Even "Suck" Sells, Eventually

We were perusing the puck headlines over at "Puck Daddy," and came across a link to a story about the 2010 Winter Classic and the "benchmark for Classic couture success." In the linked story from the Boston Globe, Bruins principal Charlie Jacobs is quoted as saying about that standard (the Pittsburgh blue uniforms borrowed from the 1968-1969 design),

“That worked, because they’re not necessarily their team colors. There’s no black or gold. It’s a powder blue jersey, and that made it unique. It’s certainly recognized in their market. It’s not like the Pirates, Steelers, or anything else. It’s unique.’’

"Unique." OK, that's one way to describe it. Here's another... they were the uniforms of a team that sucked. The Penguins did not incorporate black and gold into their jersey scheme until the 1979-1980 season. In the dozen seasons leading up to that change, the Penguins topped 30 wins in a season only five times and were a .500-plus team only four times. The reason they made the change? According to the Pens' web site...

"On Jan. 30, 1980, the Penguins wore black and gold for the first time. With the Steelers winning the Super Bowl and the Pirates capturing the World Series title in the same year, the struggling Penguins hoped to gain fan support by aligning their colors with the other teams in the 'City of Champions.'”

Now we know the real reason the Caps weren't invited to the Winter Classic. Someone would have had them go retro...

Two Kids Born in 1984

You were born in November of that year and grew up to be a gifted, if somewhat mercurial hockey player. You were drafted by something of a backwater club in the NHL and developed a reputation for moody, inconsistent play, despite your evident gifts.

But along comes the big city team, bright lights and bulging checkbook. They trade for you, thinking that they can unleash the offensive weapons you have at your disposal. You play in all 82 games, but finishing with 23 goals and 58 points is not quite what folks had in mind. It gets worse when you play in seven playoff games and don't register a single point in any of them.

Your contract is up, but you remain a "restricted" free agent with rights to arbitration. You present your case to the arbitrator; the club presents its case. The thing is, the club is said to present a number that is actually below the amount it had to offer to qualify you as a "restricted" free agent. Doesn't say a lot about what the club thinks of you, does it?

But the arbitrator has other ideas. The arbitrator looks at your record -- in your career so far you have averaged 22 goals per 82 games (you had 23 last year) and 54 points per 82 games (you had 58 last year). Your numbers last year (23-35-58) look an awful lot like those of Kristian Huselius (21-35-56) in Columbus (where you toiled) or, for that matter, a couple of your teammates -- Chris Drury (22-34-56) and Scott Gomez (16-42-58).

Huselius has a salary cap hit of $4.75 million. Drury comes in at $7.05 million, Gomez at $7.357 million (which is now Montreal's burden).

The arbitrator gives you $3.9 million.

Are you a bargain? Or are the New York Rangers going to walk away from the arbitrator's decision, Nikolai Zherdev?

It does make one wonder, though, what another player born in 1984 -- one who has averaged 35 goals and 70 points per 82 games in his career -- might might see on an offer sheet next year when he, too, will be a restricted free agent...

Alexander Semin

It's An Ovie-ful Life: Part IV

As the curtain opens on Part IV, the Caps have once more finished last in the NHL in points, and the club has come to a crossroads. It’s May 2008, and the Caps are about to clean house in preparation for the summer’s activity. George McPhee – gone. Bruce Boudreau – gone. It seems that anyone not employed by the Caps in a skating capacity is being shown the door.

As the Caps are undertaking a front office remake, they are hit with a bombshell. Alexander Semin – arguably their most talented player – signs with the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia.

Rick Dudley is hired away from the Chicago Blackhawks, where he was assistant general manager, and assumes the role of general manager (his third tour of duty in the Southeast Division). He arrives too late to keep Semin from returning to Russia, and now he has to prepare for a draft that will be held in a matter of weeks. He has the benefit – and the pressure – of holding the first overall pick, as the Caps have won the lottery for the second time in three years. There is no mystery in this draft, though. Steven Stamkos is the odds-on choice as top prospect, and on draft day the Caps end whatever mystery there might be about whether they would trade the pick and announce Stamkos as the newest Capital.

There was still the matter of naming a head coach. Joel Quenneville, relieved of his duties by Colorado in May, is brought on board. That would not be the only move made by Washington. Gilbert Brule, the top Capitals pick of the 2005 draft, is sent to Edmonton for Robert Nilsson, an exchange of somewhat disappointing players. The Caps also swing a deal in free agency for former Ottawa forward Cory Stillman.

The 2008-2009 season opens in Atlanta, and the Thrashers should be a good barometer to gauge the state of the team entering the new season, for the Thrashers are coming off a disappointing season of their own (76 points, 13th in the East). The Thrashers pound the Caps in the opener, 7-4, but the Caps find their stride in October, finishing the month 5-3-1. It is their best October since the lockout.

What the Caps are finding is that they have an emerging defensive core. Cam Barker is a competent, if perhaps not an all-star defenseman. Mike Green is developing as an offensive defenseman. Erik Johnson (who did not stumble in a golf cart with St. Louis) is a number-one defenseman in the making. At forward, Stamkos – leaping straight to the NHL after being drafted in June – isn’t replacing Semin’s offense, but one can see why he was a number one overall pick. Turris, almost forgotten as the Caps’ top draft pick in 2007, takes his place with the big club. Stillman is a steadying veteran influence, if no longer a big offensive producer. They still have holes to fill, primarily among the forwards and at goaltender, but they make progress.

The Caps teeter along the fault line at .500 for most of the first half of the season, but an injury to Green and a flu bug going through the room take their toll. The Caps go 2-9-2 in January, and the team is left with only the faintest hope of making the playoffs. But they remain a difficult team to play against, a product of their improving defense, reminiscent of the kind of teams they iced in the 1980’s. They will finish the year 34-36-12 with 80 points, their best finish since the 2002-2003 season.

What they have not done, however, is significantly improve their popularity in Washington. They remain buried in the bottom third of attendance every year, with neither a consistent winning record nor a galvanizing personality bringing fans to the rink. What keeps them from being a perennial 30th ranked team in attendance is the fact that fans of other teams – either transplants living in Washington or fans that can make the trip – often turn Verizon Center into a “road game” for the Caps. The club cannot bid on high-end free agents, and even with a payroll closer to the floor than the ceiling each year the Caps can’t earn a profit. There are lingering questions hovering about this team as to whether it will remain the “Washington” Capitals. Although the club has made progress since the lockout, it has been measured in baby steps. In the summer of 2009 there is the broad realization that the Capitals are not yet a true playoff contender, and they are years – if ever – from being a Stanley Cup contender.

You, dear reader, may comb through this tale and find things you disagree with, or things that in your mind could not or would not have occurred. And neither are we making a case to turn Alex Ovechkin into a latter day George Bailey. There are a lot of ways to build a successful hockey team, and it often doesn’t require employing the best player in the league. Ovechkin is entering his fifth year, but has played for a team with only one playoff series win in that time. But that’s not the point. Ovechkin was drafted by the Caps in 2004, Crosby was drafted by Pittsburgh in that 2005 30-team lottery, and the Caps drafted Sasha Pokulok (the Rangers drafted Al Montoya in 2004… how’d that work out?).

Things are what they are, and all things considered, the Caps have done pretty well with the cards they were dealt in the draft the past half dozen years. Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green, Jeff Schultz, Nicklas Backstrom, Semyon Varlamov, Karl Alzner, John Carlson… even the most hardened Capitals fan would probably admit that this is a pretty good core of players. And that doesn’t include Alexander Semin, a 2002 draft pick. And there could be others on the way from those last half dozen drafts.

The Caps are not the favorite to win the Stanley Cup in 2009-2010; they might not even be “a” favorite. There are still holes on defense and uncertainty in goal that put them behind a Detroit or a Pittsburgh. But they do play an exciting brand of hockey, and they do sell out the house these days. It is unlikely any of this happens but for the bounce of a ping pong ball in 2004.

It's An Ovie-ful Life: Part III

As Part III of this tale opens, the Capitals have completed the 2006-2007 season in a way reminding what few fans they have left of the old saying about the Washington Senators that could be updated to reflect the Caps’ futility…

“Washington… first in war, first in peace, last in the NHL East.”

Although the Caps would tie the Flyers for the worst record in the NHL in the 2006-2007 season, the Chicago Blackhawks, who finished with the fifth-worst record and had only an 8.1 percent chance of winning the lottery, did just that. The Flyers, with fewer wins than the Caps, would pick second and the Caps third. The Caps weren’t waiting around, though, as things started happening shortly after the season ended. Coach Glen Hanlon was relieved of his duties on the day after the season ended. Without a marquee player to market, without a distinctive style to galvanize fan interest, the Capitals embarked on a search for a marquee coach – one with a record of success, if possible. On Memorial Day 2007, the Caps would announce the signing of Mike Keenan as head coach, Keenan’s eighth stop in an NHL coaching career that spanned more than two decades. He would bring with him a record of six divisional championships, but none since winning the Atlantic Division title and the Stanley Cup with the Rangers in 1994.

With once more having a high draft pick, the Caps turned their attention to their final evaluations of eligible amateur prospects, while the Ovechkin-led Penguins and Crosby-led Rangers were battling toward their first playoff meeting in the Eastern Conference final. The top three prospects in the 2007 draft were thought to be Kyle Turris (the CSB top-ranked prospect from Burnaby, BCHL), Patrick Kane (the top-ranked prospect at ISS from London, OHL), and James Van Riemsdyk (US U-18). While the anticipation on draft day centered on what the Blackhawks would do, there would be a mini-soap opera unfolding with the third pick. Rumors would swirl around the floor that the Capitals were looking to trade down from the number three spot, which raised more than a few eyebrows. As the Blackhawks and Flyers picked Kane and Van Riemsdyk promptly with their selections, the Caps used almost every second on the clock before making their pick – Kyle Turris. It didn’t look like a happy table, perhaps not for having missed a chance to trade down but rather for not agreeing on what to do with the pick.

July 1st is generally treated like Christmas Day for NHL fans – it is the first day of the unrestricted free agent signing period. But when you’re a club with a lot of missing pieces, a lot of pieces that don’t quite fit yet, and an empty pocketbook, you’d be thankful for coal in your stocking if you were a Caps fan. There wasn’t even that in this summer of free agency. The Caps were managing payroll and crossing their fingers that Barker, Brule, and Johnson were ready to stick and that some other youngsters could make an impact – Eric Fehr (a 2003 draftee), Alexander Semin (a 2002 draftee), Mike Green and Jeff Schultz (these two being the other first rounders in 2004). On paper, it would be a solid nucleus of prospects. But again, the twin problems would be the growing pains one had to endure with prospects of longer lead times than those such as Crosby or Ovechkin, and patience, a commodity in diminishing supply as the Caps entered the 2007-2008 season having averaged 58 standings points over the previous three seasons.

Patience was also not often a characteristic attributed to the Caps’ new bench boss, and it was tested early in the 2007-2008 season. Brule was not ready – two points in October – and by Hallowe’en was skating on the fourth line. By Thanksgiving, he’d be in Hershey. Barker didn’t make it that far – he started the season in Hershey. Johnson was pushed into more minutes and more responsibility than he was ready for, but he Caps had little choice. Green was contributing some in the offensive end, but his defensive play was an adventure, leading him to take a room in Keenan’s Chateau Bow-Wow. The Caps couldn’t stop anyone from scoring, and teams were loading up on defending Jason Arnott, whose contract had become quite an albatross for the club, and Alexander Semin, who was finding playing for Mike Keenan difficult.

The club was a mess.

Frustration on and off the ice was one commodity that was in large supply, and even an organization not given to a lot of disclosure couldn’t hide all of it. The Caps were showing no signs of improving their standing from recent years, and the club looked disinterested on the ice, the cruelest slap in the fans’ faces. A team with a long history of being a hard-working, lunch pail sort of club was going through the motions by the time the holidays rolled around. Finally, with the Caps mired in 30th place at the All Star break with a record of 14-29-7 and rumors of front office in-fighting, Keenan abruptly resigned.

The Caps looked to Hershey, where the Bears were once more among the leaders in the AHL. Head Coach Bruce Boudreau had led the Bears to a Calder Cup in 2006 and the Calder Cup final in 2007. He was on a pace for another trip deep into the playoffs with the Bears when the Caps called. Boudreau took over a demoralized club that was far out of the playoff mix and lacked the parts to do much damage to teams that were contending. The Caps went younger, calling up Brule to join the other youngsters.

Boudreau’s style, emphasizing an attacking strategy, appealed to the younger, more offensively-oriented players. But the club still suffered from uneven effort on defense and inconsistent goaltending. The mix made for a more entertaining brand of hockey, but not enough to move the needle appreciably in terms of improvement in the standings or tickets sold. The Caps were competitive until the end of February, playing .500 hockey, but couldn’t sustain the effort. They finished 12-14-6 in Boudreau’s portion of the season to complete the 2007-2008 campaign 26-43-13. 65 points would not be enough to get the Caps out of the NHL basement. Neither would it inspire enough fans to come to the rink to lift the Caps out of 30th place in the NHL in attendance.

It was another lost season with a summer that would suggest changes. That’s where we will pick up Part IV.

It's An Ovie-ful Life: Part II

In Part I of this fantasy (ok, nightmare), we took a look at what happened as a result of two rounds of ping-pong ball sessions, the Caps missing out on the top pick in 2004 and the chance to pick Alex Ovechkin, and missing out on the 2005 pick and with it, Sidney Crosby. The Caps, in our tale, end up selecting Cam Barker and Gilbert Brule with their top draft picks in 2004 and 2005. It is there where we pick up the story…

The first year out of the lockout is a chance for hockey to reintroduce itself to fans with a lot of pent up emotion over what transpired over the past 12 months and a lot of pent up desire to see live NHL hockey once more. New rules and exciting new players in Alex Ovechkin (in Pittsburgh?) and Sidney Crosby (with the Rangers?) lend an air of anticipation to the opening of the season.

But not in Washington.

The Caps open their season against the Columbus Blue Jackets with a roster that has the possibility of being historically bad. First round draft picks of the past two years – Cam Barker and Gilbert Brule – are still toiling for their junior clubs. Meanwhile, the Caps are icing a top line on opening night of Dainius Zubrus, Andrew Cassels, and Jeff Friesen, a trio that combined had a total of 36 goals in the season before the lockout. Not that anyone cared – the Verizon Center stands were barely half-full for an opening night. The Columbus Blue Jackets – a team coming off a 62-point season in the season before the lockout – would shut out the Caps on their own ice to open the season.

Amazingly, it would get worse from there. The Caps would struggle mightily to score goals and would give them up in bushels. And, they would say “good-bye” to an icon. Olaf Kolzig, who in the real world of things would re-sign with the Capitals on February 11, 2006, was instead traded to the Colorado Avalanche (the careful reader will note that Colorado did trade for a goaltender late in the 2005-2006 season: Jose Theodore). The Capitals, with a prospect pool of goalies that included Daren Machesney and Maxime Daigneualt (Maxime Ouellet having been traded late in 2005 to Vancouver), the Caps took 23-year old rookie goaltender Peter Budaj in return. It would not be the only trade the Caps would make as they tried to position themselves for draft picks and prospects. Jeff Halpern and Dainius Zubrus were sent off for mid-round draft picks.

The Caps limped home with a 21-49-12 record, worst in the league and their worst season since 1977-1978. In their last home game – Fan Appreciation Day against the Atlanta Thrashers – the “official” attendance was 14,000. Perhaps two-thirds of that number made it to the rink. It was, to say the least, a dismal season, one made worse in the knowledge that Alex Ovechkin would lead the Penguins to two romps in a Penguin-fan dominated Verizon Center (the only sellouts of the season) and score four goals in one of the games. And meanwhile, in New York, Sidney Crosby was finishing third in scoring, winning the Calder Trophy, and leading the Rangers to the Eastern Conference Final before falling to the Ottawa Senators.

If there was a silver lining in this thunder cloud, it was that the Capitals won the lottery and with it the rights to pick first in the 2006 entry draft. The 2006 draft class had a group of five skaters that stood above the rest of the class. Erik Johnson (generally thought to be at the head of the 2006 class), Jonathan Toews, Phil Kessel, Jordan Staal, and Nicklas Backstrom comprised the group. The Capitals flirted with the idea of selecting Staal, the brother of Carolina’s Eric, but selected Johnson.

In free agency, the Capitals had to be a player to be able to reach the salary floor for the 2006-2007 season. The trouble was that the 2006 free agent class was generally a comparatively weak one. The Capitals signed Jason Arnott from Dallas to a five-year, $25 million contract, outbidding the Nashville Predators in the process, in addition to a few minor signings.

The 2006-2007 season was not so much about Arnott and his big contract, but the players the Caps were developing – Cam Barker, Gilbert Brule, and Erik Johnson being the important elements. Barker would split time roughly equally between Washington and the Hershey Bears. Brule would the entire year in Washington, but would struggle to make a positive impression, finishing the year with less than 20 points. Johnson would spend his year at the University of Minnesota, where the Gophers would make it all the way to the NCAA Western Regional before falling to North Dakota.

Johnson had a much better year than the Caps had, although the Caps did improve on the previous season. With a 25-47-10 record and 60 points, they would tie the Flyers for last in the league. Where the Caps would again struggle was at the gate. They would finish 29th in the league in attendance, but even this was deceptive. On most nights Verizon Center was barely half full, if that, and often those crowds were predominantly followers of the visiting teams. Despite the “cost certainty” of the collective bargaining agreement and circuit breakers to keep small market and struggling teams afloat, red ink was gushing across the Caps’ balance sheets as if coming out of a fire hose.

There were youngsters coming through the system, and the temptation was to bring them along faster than a more successful team might have. The question was coming into focus – could the Caps afford to be patient? Without a stable gate, with a singular lack of success on the ice, without a marquee presence, the team and the league were growing concerned over the prospects for hockey in Washington in the long term. That is where we will pick it up in Part III.

It's An Ovie-ful Life: Part I

Over at Kukla’s Korner the other day, Tony at The Confluence penned a piece pondering the notion of whether the Penguins would still be in Pittsburgh had a certain ping pong ball not dropped a certain way in the 2005 NHL draft lottery.

Well, it got us to thinking, what if the ping pong ball had gone another way in 2004? What if, instead of coming up “Capitals,” it came up “Blackhawks,” or worse…”Penguins?” With respect to the latter we, too, will have recurring nightmares of a number “8” jersey in black and Vegas gold. But for our purposes here, we’ll take a stroll through Bedford Falls and contemplate life with the Capitals had Alex Ovechkin not been drafted.

The Capitals would have drafted third in that 2004 draft, by virtue of their having finished with the third worst record in the league, regardless of whether the Blackhawks or Penguins won the lottery. Assuming that both Ovechkin and Evgeni Malkin would have gone 1-2 in that draft, just as they did in the real-life version of the story, the Capitals would have been left with a second-tier selection of talented, but not generational franchise players.

Given the fact that in five of the previous six drafts the Capitals selected their first pick from the Western Hockey League in Canadian juniors, you would have to think it likely, if not a certainty, that the Caps would go out west once more. The consensus third-ranked prospect in that draft was Cam Barker, a defenseman with the Medicine Hat Tigers. However, the Caps had indifferent success in picking defensemen in years leading up to the 2004 draft. In the previous five drafts, the Caps selected 13 defensemen, only one of whom – Steve Eminger – gave much hope, at least to Caps fans, of one day being a contributing NHL player (Johnny Oduya, selected in the seventh round in 2001 went on to skate a regular turn for the New Jersey Devils). Two of those 13 defensemen – Nolan Yonkman and Ross Lupsachuk – had already been traded away in the Jaromir Jagr deal in 2001. Picking Barker would have made sense and would have been consistent with the Caps’ behavior to date.

So… Cam Barker is the number three pick selected. Where does the club go from there? Well, there was still the 2004-2005 lockout, but there a 2005 draft, too. To remind folks, the rules set forth for the lottery to assign the draft order were simple (if their logic wasn’t). First, each team started with three ping pong balls and lost one for each playoff appearance in the previous three years but only to a maximum of two, assuring each team will have at least one ball. Under this rule, the Caps would have lost one ball, having participated in the 2003 playoffs. Second, teams that had the first overall pick in each of the last four drafts also lost a ball. Since the Caps didn’t have a first overall pick (remember, they didn’t win the 2004 lottery in this tale), they would have had two balls (neat how that works out).

There were 10 clubs that had two balls in the 2005 draft lottery. Pittsburgh could have lost one to be left with two had they won the 2004 lottery. Had Chicago won the lottery, they would have lost one to be left with one ball. But let’s not complicate things any further. Of the ten teams with two balls, Anaheim managed to end up selecting second, Carolina third, and Minnesota fourth, so despite the rather long odds of a two-ball club getting the first overall pick (4.17 percent chance), there were still the opportunities to select early (even though the grand prize – Sidney Crosby – would be gone).

For the sake of argument, let’s assume the Caps had the best possible luck – yes, we know…that never happens for the Caps, but humor me. They would get the second pick. When the Ducks picked second, they selected Bobby Ryan (of the Owen Sound Attack in the Ontario Hockey League), but he was not the consensus number two prospect. Both Central Scouting and ISS, for example, had Benoit Pouliot (Sudbury, OHL) as their number two-ranked prospect.

From the Caps perspective, would they go for an OHL forward (the Caps hadn’t drafted an OHL forward since picking Charlie Stephens in the second round in 1999)? Would they go for defenseman Jack Johnson (NTDP Under-18)? Would they go west again and draft Gilbert Brule (Vancouver, WHL)? The Caps had that whole WHL history and hadn’t yet shown an inclination to draft out of US programs by that time, at least with high picks. But was Johnson too good to pass up? Would they fall back on what they knew and pick Brule? Would they go off the board? While the Caps did, in fact go off the board in 2005 – off the reservation, in fact – selecting Sasha Pokulok at 14, we have a suspicion they would have played safe – “safe” meaning repeating their past behavior – and picked Brule.

Keep in mind, though, this was the best possible outcome based on the Caps picking second, instead of the club that did, the Anaheim Ducks. Of the ten teams that had two ping pong balls in the 2005 draft, the team with the lowest pick was Calgary, picking 26th. If you’re wondering who they picked, it was Matt Pelech.

So, as we come out of the lockout year into the light of the 2005-2006 season, the Capitals would not have Alex Ovechkin and Sasha Pokulok to show for their top draft picks in 2004 and 2005, but rather Cam Barker and Gilbert Brule. It is there where we will pick up the story in the next installment.

"It's a great result for Milan"

So said Allan Walsh, agent for Caps defenseman Milan Jurcina, about the arbitration award given to Jurcina.

According to the Washington Times, a league source confirmed that the award is just under $1.4 million. As it is below the $1.57 million threshold that would permit the club from walking away from the deal, the result is binding.

So now, we have the defense more or less in place:

Mike Green
Brian Pothier
John Erskine
Tom Poti
Jeff Schultz
Shaone Morrisonn
Milan Jurcina

There is not room for both Karl Alzner and John Carlson in this mix. There might not be room for either, if the Caps carry seven defensemen...

...unless a move is made.

That would seem to be almost a betting certainty at this point.

Edit... The Jurcina award appears to put the Caps less than $150,000 under the 2009-2010 salary cap for 22 roster players most likely to appear on the opening night roster (absent any trades) and buyout money. One would have to think there will be more tinkering done.

Happy Birthday!

To me.

Four years ago on this date, we authored our first, untitled, toe-in-the-water post in this space, and somehow, despite all common sense, we're still at it.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and...

"Hey cuz..."

Cheerless. And if you're here, that must mean...

"So, where's the cake?"

Fearless. Thanks for stopping by, boys. Isn't it a little early for cake?

"Uh, is it too early for beer?"

Guess not... guess it's time to start the party.

Anything you can do...

...I can do better.
I can do anything
Better than you.

No, you can't.
Yes, I can. No, you can't.
Yes, I can. No, you can't.
Yes, I can,
Yes, I can!

After four years, that seems to be the theme song in the ongoing “Ovie vs. Sid” battle. They’ve had four rounds so far, and things look just about as even as can be as the two trade their best shots…

2005-2006: Round 1


There wasn’t a lot of distance separating the two. Ovechkin narrowly won the scoring competition; Crosby won the head-to-head matchup. Crosby was getting busy busy setting a number of “youngest” records – youngest NHL player to record 100 points in a season, youngest to 100 points and 100 penalty minutes. Ovechkin was authoring signature moments – planting an opponent through the glass on his first shift in the NHL, scoring what is still (almost four years later) referred to as “The Goal.” In the end, though, Ovechkin was the landslide pick as the Calder Trophy winner, capturing 124 of 129 first-place votes. Ovechkin is the narrow, but clear winner of Round 1.

2006-2007: Round 2

Sophomore slump? Hee-yeah…right. Sidney Crosby had multi-point games in six of his first ten contests and never looked back at the competition for the Ross Trophy as the NHL’s leading scorer. Ovechkin might have made a closer race of it, but scored “only” 13 goals in his last 30 games of the regular season. Crosby one-upped (actually, two-upped) Ovechkin in the hardware department and continued with that “youngest” thing – youngest player in NHL to 200 points, youngest with two consecutive 100-point seasons, youngest to win the Ross and Pearson awards, youngest to be named to the NHL First All Star Team. Crosby was the clear winner of Round 2.

2007-2008: Round 3

Ovechkin had a decent start to the season. Through the first 21 games, he was 14-9-23, even, which resembled his rookie season goal-scoring pace. But then, the Capitals changed coaches, and Ovechkin went nuts. In his last 61 games he was 51-38-89, +28. In his last 17 games, as he was leading the Caps in a furious 13-4-0 finish to secure a playoff spot, he was 17-12-29, +19. He had two four-goal games, his signature game being a four-goal, overtime-winner performance in a 5-4 win over Montreal when he had his nose broken and stitches needed in his lip. Crosby was limited to 53 games for the season because of a high-ankle sprain that kept him on the shelf for 28 games. The thing is, though, on an 82-game basis, Crosby finished the year on a 111-point pace (compared to Ovechkin’s 112 points), and a plus-28 pace (equal to Ovechkin’s end result). But Ovechkin’s 65 goals – the first time any player had scored as many since 1996 – was 25 percent more than the second place goal-scorer (Ilya Kovalchuk, 52), one of the most dominant seasons in the modern era of hockey. The only blot on Ovechkin’s side of the ledger was that pesky matter of head-to-head results with Crosby. The Penguins won all three contests in which both played, one in overtime. But Ovechkin’s winning the Crosby trifecta of the previous year, and adding the Richard to it, plus being named a first team NHL All Star for the third consecutive year made Ovechkin the clear winner in this round.

2008-2009: Round 4

Ovechkin started slowly – two goals in his first 11 games, including a nine-game goal drought. It was a time when Ovechkin was no doubt distracted by the illness of his grandfather. Ovechkin left the club in the midst of that nine-game goalless streak to return to Russia and missed only the second and third games of his career. Crosby wasn’t exactly lighting things up early, either, at least by his standards. He started the year 2-13-15 in 14 games. Both players lifted their play, though. In his last 68 games following his 2-6-8 start in his first 11 games, Ovechkin finished 54-48-102, his 54 goals being on a pace to score, yes – 65 – over a season’s worth of 82 games. Meanwhile, Crosby finished 31-57-88 in his last 63 games, a pace for 115 points over an 82 games season. Neither could catch Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin, though, for the Ross Trophy as leading scorer. Ovechkin did, however, win a second Richard Trophy as top goal scorer.

All that was prelude, though, to their playoff production. Ovechkin would finish the Stanley Cup playoffs as the fifth leading overall scorer, even though the four players ahead of him played in at least nine more games than did Ovechkin. Crosby – one of those players finishing ahead of Ovechkin – would finish the Stanley Cup playoffs as the leading goal scorer. The two would meet for the first time in the playoffs in the second round, and they put on quite a show in Game 2. Ovechkin would score the go-ahead and the ultimate game-winning goal on his way to a hat-trick, while Crosby opened the scoring in the game and scored all three Penguin goals, getting his own hat trick in a 4-3 Capitals win. Ovechkin and Crosby played more or less to a standoff, but Evgeni Malkin came alive late in the series, and the Penguins won in seven games. It was just the springboard the Penguins needed to propel them to the Stanley Cup. In the end, Ovechkin won the trophies (a Hart and Pearson to go with his Richard), but Crosby won the Cup. Winning the big prize certainly counts for something. Crosby gets the nod in Round 4.

These two have been the leads in a four-act production of “Can You Top This?” Each has used the other’s accomplishments as the next bar to clear, and with apologies to Evgeni Malkin, they stand alone as the top two players in the league. The question for Act V is, “Can Ovechkin trade places with Crosby once more and take his turn around the ice, the Stanley Cup in one arm, the Conn Smythe in the other?”

Hanlon's Razor

No, we're not going to jump into a tell-all about former Caps coach Glen Hanlon's taste in shaving inplements. It's one of those catchy "laws" that get stuffed into compilations of Murphy's Laws. What Hanlon's Razor states is:

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

And that brings us to... Eklund. Caps fans have no doubt indulged in the click that dare not speak its name and seen him predict (in the same manner Jeane Dixon or Kreskin might "predict") that every hockey player whose name ended in "ov" would find their way to the Capitals (it's a Russian thing). Well, he's outdone himself this time.

In today's entry, The Bard of Bovine Excrement opines that the Caps are in the mix for no fewer than four of the remaining free agents:

Martin Skoula
Brendan Shanahan
Sergei Zubov (there's that "ov" thing)
Maxim Afinogenov (again with the "ov)

Does this boob even click on his own page? Is he clueless as to his own "Cap Central" tab (actually something worth clicking on)? Can he not see that the Caps are hard and fast against the salary cap? In a fit of message board logic, we suppose, here is (one supposes) how this works...

George McPhee trades Michael Nylander to the New York Rangers (we'll assume Nylander would want to play there) for tickets to "Superior Donuts" at the Music Box Theatre this fall. There goes $4,875,000 in cap hit.

Then, McPhee trades Jose Theodore to Boston for tickets to the Winter Classic in January (shoot, there ought to be one Cap there). $4,500,000 in cap hit just went -poof-.

Now... just a million for Skoula, a couple mil for Shanahan (hey, he's a hall of famer in waiting), and a million each for the "ov's"...

Hey, it could work!

... idiot.

But hey, I clicked on it.

<----- idiot.

* Thanks to The Official for a push to this breaking news.

One

No, we are not going to launch into a tortured version of the Three Dog Night tune from several decades ago. It is the product of the 2005 entry draft for the Washington Capitals, and we'll get to that later. Let's just say up front that the draft that yielded Sidney Crosby for the Pittsburgh Penguins was not nearly so kind to the Caps. Seven players were picked in that draft…

Sasha Pokulok, defenseman (1st round/16th overall; Central Scouting ranking – 39th NA skater)

On the day he was selected, folks in Caps Nation could be forgiven for asking, “Sasha who?” To call Pokulok a “reach” would be classic understatement. Pokulok was the 39th-ranked North American skater in the final Central Scouting Service rankings. Pokulok would go on to play one more season at Cornell University, then he turned pro. It was a disaster. He sustained a concussion in his first game with the Hershey Bears, then missed four months before returning to action as a member of the South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL. He played less than 20 games before suffering a second concussion. They were injuries from which he would not really recover. Even if he was in perfect health, he lost too much developmental time. Through the 2008-2009 season, Pokulok played in only 97 regular season games over three seasons in the AHL and NHL, and another 29 playoff games (all with South Carolina). The Capitals declined to retain rights to Pokulok this past June, his never having appeared in an NHL game.

Joe Finley, defenseman (1/27; CSS 32nd ranked NA skater)

The other first round pick, Finley had the size at the draft (6’7”, 229) and reputation for a mean streak that fans would likely have enjoyed seeing displayed on Verizon Center ice. After that draft he joined the University of North Dakota program – one of the finest in the NCAA. He served all four years of his eligibility, but not without incident. Deciding to return to UND for his senior season, he suffered a concussion of his own in the season’s second week. He missed two months before returning to the ice and played in only 27 games for the Fighting Sioux. He was signed by the Caps after completing his eligibility at UND and played in one game for Hershey this past spring. At the recently completed development camp, Finley started the week on defense but finished it playing left wing. Where his future lies appears to be an open question. He has not, as of yet, made an appearance with the Capitals.

Andrew Thomas, defenseman (4/109; CSS 80th ranked NA skater)

Thomas had completed his first year of college hockey when the Caps drafted him. He would spend another three years at the University of Denver. Unlike Finley, however, he would not join the Capitals or an affiliate upon completing his college eligibility. In 2008-2009 he split time with the Bakersfield Condors of the ECHL and the Iowa Chops of the AHL in the Anaheim Ducks’ system. Games played with the Caps: zero.

Patrick McNeill, defenseman (4/118; CSS 75th NA skater)

McNeill was the fourth defenseman taken by the Caps in the 2005 draft but the first player selected by the Caps in 2005 out of Canadian juniors, his having completed two years with the Saginaw Spirit of the Ontario Hockey League. McNeill played two more years with the Spirit before making the jump to the pro ranks under an entry-level contract with the Caps in time for the 2007-2008 season. He’s had some difficulty getting traction in the pro ranks. After surpassing the 20-goal mark in each of his last two years with the Spirit, he has netted only nine in 113 games as a pro with South Carolina and Hershey. Last year, he appeared in only 46 of 80 regular season games for Hershey and in 10 playoff games in the Bears’ march to the Calder Cup. He will begin his final year of his entry deal as a member of the Bears, and it does not appear as though he will make his NHL debut soon.

Daren Machesney, goaltender (5/143; CSS 5th ranked NA goaltender)

Machesney was the 16th of 23 goaltenders taken in the 2005 draft, and it is worth noting that only three goalies out of that 23-member class have played as many as 10 games in the NHL (Carey Price, Jonathan Quick, and Ondrej Pavelec). The other four members of that class who have seen NHL action have played in a combined 14 games. Machesney would be part of a habit in Caps drafting behavior in that his selection was the second in a five consecutive year run in which the Caps selected at least one goaltender. His selection looked promising after he followed up his selection by the Caps with a 12-win improvement in Brampton in the OHL. He made the leap to the pros in the following year, struggling a bit – as might be expected – posting a GAA on the north side of 3.00 and a save percentage south of .900 with both South Carolina and Hershey. In the 2007-2008 year, though, he improved his numbers dramatically, going 22-10-2, 2.55, .916 with the Bears. However, he was being pushed from below by 2006 draftees Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth. Of the five goalies who would dress for the Bears in the 2008-2009 season, he would lead them in games (36) and tie for the lead in wins (19, with Varlamov). But his other numbers were shaky – a 3.24 GAA and a .876 save percentage. He struggled late in the season in particular, getting pulled in consecutive games in late February and losing his last three regular season decisions. He did not make an appearance in the playoffs as Michal Neuvirth led the Bears to the Calder Cup. The Caps cut their ties with Machesney in June. Oddly enough Macheney was signed by the Manitoba Moose, the team that the Bears defeated in the Calder Cup final.

Tim Kennedy, left wing (6/181; 162nd NA skater)

Kennedy was drafted while skating for the Sioux City Musketeers in the USHL and entered Michigan State University after his being drafted by the Caps. Kennedy showed a flair for the dramatic at MSU, scoring the game winning goal against Notre Dame in the 2007 NCAA regional final that sent the Spartans to the Frozen Four, then getting the primary assist on Justin Abdelkader’s national championship-winning goal with only 18.9 seconds left in the final against Boston College. The thing is, though, by the time Kennedy was helping the Spartans to a national title, he was property of the Buffalo Sabres. He was traded to the Sabres in 2006 for a 6th round draft pick. That pick became Mathieu Perreault.

Viktor Dovgan, defenseman (7/209; unranked by CSS)

Dovgan was not ranked among European skaters in the 2005 CSS amateur rankings, and it is part of what made Dovgan the most intriguing pick of the seven players selected by the Caps. The league claimed that Dovgan was ineligible for the 2005 draft, the issue being his date of birth. The Capitals won the battle over determining Dovgan’s eligibility, but it might have been something of a Pyrrhic victory. Dovgan played a season for Samara in Russia after being drafted, then came across to play in 56 games at South Carolina in 2006-2007 (with one game in Hershey). Dovgan decided against playing in North America the following year, citing the fact that it would be easier to remain in Russia with his wife and infant child than to bring them to the States. Dovgan played that season for CSKA-Moscow, then returned to the U.S., playing 53 games in South Carolina last year and a pair in Hershey. It isn’t clear whether Dovgan will find himself playing in South Carolina or in Hershey next year. Whatever the result, any opportunity he might have to play for the Caps is perhaps years away.

So now we get to the “one” part of this exercise. Of this collection of draftees, only one – Tim Kennedy – has dressed for an NHL game. And one game is precisely what he has played… as a member of the Buffalo Sabres. In 11 minutes of action, he had one shot, one shot blocked, one hit, and lost one faceoff in a 4-3 win over the Islanders on December 27th of last year.

Although it might be premature, even now, to call the 2005 draft a “bust” (as we await the future of Joe Finley), no team in the NHL has gotten less to date out of the 2005 draft year than have the Caps. The one NHL game that the 2005 class of Caps draft picks has to show for itself ties the Islanders for the fewest NHL appearances from this class (and Masi Marjamaki at least played his game as a member of the Islanders).

To be fair, the Caps have had some fine draft years in the last decade. The 2004 draft would have been a good one without Alex Ovechkin at the top of the class. Based on the early returns from Semyon Varlamov and Michal Neuvirth, one might like the prospects of the 2006 class (and that doesn’t include what Nicklas Backstrom has already contributed). But the fact remains as well that the Caps haven’t had a player selected after the second round play as many as 20 games with the Capitals in his career since Sebastien Charpentier (a goaltender at that) and Benoit Gratton, both of whom were selected in the 1995 entry draft (Charpentier in the fourth round, Gratton in the fifth).

As much as we might see a productive NHL future – with the Capitals, hopefully – for draft picks of more recent vintage such as Cody Eakin, Braden Holtby, Stefan Della Rovere, or even Oskar Osala, they are swimming upstream against the Capitals’ history of drafting in mid to late rounds. Like all Caps fans, we hope that with time has come improvement in this area. Time, as they say, will tell.

Dave Fay Memorial Classic III

On the frozen tundra of Kettler Capitals Iceplex, two titans took to the ice to settle old scores and write new stories in the legendary battle for Lord Brown’s Boot.

It was the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Free State of Maryland battling for the Boot in the Third Annual Dave Fay Memorial Hockey Game, and it was a contest for the ages.

It did not take long for the scoring to start, and as often happens in such things, it started with a big save. Virginia had an opportunity early, but Steve “The Ice Man” Kolbe saved Maryland’s crabs with a classic “stack the pads” save that was positively “Brodeuresque”… or maybe “Pang-like.” Maryland took advantage of their good fortune by hot-footing it the other way and firing the puck off the pipe and behind Virginia’s celebrity goaltender, Tara “The Ice Queen” Wheeler. Miss Virginia would keep the home team in the game, though, as Maryland owned the territorial advantage early and had several scoring chances that Wheeler foiled (with the occasional aid of the posts behind her).

Virginia would tie the game at 1-1, and they seemed to get their skates under them at that point, but Maryland answered when ringer Gary Rissling deked and dipsy-do-ed down the ice to solve Wheeler and give the Free Staters the lead once more. Maryland would score again to make it 3-1, but Virginia’s own ringer – Ken Sabourin – would pot the puck to get Virginia within one at the first intermission. The Ice Man would end his period of work with a 3-2 “win within the game” over the Ice Queen.

Just as they did in the first period, Maryland would open the scoring in the second, but it was a harbinger of things that would be fairly reminiscent of last year’s classic. Virginia roared back with five unanswered goals, the pipes being more forgiving to the hosts, with pucks hitting iron and going in, than they were to the visitors in the first frame of the contest. When the second period was over, it was Virginia holding a 7-4 lead. Things looked bleak for the Marylanders.

In the third, Virginia stretched their lead by scoring the first goal, then played to protect their lead. Maryland would get one back to close the gap to three once more. With more than four minutes to go in the contest, Maryland pulled out all the stops – or at least their goalie – in a desperate attempt to catch the Virginians (they’d already played almost a minute with seven men on the ice). The Virginians, however, potted an empty net goal to restore the four-goal advantage, but Maryland wasn’t done. They called time with 1:21 left to, as announcer Wes Johnson put it, “ponder how they could score four goals in the last minute and 21 seconds.”

The Marylanders would make a dent in that deficit, scoring in the last minute to draw within 9-6. Then, they pulled their goalie to get the extra man – or 15 – over the bench. With the Maryland bench emptied of skaters, the Virginians did likewise, and the scene on the ice reminded this observer of the battle of Antietam… or Fredricksburg… or maybe last call at the Rock Bottom Brewery.

Through the maze of bodies, Maryland would score one last goal in the dying seconds, but the visitors would come up short. The Virginian’s defended their title, winning the contest 9-7 and once more holding Lord Brown’s Boot aloft in victory.

It was an amazing contest, with a hat trick for each team and a record-setting performance, as Gary Rissling was credited with 47 assists, most of them coming from the friendly confines of his own bench. As for the “three stars” of the game, shoot… they were all stars – both teams – skating for a good cause. Here are a few pictures of the action…

Excuse Me?

Consider the following throw-away line in NHL.com's look at "best Swedes in the NHL"...

"Let's call him the best European player in the League right now, although Washington's Alex Ovechkin quickly is closing the gap."

"Him" refers to Detroit Red Wings defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom. Look, we love Lidstrom. If we had a vote for the Hockey Hall of Fame, we'd cast it right now...enthusiastically. We wouldn't bother to wait for a technicality like retirement or a waiting period. But is Lidstrom the best European in the game today?

Lisdstrom has dominated his position for almost two decades. In 16 seasons not shortened by labor trouble, he has scored fewer than ten goals only twice, has scored fewer than 50 points only twice, and has been worse than plus-10 only twice. His per-82 game career average of 14-47-61, +25, would have left him third in total scoring and fifth in plus-minus last year among NHL defensemen.

And he's barely missed a beat in his history of playoff performances. On a per-82 game basis, he's averaged 16-41-57, +16. Four times he's skated for a Stanley Cup winning team, and in the 85 games he played in those four years, he was a remarkable +38.

He could very well go down in NHL history as the greatest defenseman not named "Orr."

But that speaks to a body of work, which isn't the same as being the best player in his category (this being "European") right now. It isnt clear that he is the best European at his position at this point in his career. This is no dig at Lidstrom, only an acknwledgment time passes and there will be those -- there are those -- who will come along to eclipse him. Zdeno Chara (Slovakia) might already have done that in terms of being the best European defenseman. He is at least in the conversation.

As for the best European player in the NHL right now, it would be hard to argue with the two-time defending Hart Trophy winner, the two-time defending Pearson Trophy winner, the fifth-fastest player in league history to 200 goals, a player who has averaged 55-51-106 in his four seasons, whose 15 goals in 21 career playoff games is equal to a 59-goal pace over 82 games, whose 30 points in 21 playoff games equals a 117-point scoring pace.

They all happen to be the same person.

Alex Ovechkin.

HEY!... Consider this a reminder

Tomorrow...

Saturday, July 25th

4:00 pm

The Third Annual Dave Fay Memorial

A titanic struggle of wills, an historic contest of grit and determination, a desperate struggle to figure out who buys first round after the game...

The Commonwealth of Virginia

vs.

The Free State of Maryland

The Battle for Lord Brown's Boot

With a silent auction of one-of-a-kind items, the dulcet tones of Caps in-game announcer Wes Johnson, the flappery of Slapshot, an appearance by Capitals defenseman Brian Pothier, Miss Virginia -- Tara Wheeler -- tending goal at one end, Caps radio play-by-play announcer Steve Kolbe manning the pipes at the other end, Caps alumni, a good cause to be supported... good heavens, you can't miss this!

It's all downhill from here...

Yesterday was July 23, 2009.

It might not mean much to you, unless you are a fan of fish and chips (the birthday of Arthur Treacher), or a fan of odd sidekicks (the birthday of Calvin DeForest, aka "Larry "Bud" Melman"), or a fan of obnoxious radio hosts (the birthday of Don Imus).

It might not mean that much to you, unless you are a baseball fan (the anniversary of the establishment of the Cincinnati Reds baseball club), a lover of ice cream (the anniversary of the creation of the ice cream cone), or a Beatles fan (the anniversary of "Help" being released in the UK).

But there is meaning in yesterday's passing. With it, we have crossed the half-way point from the Game 7 loss to the Penguins to close the 2008-2009 season and Opening Night in Boston to open the 2009-2010 campaign.

Chins up, campers... it won't be long now.

The Question Is, "With Whom?"

Seen at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution site...


...oh, really?

Men in a Baseball Cap

Goalie 1...

Regular season: 433 games, 199-162-45 (.546), 2.59, .912, 25 SO
Playoffs: 23 games, 11-12, 2.87, .908, 2 SO

Goalie 2...

Regular season: 247 games, 111-94-25 (.538), 2.63, .903, 13 SO
Playoffs: 12 games, 5-6, 1.84, .931, 3 SO

Goalie 1: 1-year/$1.4 million
Goalie 2: 1-year/$525 thousand

One goalie plays for a Stanley Cup champion, the other doesn't.

You Can't Teach Experience

It’s been more than two months since the Pittsburgh Penguins ended the improbable run of Semyon Varlamov and the Capitals in the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs. That’s enough time to have passed that we can take a sober look at the goaltending situation. Specifically, do Caps fans have reason to hope – or to believe – that the Caps will knock down that door next June and skate with the Stanley Cup in their grasp? And, for purposes of this discussion, do they have any reason to expect that Semyon Varlamov will do a turn around the ice with the Cup as the goalie having led the way?

Well, it might help to take a look at the last 20 seasons’ worth of Stanley Cup winners and their goaltenders to get a hint.

Over those 20 seasons, 12 different goaltenders won their first (or only) Stanley Cup as the number one netminder for their teams as they marched to the prize:

If there is a common – if not quite universal – theme, it is “experience.” Of those 12 goaltenders, only two had fewer than 100 games worth of regular season experience heading into the playoff year in which they won that first Cup (Martin Brodeur in 1995 (91 games) and Cam Ward in 2006 (28 games)). Eight of the 12 had more than 200 games of regular season experience before embarking on their first successful Stanley Cup run. The 12 goaltenders averaged 288 games of regular season experience before starting their respective runs to their first Cup.

That experience extends – to a point – to playoffs as well. Of the 12 goaltenders who won their first Cup over the last 20 seasons, only two had fewer than 15 games of Stanley Cup playoff experience before the year in which they won that first Cup (Bill Ranford in 1990 (four games) and Cam Ward in 2006 (no games)). The 12 averaged 31 games of playoff experience before beginning that playoff season in which they won their first Cup.

One would expect that these goalies, in addition to being experienced, would be successful as well. And it is true, at least with respect to their regular season experience. Nine of the 12 had won at least 100 regular season games before winning their first Cup. Three – Nikolai Khabibulin, Dominik Hasek, and Ed Belfour – won at least 200 games before winning that first Cup. None of the 12 had a below-.500 record (defined as the number of standings points earned among those standing points available in all of the decisions they earned). Eight of them had winning percentages of .550 or better, and three (Chris Osgood in 1998 (.665), Martin Brodeur in 1995 (.604), and Mike Vernon in 1989 (.644) had winning percentages over .600. These 12 goaltenders had an average regular season record of 141-96-35 before winning their first Cup.

Playoff success is a bit more complicated. Overall, the dozen goalies described here had middling success in the playoffs before embarking on their first successful run to a Stanley Cup. Their average record in games was 16-14 in 31 appearances. The thing, though, is the appearances. Only three of the 12 appeared in fewer than 20 playoff games before their first successful Cup run, and only one of the last ten (Cam Ward) appeared in fewer than 18 games. The last half dozen goalies to win their first Cup – including Ward – averaged 55 games.

What doesn’t seem to be much of a factor is having already appeared in a Stanley Cup final (and losing) before winning the Cup. Only four of the 12 appeared in a final before winning one, and none of them appeared in more than one before coming out on top.

The NHL has increasingly become a young man’s game. But experience counts at one position in particular, and it speaks to the odds on whether the Capitals can make a serious run at the Stanley Cup this coming season. The experience gained by Semyon Varlamov last spring was invaluable in his development as a playoff goaltender, but in light of recent history one has to wonder if it was enough. Jose Theodore certainly has the experience (501 regular season games, 49 playoff games), but his performance hasn’t inspired the greatest of confidence. For instance, he has never won more than six playoff games in any of the seven seasons in which he appeared in the playoffs and hasn’t won that many since 2002. Having mentioned both Caps netminders, it is worth noting that in three of the last four playoff years, the Cup-winning club got wins from both goaltenders along the way (Martin Gerber and Cam Ward in 2006, J-S Giguere and Ilya Bryzgalov in 2007, Chris Osgood and Dominik Hasek in 2008).

This isn’t to say that the Capitals are doomed in their Stanley Cup hopes this year, but it does suggest that the path will be difficult. If Jose Theodore is going to be the guy backstopping the Caps to a title, he will have to reverse a history cluttered with a lack of playoff success. If it is to be Varlamov, he is going to have to grow up in a hurry.

Don't worry (about next year), be happy

Do expectations fuel feelings toward the local hockey team? Does the ascension of the Capitals to “Cup Contender” status over the past couple of seasons confer a sense of inevitability of hoisting the Cup that left some, if not many fans unhappy with the club when they didn’t this past year?

Were we happier when the Caps sucked?

We pondered these weighty matters (there being no hockey in these parts to speak of this week, now that the kids have gone home) while reading a blog in the New York Times entitled, aptly enough, “Happy Days.”

In it, Eric Weiner today looks at “lowered expectations” and why those rascally Danes are so damned happy (according to, and we kid you not, a “Eurobarometer Survey”). Weiner posits that the Danes might be happy because of a sense of lowered expectations and then leaps to a couple of studies of happiness, one of which was authored by University of Chicago sociologist, Yang Yang.

In “Social Inequalities in Happiness in the United States, 1972 to 2004: An Age-Period-Cohort Analysis (American Sociological Review; April 2008),” Professor Yang concludes that “with age comes happiness. That is, overall levels of happiness increase with age, net of other factors. This supports the ‘age as maturity’ hypothesis suggested by the role theory of aging. The age effects are strong and independent of the time period and cohort effects…”

We get happier as we age, even as other factors are considered.

What does this have to do with hockey, you ask? Well, glad you did. It seems that message boards and blogs – provinces of Capitals Nation that seem to have an edge in the best of times, and can be positively abusive in the worst of them – fairly teem with negative sentiment toward this player (Jeff Schultz) or that prospect (Anton Gustafsson), with invective hurled at management (why did McPhee sign –insert player name here-) or ownership.

And then we realize, it’s probably because those who post entries on message boards or who author blogs are younger than most sports fans. They haven’t hit their “happy age” yet.

They don’t remember the Caps going 8-134-5 in their first season (ok, it was 8-67-5… it just seemed worse, but we were young then). They don't remember the four-overtime games that the Caps lost in the playoffs (one to their nemesis of old, the Islanders, and one to their nemesis of the present, the Penguins). They don’t remember the more than five thousand – or was it five hundred – man games lost to injury in the 1998-1999 season that included no post-season. They have quickly forgotten (attention span apparently a product of age as well) the valley of suck that was the 2003-2004 to 2006-2007 era.

On the other hand, fans of a certain age and experience, like… well, yours truly… have seen it all, have seen their hopes and dreams shattered into a thousand shards like an Alex Ovechkin stick as he’s firing at an open net. We’ve seen our expectations driven back into our skulls like a railroad spike. We’ve been tortured by the scene – replayed endlessly – of Sidney Crosby kissing the Stanley Cup while Mike Green takes abuse on message boards and in blogs for his “less than expectations” playoff performance. With age has come acceptance, tolerance of the foibles of young men on thin blades of steel who, but for a bounce here or a deflection there, can hoist the Cup in victory or hoist a beer in anguish of defeat.

Caps Nation – or a substantial chunk of it – is the very embodiment of Weiner’s observation that “we’d rather stew in our misery than trim our expectations. Lowering our sights smacks us as a cop out, un-American. Better a nation of morose overachievers, we reason, than a land of happy slackers.”

Maybe we should be more like those Danes, who (as Weiner reports it) see happiness in low expectations met easily. Instead of ratcheting up our expectations from year to year (playoffs last year, a playoff round win this year, a Stanley Cup next year), we should enjoy what we achieve without thought of what we “expect” down the road. We can lower our expectations and be happy when they are met. In fact, I’ll do that right now…

The Caps will finish 2009-2010 with a better record than 8-67-5.

Ahh… I’m happy already.

"Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth."

-- President John F, Kennedy, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, May 25, 1961

"That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."

-- Neil Armstrong, Mission Commander, Apollo 11, 10:56 pm (EDT), July 20, 1969

Happy 40th anniversary.