[04-Feb-2016] Settin' 'em up... Redux

Since my last post on the subject of the Caps' record against other teams, we have faced:

• Vancouver - won
• Buffalo - lost 
• New York Rangers - won
• Columbus - won
• Philadelphia - lost
• Florida - lost

And our games vs. the hated Penguins and the Anaheim Ducks were both postponed due to the arrival of TJ Snowshie.

So: here's how we stand.

• The series against Vancouver is over; the final was a 1-1 tie in the win-loss column.
• The series against Buffalo is over; the final was 3 games to 1 in favor of the Caps.
• We are up 3 games to 1 over the Rangers, with 1 game left to play.
• We are up 2 games to 1 over the Blue Jackets, with 1 game left to play.
• The series with Philadelphia is tied 1-1, with 2 games left to play.
• And we lost the series against Florida, 2 games to 1. 

That is one team in the National Hockey League that we have faced this season and lost more games to than we have won. ONE TEAM. 

As reported previously, there are two teams that we are not done with, that have beaten us in our only meeting so far:

• Dallas
• San Jose

And there are five teams we have yet to face:

• Anaheim
• Arizona
• Los Angeles
• Minnesota
• St. Louis

The Caps are legit this year, full stop. IF we have to deal with Florida in the postseason, it will be in the conference finals. 

As of today, the Caps have six games in hand on our next-closest competitor for the Presidents' Trophy, and remain two points ahead of the Chicago Blackhawks. 

SIX GAMES IN HAND and we're still ahead of them in points. 

This team is off to its best start in franchise history. HoltBEAST, Kuzy, and Backstrom went to the ASG while Ovi went to the beach with his fiancee and rested his lower body injury. He sat out last game against the Panthers, which may have contributed to that loss. The Caps had eight power play opportunities, and didn't score on one of them. That doesn't happen, with Ovi in the Ovi Spot.

We'll see what happens tonight when we face the Islanders.

Let's go Caps!

[30-Jan-2016] Wow, Dennis.... Just wow...

So apparently Dennis Wideman can't tell the difference between a zebra and a Predator... Or so he claims. From the replay, it looks like nothing short of a petulent player retaliating against the first thing in stripes he sees after being on the receiving end of a hard check that may or may not have been strictly legal, but that was not called for a penalty. 

The hit Wideman took was hip to hip along the boards, but it spun him around face first into the glass. Good hit, bad reaction. If Wideman had a concussion, why did he finish the game? Doesn't the NHL have a concussion protocol in place for things like this? 

Meanwhile, Captain Chaos (AKA Ovi) is sitting out the All Star game to nurse a pesky lower body injury; he's been replaced in the lineup by Evgeny Kuznetsof - deserving lad that he is. I'm glad Ovi has the sense to pull himself out of the game.

After the break, the real push to the postseason starts.

[07-Feb-2016] #Update: Dennis Wideman has been suspended for 20 games by the NHL. The NHLPA has appealed the suspension.

[28-Jan-2016] D'oh!

The only constructive thing I can think of to say about last night's 4-3 OT loss to the Flyers is this: the Caps did battle back to a tie game twice, and all reports (we left at the end of the 1st frame, owing to the presence of too many Flyers' fans and a history of bad experiences when there are too many orange-clad faithful in one place and the Flyers are winning the game) indicate that the Caps dominated the Flyers through the first part of the third frame. In fact, the penalty disparity (5-2 advantage Flyers) and the alternative version of Kuznetsof (Kuzya Klutzy!) had a lot to do with the loss, as two of the Flyers' goals were direct results of Kuzya's mistakes.

Let us hope that the young Russian's trip to the All-Star game in place of Captain Chaos Ovechkin, who is nursing a lower-body injury, will be a good thing for him, and allow him to readjust the screws in his head so that he doesn't thread a perfect pass to the other team, or knock our goalie's stick out of his hand in overtime again. :) 

In all seriousness... I'm not bothered by this loss. It's one game, amid a ton of other games, and the Caps retain their commanding lead of the NHL (74 points to 70 for #2 Chicago), and their games in hand (6) also do not change. 

This one was a rare stinker of a first frame; next game will be better, and we should have all the pieces-parts back together again by then (with the exception of our broken Jay Beagle, who is still nursing a hand/wrist injury that required surgical repair, and is not expected to return for a few more weeks.) Ovi can rest and get healthy; Carlson, who actually did play and contribute last night, can continue healing; and hopefully we'll get Brooks Orpik back, too. 

That'll be good.

[27-Jan-2016] Tracking the puck... just where did that little devil get off to now?!

It's an interesting conundrum. How does one track a puck, keeping the cost of the puck itself low enough that the puck can still be lost in the stands, given away, or autographed and sold without breaking the bank?

Assuming the lines on the ice are fixed and stationery, I wonder if it would be possible to integrate something into the ice at the goal line and in other critical areas that would be able to, under certain lighting conditions (such as black light) highlight the location of the puck. I'm not explaining this very well... 

Let's start with the basic black puck. It's 3" wide, 1" thick, and weighs 5.5-6 ounces. What if the puck had a fluorescent edge that could be lighted up from the PoV of the camera in the arena? Or heck, what if the whole thing could be made to fluoresce, like those 1970s blacklight paintings? And what if the lines had some fluorescence about them, so that they could also light up? You'd need a camera capable of picking up the spectrum the fluorescent edge and lines lived in... but wouldn't that make it a bit easier to track where the puck went, assuming it's not obscured? 

I mean, suddenly you have this obnoxious, bright green puck running around, and there's this obnoxious bright blue/bright pink line. It'd be really easy to see if the puck crossed the line, under the right lighting (which could be turned on/off in the replay). 

I'm not making a lot of sense, but it's a start... Fluorescent pucks, and post-processing that turns on a blacklight... of course, how to keep the white painted rink from bouncing into obnoxious as well could be tricky... It's a thought.

*****************************************************************************************

Meanwhile, tonight, the Caps face off against the Philadelphia Flyers at 8:00 PM, and I shall be there, in my TJ Oshie shirsey. Say that five times fast! Oshie Shersey! Oshie Shersey! Oshie Shersey! Oshie Shersey! Oshie Shersey! 

#^&*@#!^)@

Let's go, Caps! Let's head into the All Star break with another W in the books. 

Michal Neuvirth once referred to Braden Holtby as his "weakest competition yet," or something of that ilk. I can only say that, like all other Caps fans, I hope this means that the HoltBEAST shellacs the Flyers tonight.

[26-Jan-2016] Just how good are those Caps this year...?

I'm looking at the standings, as I always do first thing(ish) in the morning. This morning, the Caps are sitting at #1 in the NHL, having played the fewest games in the NHL (46, along with Anaheim, Philadelphia, and Toronto). They have 73 standings points, 3 points ahead of #2 Chicago - and they have those points with SIX GAMES IN HAND! 

SIX!!! 

They are six points ahead of #3 Dallas, with four games in hand.

Lowly Columbus is sitting dead last with 41 points to the Caps' 73, and that's insane in and of itself. We need only 8 standings points to double up the last place team in the League.

In today's salary cap world, this is nothing short of masterful.

Patrick Kane (Chicago) has two more goals than Alex Ovechkin and Jamie Benn (Dallas). But he's played in two more games than Benn has, and six more games than Ovi! 

And Braden Holtby has 30 wins, most in the NHL, two more than #2 Corey Crawford (Chicago), who has 28. 

Did I mention we have SIX GAMES IN HAND?!

This team is crazy good! I'm psyched! 

[18-Jan-2016] Back to back, they faced each other...

But when the Sabres drew their swords, the Caps looked a lot like they were in a Keystone Kaps video instead of trying to play hockey. To make a long story short, the Caps finished their season series against the lowly Buffalo Sabres with a head-to-head record of 2-1. The final score in Thursday's embarrassing loss was Buffalo 4, Washington 1. 

In other words, the Caps laid an egg and it was rotten.

C'est la vie.

The following night - that would be last night, 17-Jan-2016 - the Caps went up to Madison Square Garden to face off with their least-favorite annual playoff pals, the New York Rangers.

Enter Justin Williams.

A hat trick for Williams (bringing his goal total to 16 on the season), and goals for Alex Ovechkin (his 27th) and Marcus Johansson (his 12th) added up to more than enough to put the Rangers in their place with a 5-2 victory. The Rangers' only two goals came from the stick of Chris Kreider. 

Sometimes, a team just has to lose a game every now and then to get back on track. It's unfortunate that the loss to the Sabres stole Braden Holtby's shot at the team record for the most games in a row without a regulation loss (currently held by Jose Theodore), and it is equally unfortunate that the HoltBEAST went down the tunnel during the second period of the Rangers game, and did not return to the game due to suffering from dehydration. Backup netminder Philip Grubauer finished out the game, stopping all eleven shots he faced. 

That said, because Grubi was perfect, Holtby is the goaltender of record, taking his record to 29-5-2 on the season, according to NHL.com. In his last three games, Grubi has allowed only two goals on 57 shots. The future is bright!


Get well soon, HoltBEAST! Here's to your next big streak!

Meanwhile... Alex Ovechkin is now tied with Joe Mullen at 502 career goals, and he did it in 277 fewer games. Here's to the next 502 goals for the Great 8!

#OviWatch

33 - Brian Trottier - 524 in 1279 games
34 - Pat Verbeek - 522 in in 1424 games
35 - Dale Hawerchuk - 518 in 1188 games
36 - Pierre Turgeon - 515 in 1294 games
37 - Jeremy Roenick - 513 in 1363 games
38 - Gilbert Perreault - 512 in 1191 games
39 - Jean Beliveau - 507 in 1125 games
40 - Peter Bondra - 503 in 1081 games
41 - Alex Ovechkin - 502 in 804 games
42 - Joe Mullen - 502 in 1062 games
43 - Lanny McDonald - 500 in 1111 games
44 - Glenn Anderson - 498 in 1129 games

[16-Jan-2016] HoltBEAST and the Franchise Record for Longest Points Streak...

The current mark, held by Jose Theodore, who has not currently been signed by a team since the 2012-13 season (which he spent with the Florida Panthers), is 20-0-3. Tonight, Braden Holtby stands a chance to beat that mark.
According to NHL.com, if the Caps get one point out of the game by going to Overtime or the Shootout (AKA Skills Competition) and then lose, the HoltBEAST will tie the record. If the Caps win the game, his record will be 21-0-2, and the record will be his and his alone. 

But no pressure, HoltBEAST. No pres--wait, you like pressure, don't you!

Go out and get that record!  

Holtby's chase of history buoys Capitals to NHL lead