On Superbowl Sunday, the Caps and Bruins play an afternoon game in DC just 12 days after their last meeting. Today's loss could very well impact the future of the Caps organization. I'll get into that more here in a bit, but first, some video highlights...
Your Ovechkin highlight and Save highlight all in one video...
A Fan's view of Hendrick's fight today...
Now, onto the Recap:
-Biggest story coming out of today's game has to be the injury to Brooks Laich. Laich took a knee to knee hit into the boards and did not return. He attempted to skate during a TV timeout but could not return. After the game, he was seen leaving the locker room on crutches and with a brace on. If this is any sort of ligament tear, he could be out months. Leaving the Caps with Marcus Johansson as their top center on the depth chart. A Johansson that went 5 of 16 in the faceoff dot today. Folks, if Laich is out for an extended period of time, we could be in trouble and watch for the Caps to become very active in the trade department.
-Speaking of trades, with the trade deadline approaching, I give the Caps next week worth's of games to determine whether or not they are buyers or sellers. Add in a potential long-term injury to Brooks Laich and the Caps could be wheeling and dealing. Looking down at the starting lineup tonight, I can only count a handful or two of players that should be considered safe. If it was me, Ovechkin, Hendricks, Laich, Brouwer, Perreault, Chimera, Knuble, Vokoun, Alzner, Carlson, Orlov and Wideman are the only safe players. Add Backstrom and Green to that list as well. That leaves Marcus Johansson, Alexander Semin, Keith Aucoin, Joel Ward, Jeff Halpern, Michael Neuvirth, Roman Hamrlik and Jeff Schultz as trade bait. The Capitals desperately need a top 6 Center and a top 4 Defensemen. Can that group of bait bring in a Jeff Carter? I'd be confortable bringing in Holtby up as well if we needed to use Neuvy as bait. Regardless of whether it is during the season or this coming off-season, the Capitals organization is going to get a massive make-over (don't we say that each off-season?). I'm just not sure which direction this Hunter-led team wants to go. Anything but the way it is now will be better.
-Now that I'm off my soapbox, today, the Caps outshot the Bruins 36-30. Just the FIFTH time the Caps have reached the 30 shot plateau under Dale Hunter. Holy Cow! Can we bring back Boudreau? haha. At least when he led the team, the games were fun to watch. Now, unless the Caps get near perfect play from their goaltender, it is quite painful to watch.
-Getting back to the topic of discussion on Center. The Caps lost the faceoff dot today 43-24 to the Bruins. Our top line Center, Johansson, went 5 for 16. He's looking more and more like a bottom 6 center in my eyes. If I'm an opponent and I see #90 come to the dot, I would be feeling pretty good about our chances. With Backstrom out, and now potentially Laich, the Caps are left with Johansson, Halpern, Aucoin, and Perreault as Centers. Yikes. Those names do not strike fear in many.
-Jeff Schultz has now played 3 straight games. Today reaching about 15 mins of ice time. Hopefully he sixth defensemen minutes, will make him more attractable on the trade-market than a scratched defensemen.
-Much has been said about Mike Knuble being in a slump. Well, when you only give him 8:31 of ice time, you're not going to get much. Joel Ward even got more ice than Knuble (9:51). Ward did have an assist tonight. Hopefully we can shed him in a trade here soon. We are wasting too much salary cap space on him getting 4th line minutes. Remember when the top line consisted of Ovechkin-Backstrom-Knuble? I bet if we stuck to that, Knuble would have kept producing all along instead of a steady decline into 4th line minutes. A product of Boudreau's and Hunter's endless line jumbling. Lack of chemistry.
-Ovechkin finally played an Ovechkin-of-old like game. 7 Shots on goal with 2 misses and 7 hits. He was a force on the ice. He did miss an open net in the 1st period that could have changed the game. There's definitely a correlation between his play and the Caps finally reach the 30 shot mark.
-That's all I have for today's game. Enough of my doom and gloom. We will all be waiting on the news about Laich in the coming days. With the Panthers on Tuesday and the Jets on Thursday, the Caps face MUST win games this week with a plethora of holes on the roster. We shall see what GMGM does. As always, go CAPS!
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Caps 3 - Habs 0
Quick Recap from yesterday's game with the Canadiens with it being on the front end of the back to back...
-Awesome fluke goal by Wideman...
-Awesome Semin Penalty Shot Goal...
-Quality shutout for Vokoun. Number 3 for the Season. Came up huge repeatedly. Caps will need to rely on Vokoun from here on out for them to have a chance at the postseason this season...how many times have I said that this year?
-Ovechkin returns from suspension and...does nothing in his return. Very disappointing return for the captain of this team. Caps are going to need Ovechkin to kick it into another gear in the second half. The Caps offense, or lack of, revolves around the playmaker. When he doesn't get pucks on the net, the Caps are more likely to not get any secondary scoring. This was the exception.
-Caps 23, Habs 30 in shots...Need I say more? And versus a bottom feeder team in the East.
-Caps recall Aucoin from Hershey to shore up their concerns at center. And stick him on the 4th line at wing. The management of this team continues to boggle my mind.
-That's it from me on this game. Review for the Caps - Bruins game next. Go CAPS!
-Awesome fluke goal by Wideman...
-Awesome Semin Penalty Shot Goal...
-Quality shutout for Vokoun. Number 3 for the Season. Came up huge repeatedly. Caps will need to rely on Vokoun from here on out for them to have a chance at the postseason this season...how many times have I said that this year?
-Ovechkin returns from suspension and...does nothing in his return. Very disappointing return for the captain of this team. Caps are going to need Ovechkin to kick it into another gear in the second half. The Caps offense, or lack of, revolves around the playmaker. When he doesn't get pucks on the net, the Caps are more likely to not get any secondary scoring. This was the exception.
-Caps 23, Habs 30 in shots...Need I say more? And versus a bottom feeder team in the East.
-Caps recall Aucoin from Hershey to shore up their concerns at center. And stick him on the 4th line at wing. The management of this team continues to boggle my mind.
-That's it from me on this game. Review for the Caps - Bruins game next. Go CAPS!
Great Beer League Goalie post
A great post in from a female goalie blogger about deciding to become a beer league goalie...
http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/2012/02/05/tea-with-ms-conduct-my-life-as-a-newbie-middle-aged-tendy
http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/2012/02/05/tea-with-ms-conduct-my-life-as-a-newbie-middle-aged-tendy
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Caps 2 - Panthers 4
The Capitals are in trouble. BIG trouble...
But before I get to why the Caps are in trouble, here's tonight's save of the game...
Tonight's Recap:
-At least they got more than 20 shots tonight right?
-If one was to ask me which team looked more like a playoff caliber team tonight, I'd have to go with the Panthers. The Caps looked to be in a funk. The Panthers had a pretty good forecheck all night. They kept the Caps power play at bay (not saying much). Look at the time out the Caps called with 45 seconds remaining, one team was talkative and looked to be in sync with another. The Caps couldn't get the proper personnel on the ice forcing a timeout. Then when the video zoomed in on the bench, no emotion, no NOTHING. That's bad.
-I knew we were in trouble tonight when I saw who was slated to start the game. No knock against Neuvy but WHY oh WHY not start the hot hand in net? Neuvy will get his but seriously, the only way the Caps have been standing a chance lately is by the play of Vokoun. Throw in the fact that he'd be playing against his old team with his family in town, what more motivation could a guy ask for? I mean WOW! Starting to question the brains of this team. Even as a local adult league goalie, I can play back to back nights, throw in some extra motivation, and I could play damn well in that second game. Goalies love to compete! I'm left scratching my head on this one.
-I've said earlier in my posts that if the Caps rode Vokoun, they'd make the playoffs. Well, if they continue to throw Neuvy in there when Vokoun is on his A-game, we're going to have some problems. Right now, we're a horrid offensive team (wow, did I really just say that about a team with Ovechkin on it?). We're "in transition" to a new scheme under a new coach. We've got to ride the hot goalie for all he is worth to make it into the playoffs. So we shall see.
-As I said earlier, the Caps shot the puck more than 20 times tonight. That's a victory almost it seems for this squad. Being outshot 38-28 still does not make us a defensive team. I don't know what it makes us.
-Because I did not get to post about it earlier, Rechlicz got recalled and was claimed to be the toughness the Capitals needed by Coach Hunter. He skated for less than 3 minutes tonight. Joel Ward got less than 7 minutes of ice time tonight. One of these two is costing us quite the penny...
-Speaking of Rechlicz, if this is the direction Coach Hunter thinks this team needs to go in then we may be in for a long second half ahead of us. We've got to be able to hold an opponent to less than 30 shots and be able to get at least 30 shots on net of our own. With less than 3 minutes of ice time tonight, I don't seem him doing this. Add in Ovechkin's usual of late of 3 shots on net, and tonight we would have still only had 31 shots on net. Something needs to change or spark a fire underneath this team's butt.
-Needless to say, this game left me quite frustrated. Feb 27th and the trade deadline is fastly approaching us. Are we sellers or buyers? Right now, if we can't string some wins together, we may need to be sellers. But whose even worth selling after tonight? If tonight was the showcase for Jeff Schultz, who did he impress with 9:48 of ice time? Who did Semin impress with his invisible play tonight?
-Ovie comes back next game and there will be hope as usual. So GO CAPS!
But before I get to why the Caps are in trouble, here's tonight's save of the game...
Tonight's Recap:
-At least they got more than 20 shots tonight right?
-If one was to ask me which team looked more like a playoff caliber team tonight, I'd have to go with the Panthers. The Caps looked to be in a funk. The Panthers had a pretty good forecheck all night. They kept the Caps power play at bay (not saying much). Look at the time out the Caps called with 45 seconds remaining, one team was talkative and looked to be in sync with another. The Caps couldn't get the proper personnel on the ice forcing a timeout. Then when the video zoomed in on the bench, no emotion, no NOTHING. That's bad.
-I knew we were in trouble tonight when I saw who was slated to start the game. No knock against Neuvy but WHY oh WHY not start the hot hand in net? Neuvy will get his but seriously, the only way the Caps have been standing a chance lately is by the play of Vokoun. Throw in the fact that he'd be playing against his old team with his family in town, what more motivation could a guy ask for? I mean WOW! Starting to question the brains of this team. Even as a local adult league goalie, I can play back to back nights, throw in some extra motivation, and I could play damn well in that second game. Goalies love to compete! I'm left scratching my head on this one.
-I've said earlier in my posts that if the Caps rode Vokoun, they'd make the playoffs. Well, if they continue to throw Neuvy in there when Vokoun is on his A-game, we're going to have some problems. Right now, we're a horrid offensive team (wow, did I really just say that about a team with Ovechkin on it?). We're "in transition" to a new scheme under a new coach. We've got to ride the hot goalie for all he is worth to make it into the playoffs. So we shall see.
-As I said earlier, the Caps shot the puck more than 20 times tonight. That's a victory almost it seems for this squad. Being outshot 38-28 still does not make us a defensive team. I don't know what it makes us.
-Because I did not get to post about it earlier, Rechlicz got recalled and was claimed to be the toughness the Capitals needed by Coach Hunter. He skated for less than 3 minutes tonight. Joel Ward got less than 7 minutes of ice time tonight. One of these two is costing us quite the penny...
-Speaking of Rechlicz, if this is the direction Coach Hunter thinks this team needs to go in then we may be in for a long second half ahead of us. We've got to be able to hold an opponent to less than 30 shots and be able to get at least 30 shots on net of our own. With less than 3 minutes of ice time tonight, I don't seem him doing this. Add in Ovechkin's usual of late of 3 shots on net, and tonight we would have still only had 31 shots on net. Something needs to change or spark a fire underneath this team's butt.
-Needless to say, this game left me quite frustrated. Feb 27th and the trade deadline is fastly approaching us. Are we sellers or buyers? Right now, if we can't string some wins together, we may need to be sellers. But whose even worth selling after tonight? If tonight was the showcase for Jeff Schultz, who did he impress with 9:48 of ice time? Who did Semin impress with his invisible play tonight?
-Ovie comes back next game and there will be hope as usual. So GO CAPS!
Caps 3 - Bolts 4 (OT)
Since I had to work real late last night and the Caps were playing back to back games...I leave you with one highlight from the game...
At least they had more than 20 shots right?
At least they had more than 20 shots right?
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