in the balcony at Verizon Center, I see a collection of players – not just the “Young Guns” we mentioned, for there are others in this mix – who are in their own ways as much the “gifted” student as the prodigy who can perform calculus at the age of four.

Yet despite the fact that the Capitals have “achieved” a rather impressive 20 points in 14 games thus far (a 117-point pace), they have the look of the unmotivated gifted student, marking time in games in early November with the expectation, perhaps, that they’ll just turn it on for the final exam – in the form of the Stanley Cup playoffs – next spring.

Some gifted students are self-motivated out of curiosity, an internal drive to succeed, or other factors. By the same token, some gifted hockey players are self motivated out of their competitive nature, fear of failure, or other factors. Still it remains that motivating the gifted student is one of teaching’s great challenges, and motivating gifted hockey players can be one of coaching’s great challenges.

There is a lot of effort in the academic literature devoted to the issue of how to motivate the underachieving gifted student. The task in motivating the gifted professional athlete is a more difficult one in some respects. Such athletes are financially well set with early signing bonuses and large contracts. They are of course adults – chronologically. The jobs of those who manage them – coaches, general managers – largely hinge on keeping them happy and productive, something that might not be lost on the player. And there is a world of other experiences to which they can be exposed or that they can seek out that rob them of their focus on or their motivation for success on the field or on the ice.

We aren’t nearly close enough to the players to opine on whether or from what causes they might lack motivation or lose focus. But they do, at times, seem to lack it or lose it. Against teams that can challenge their skill, they can – and do – summon the motivation to succeed and focus on the task of winning. When the Capitals thoroughly dominated the Bruins in Boston in the season opener and San Jose at home two weeks later, they were the gifted students who aced the test.

Then again, against teams such as Toronto – in the home opener two days after dominating Boston – or Atlanta on two occasions, we saw the gifted student lacking the motivation to do anything but plod along with a “C+.” Losing to the Islanders or the Blue Jackets in overtime was like blowing off a pop quiz. It doesn’t really matter, well… too much, in the final grade.

We’re not prepared to call the Caps “underachievers,” not this early in the hockey season and not with the record they have. But there is the faint whiff about them that they are not, as they say, “reaching their potential.” It is a job made harder with Alex Ovechkin out of the lineup, but if motivation – either from within, or from the coaches or management – has been lacking, it should be in abundance at this point. They can’t just do the minimum required for their grade or to do some real damage in the playoffs.

The problem with that attitude – for the gifted student and player alike – is that there will be a final exam coming. For the gifted student it might be that last test of the academic year or an entrance exam to a prestigious school. For the gifted player it is the playoffs. And if one hasn’t prepared well in the meantime, then that last final exam will not go well. And in the NHL, that means a long summer of knowing you failed, knowing you have to repeat the grade the next year.

And for the professional athlete, even the gifted ones, there are a precious few years in which to achieve your success.

The Peerless Progsnoticator is ON THE AIR!!! -- Caps vs. Devils, November 4th

The Peerless Prognosticator is ON THE AIR!!!

If it’s Wednesday, it must mean hockey, and tonight it’s a visit to The Rock in beautiful downtown, Newark, New Jersey, where the Devils will play host to the Capitals in the second meeting of the clubs this year. New Jersey won the first contest, a 3-2 Gimmick win in Washington on Columbus Day. Tonight the Caps hope to at least return the favor of being a rude guest and will do so without the pleasure of having Alex Ovechkin in the lineup. The over/under for his return from an “upper body injury” looks to be two weeks.

“Trouble in paradise, two o’clock…”

Excuse me?

“Trouble in paradise…”

Are you some sort of wise guy or something?

“Well, yes… Gregory House, M.D.”

Oh, yeah, I hear you’re some sort of diagnostic genius… So, anything to this “upper body” thing?

"That's a catchy diagnosis, you could dance to that."

Well, that seems to be the thing these days. There are more cases of that than of swine flu.

“Then just say it’s ‘idiopathic,’ from the Latin meaning we're idiots ‘cause we can't figure out what's causing it."

He got into a kerfuffle with some Columbus Blue Jackets and seems to have hurt his chest or shoulder. A weird injury.

"Weird works for me."

OK, so what do you think it is?

“Well, it could be anterior displacement of the acromioclavicular bundle.”

Really?

“No, I just made that up.”

Will you be serious?

“Hmmm…. In my judgment…”

Yes?

“boo-boo”

Boo-boo? That’s your diagnosis?

“I solved the case, my work is done.”

Well, perhaps Dr. House can find work as a team physician somewhere, since his diagnoses are as revealing as “upper body injury,” but what about the game the Caps have to play?

The Devils come into this one the very picture of consistency they have been for the last decade and a half. After dropping their first two games of the year, they Devils have gone three wins, a loss, three wins, a loss, and two wins for an 8-2-0 record in their last ten games and an 8-4-0 record overall (if the pattern holds, this is not good news for the Caps). They’ve done it in the accustomed way, too. In only three of those last ten games have the Devils allowed more than two goals, while scoring as many as four goals in a game only twice, themselves. Three of those games have gone to the Gimmick, the Devils winning all of them. Here is how the overall numbers compare…


Unless the sun stops in the sky, or he is spirited away by aliens, Martin Brodeur will get the start. He will be making his fifth attempt at tying the all-time NHL shutout record for goaltenders – 103 – held by Terry Sawchuk. In four appearances since climbing to within one of Sawchuk, Brodeur is 3-1-0, 1.97, .927. In other words, pretty normal.

While the Capitals will be missing Alex Ovechkin, the Devils have been without the services of Patrik Elias for the entire season to date, the result of his having undergone surgery to clean out scar tissue in his groin. He returned to the ice for the first time on Monday, but there is no date that had yet been set for his return. Think he won’t be missed tonight? Since the lockout, he is 5-14-19, plus-5 in 13 games against Washington.

That will leave the scoring load to Zach Parise and Travis Zajac, currently one-two in the Devils scoring rankings. Parise went scoreless on opening night against Philadelphia, but since then has points in nine of 11 games (6-8-14). In 13 career games against he Caps he is 4-8-12, even. But here is the odd part. In 2006-2007, he was 2-3-5 in four games. The following year, he was 0-0-0 in four games. Last year, he was 1-4-5 in four games. This year, he failed to register a point in the first meeting. See a pattern? Let’s hope it continues.

Zajac sprang out of the box this season, going 5-5-10 in his first nine games. In his last three he is 1-0-1. Against the Caps he is 3-5-8, plus-6 in 13 career games.

If you were to be asked, which Devil leads his club in game-winning goals, would you have said “Jamie Langenbrunner?” Well, if you did, you’d be wrong. Dainius Zubrus is the only Devil with as many as two game-winners, which happens to match the number of goals he has for the season of any variety.

In the prognosto for the last Devils game, we made the point that the Devils’ defensemen don’t score and don’t hit, but they play smart. Well, there is one Devils defenseman who is struggling, and that would be Johnny Oduya. Last year, Oduya had his coming out party, finishing the year 7-22-29, plus-21 while playing in all 82 games. Well, it’s a new year, and it seems to be a wall that Oduya has hit. In 11 games so far he has yet to register a point and is a minus-5.

Keys…

1. Score first. Combined, these teams have allowed the first goal of a game only six times in 26 games.

2. Kill penalties. The Devils have had, well, a devil of a time with their power play. In their last eight games they are 2-for-27 (7.4 percent).

3. Step up. The Caps’ blogosphere is awash with commentary about how the absence of Alex Ovechkin gives others the opportunity to step up. We’re tempted to say that this means guys like Nicklas Backstrom or Alexander Semin will be key in this one. Well, probably not. Brodeur has a way of making life difficult for high-end skill guys if he’s getting good looks at pucks. Nope, think “traffic.” Brooks Laich and Mike Knuble might be the keys here.

You might be thinking “Devils” and concluding that this will be a low scoring affair. Well, the Caps scored five goals in two of the last three games against New Jersey. That was with Scott Clemmensen in goal, not Martin Brodeur. So, chances are that three goals wins this game. That sounds about right.

Caps 3 – Devils 2